Cogito issue 2 2017

Gogit-

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Cogtio Semester 2 2017 Macquarie University Platonic Society https://mqplatonicsociety.wordpress.com cogito.i.think.magazine@gmail.com Head Editor: Christopher Whyte Editorial Committee: Matthew Su, Marianne McAllister, Liam Johnson, Jeremy Amin.

Reviewers: Matthew Su, Liam Johnson, Jordan Heckendorf, Alexander McDonald, Elia Dokos, Robert Lawson and Thomas Keywood.

Layout:

Contents: Metaphysics, Mind and Epistemology 4 - 7 Personhood Through Time - Nicholas Webb- Wagg

8 - 13 Mental and Formal Causes - Matthew Su 14 - 18 The Case for Predictive Processing - Chris-

topher Whyte 19 - 21 Foundationalism, the Regress and Infinitism -

Katrina Woodforde 22 - 26 Beauty Shall Save the Art World: Why Real

ising Beauty is the Essential End of

Art - Matthew Su

Politics, Ethics and Religion

Christopher Whyte.

28 - 32 The Project of Public Enlightenment - Alex-

ander McDonald

Cover Artwork:

33 - 35 Locke on Religious Toleration - Mia Carey

Mattew Su.

36 - 40 The Plight of Reason: Kierkegaard and the Whirlwind of Faith - Liam Johnson

Photographs: Christopher Whyte.

Contributors: Nicholas Webb-Wagg, Mattew Su, Christopher Whyte, Katrina Woodforde, Alexander McDonald, Mia Carey, Liam Johnson, Jeremy Amin and Nikita Podlasov.

Platonic Society Executives: President - Christopher Whyte Vice President - William Sforcina Treasurer - Liam Johnson Inclusion Officer - Marianne McAllister

41 - 43 Kant’s Enlightenment and the ‘Alternate Facts’ World - Jeremy Amin 44 - 47 The Phantom Centrality of Work in the Inf- ormation Revolution; a Hegelian Perspective - Nikita Podlasov 48 - 51 Isolated Worlds: Subjectivity in Consumer Culture is a Threat to Realising Freedom Nicholas Webb-Wagg 52 - 55 On Two Notion Of Conspiracy - Robert

Lawson 55 - 58 Academic Piracy & Open-Access Intiatives:

Perspectives from the Enlightenment - Alex

ander McDonald

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From the Editors Within the ensuing pages there is a great diversity in opinion, from naturalistic conceptions of the mind, to theistic forays and ethical exploration. It is a testament to the health of undergraduate philosophy at Macquarie that despite these vast differences in philosophical background we are able to not only talk to one another but expand one another’s world views.

Metaphysics, Mind & Epistemology

episodic time-slice connected to others by Relation R (Parfit, 1984).

Personhood Through Time Nicholas Webb-Wagg: BA Philosophy MQ 1. Introduction In analysing the question, ‘what is personal identity?’ it has become increasingly clear that the answer will depend greatly upon one’s purpose in asking. Ontological models wrestle with practical concerns, revealing a plurality of ambiguous concepts self, person, character, agent, identity, human-being each possibly representing a distinctive piece of an entity we feel deeply connected to; that which utters the phrase Here I am.

Derek Parfit considers identity a kind of sameness, and his solution to the problem of identity is a heavily reductionist approach that trims away superfluous person-concepts, and ultimately deflates the significance of identity itself. For Parfit, once we realise that those self-properties we seem to actually care about can obtain independently of identity, we should accept that the self is an empty concept, and embrace the self-less facts that remain. However, there is good reason to think that Parfit’s reductionist account of personal identity eliminates some of what we are most concerned about in our lived interpersonal experiences.

In this essay, I will explain how the theory of Narrative self-constitution rejects Parfit’s reductionism by advocating a conception of identity that requires not just sameness, but selfhood. It considers the practical first-personal engagement of persons with their worlds and themselves through time. While the Narrative view itself can be problematic, the emergence of what we can call the Anthropological view accounts for many of these concerns, and offers a more robust explanation to answer the initial question: What is personal identity?

Ultimately, I will argue that the amended Anthropological view exposes a worrying flaw in Parfit’s impoverished account of personhood. On the one hand, it questions whether Parfit’s timeslice (episodic) entities can truly be appropriate subjects of moral responsibility. But more importantly, it implies that without a unified sense of personal identity across time, truly episodic individuals lack a necessary precondition for moral agency. Parfit may believe that his theory captures

something of the serenity and selflessness of Buddhism, existing solely within and for the moment.

Yet a description of his self-less episodic entities will more closely resemble the definition of psychopathy than of Buddhism.

2. Parfit’s Reductionist Account When addressing the question of personal identity, Parfit takes it to be a matter of re-identification or sameness. That is to say, he believes our concern in the question relates to whether or not two entities are numerically the same entity through time. An entity that persists in this way can be called diachronic. An entity that does not persist through time, and is an ontologically distinct unit from what precedes and follows it, is a synchronic or episodic entity, sometimes called a time-slice or person-stage. Parfit believes that our notions of personal identity and the self presumes that it has a diachronic existence, but ultimately he wishes to prove that this is not the case (Parfit, 1984).

Parfit uses a series of thought experiments designed to undermine our standard conceptions of what makes us unique, enduring selves. In the branching cases, we are confronted with replicas and split brains that at least theoretically show that psychological connectedness or continuity can persist where the uniqueness necessary for personal identity is lost. It seems that we die, as a distinct self, but something of us survives. He argues that uniqueness itself does not seem to be what matters to us, therefore we should give up the notion of personal identity and embrace what actually remains: the psychological connectedness / continuity that he calls Relation R. There is no enduring self, but a sequence of person-stages, each inheriting a set of psychological states from their predecessor and projecting them onwards to the next stage, like passing a baton in a relay. For Parfit, two entities are the same person if there is the right sort of psychological continuity between them, caused in the right ways, with no branching1.

Each of these facts is describable in an impersonal (third-person synchronic) way: they are not my states of consciousness, but that of a particular episodic time-slice connected to others by Relation

1 - Note that the entity Parfit describes here is a diachronic entity, but not a diachronic person. For the sake of clarity, I will continue to refer to Parfit’s individuals as episodic, not diachronic.

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5 episodic time-slice connected to others by Relation with our active agency, reinterpreting and unifying R (Parfit, 1984). these events through a narrative lens (Teichert, 2004).

2.1 The Theory of Narritive Self Constitution

Schechtman’s theory of Narrative self is also heavily temporal. One of her more basic Both Paul Ricoeur2 and Marya Schechtman rearguments against an episodic self in favour of a interpret the question of personal identity as a continuous first-personal agent is the phenomenon question of characterisation rather than re-identiof anticipation. We anticipate future experiences fication (Schechtman, 1996). This variation of the because they will be our own experiences. We question is less interested in the ontological status might imagine the experiences of others, but no of an object, and instead inquires into the phedepth of sympathy should make us expect to live nomenological experience of being a self. Ricoeur out their experiences ourselves. We actively have believes this has to do with the different ways we our own experiences, an entity cannot have exunderstand temporality, a disjunction he believes periences passively. Furthermore, she argues that is irresolvable (Teichert, 2004). On the one hand, isolated unit-experiences cannot have any real we imagine time as an objective, cosmological, meaning. It is only by framing experiences within external force. Yet simultaneously we have the in- a larger story structure that they can become sigdispensable subjective experience of time, unique nificant by virtue of their role in relation to other to each individual and incapable of grounding an events (Schechtman, 1996). objective theory.

Andrew Lane objects to the Narrative view

With phenomenological time in mind, the by suggesting that it is plausible that many people question of personal identity transforms from a actually do view their identity as episodic, rather synchronic ‘What,’ as in ‘What is this entity?’ to a than diachronic. He argues that episodic people diachronic ‘Who,’ as in ‘Who did this?’ This ‘who’ would have no tendency to view their lives in naris essentially temporal, presupposing actions, and rative terms (Lane, 2012). Lane’s criticism is based therefore an agent. It expects an explanation linkon a misconception of what a Narrative theorist ing relevant events in time together into a coherent means when they say we view our lives Narrastructure. Ricoeur argues that what binds actions tively. They do not mean we act like novelists or and events together to one agent is the Narrative autobiographers expressly articulating the story of organising principle. That is, personal identity is a particular character over time. There is no single the story that explains the relationship between story3. Rather, to say that we view our lives Naran agent and their actions and experiences over ratively is to say that we humans make sense of time. This story will likely change as time goes our experiences by employing a particular organon, as the significance of new events changes the ising principle. This organising principle identifies meaning of older ones. Individuals can understand significant events, patterns, characters and values themselves by telling stories about their lives, in light of how we see ourselves in the world, and explaining their actions in retrospect, and also pro- attempts to map out causal sequences as explanajecting forward to their projects and goals, organis- tions for the states of and relationships between ing their actions and shaping their identity in turn. these factors (Lane, 2012). This principle is called Ricoeur recognises and endorses this circularity: narrative not because the principle conforms to Just as our narratives give rise to our identity and narrative rules, but because our use of narratives is informs our actions, our actions inform our narraan obvious expression of our daily exploitation of tive identity in turn. this organising principle in making sense of things.

For example, promises seem to presuppose personal identity over time. When a person makes 2.2 The Anthropological View a promise, they choose to identify with their future selves. Later, if they keep their promise, they What I call the Anthropological view has develhave chosen to identify with their past selves, and oped out of Schechtman’s (1996) early inclusion consider themselves one continuous being. Even of the reality constraint, as well as an increased choosing to break a promise presupposes that the emphasis on the role of others in the continued promise was their own. In this way, we continue to development and validation of Narrative identianchor ourselves over time through identifying ties. Where the standard Narrative view focuses

2 - I am using a secondary source by Dieter Teichert that collects the themes spread throughout Ricoeurís works.

3 - Specific Narrative theories may differ in this regard, and some may actually endorse something like the view that critics, like Lane, have in mind. For instance, at times Schechtmanís argument might sound close to this assertion. Ricoeur certainly does not think that the Narrative view requires that a person

6 predominantly on the first-person, the Anthropological view emphasises a constant dialogue between first, second, and third-person storytelling (Shoemaker, 2016). Second-person Narratives are our direct interactions with other people, whereas third-person Narratives are provided by the general intersubjective social context we exist within. Both offer ways in which they (rather than we) describe and unify our lives, in a continuous dialogue with our own first-personal Narrative. This is a particular advantage of the Anthropological view over its predecessor and theories of physical or psychological continuity, because it can offer an explanation for how and why we consider a person the same as themselves in infancy or extreme old age, through the way others in our lives (such as our parents) apply a unifying identity to our events before we can even process them ourselves.

not the agent (P. Strawson, 1974). But in the case of Parfit’s (2008) time-slices, who can be said to have made the choice? If the present time-slice is acting upon a psychological state they inherited from their predecessors, should they be considered coerced, and therefore excused?

Peter Strawson (1974) also argues that we have certain exempting conditions, in which a person is not seen as a qualified moral agent. The first of these exemptions is for temporarily uncharacteristic behaviour. But how do we respond to a person with no self, only an extended sequence of R-Related psychological states, in which each person-stage is by definition temporary? Parfit (2008) argues that each person-stage need have no loyalty to its predecessors or their values, so how can we go about blaming them for abandoning another stage’s character? In Peter Strawson’s (1974) account, exempted individuals are not 2.3 Responsibility and Non-Diachronic Selves treated as participants in the moral community, but are viewed through the objective stance as objects Parfit (1984), Lane (2012) and Galen Strawson to be understood and accounted for. Parfit (2008) (2008) all assert that our past and present selves seems to view person-stages in such a way when are in fact distinct ontological entities. We may feel he consistently describes them in only objective responsible for past actions, but in fact we cannot impersonal terms. However, Peter Strawson (1974) be said to have performed those actions at all. The argues that it would not only be impractical, but feeling of responsibility is not evidence of a conimpossible to view all people this way indefinitely. tinued diachronic self, but simply a psychological phenomenon analogous to feeling responsible for 2.4 Agency and Non-Daichronic Selves the acts of members of our family or community.

Parfit (1984) supports this interpretation in his Parfit (2008) would have us treat people always example of the Nobel Peace Prize winner who only through the third-person perspective, but agential believes he is the same person as the young man motivation requires a first-person perspective and who committed a serious crime many years ago. In first-person interests, and attribution of moral refact, Parfit admits that he cannot defend against the sponsibility requires we expect the same of others. claim that, under his theory, we would have no real Neil Levy argues that not just personhood, but reason to be concerned for or care about (that is to moral motivation, requires the capacity to conceive say, identify with) our future selves. oneself as persisting through time (Levy, 2014).

Galen Strawson (2008) argues that moral This is because connecting first-person experiences responsibility just is our instinctive responsiveness (together with plans, hopes, etc) is necessary for to things, i.e. just psychological phenomena that understanding not only one’s own personhood, but have nothing to do with how episodic or narrative recognising it, and its significance, in others. A perthat person is (G. Strawson, 2008). However, even son’s inability to cohere their actions into a unified under Peter Strawson’s (1974) theory of reactive identity in time means that they will have difficulattitudes, Parfit’s (2008) time-slice entities would ty not only in understanding the significance of not be appropriate recipients of praise or blame, events in their pasts, but perhaps difficulty rememand could not be considered participants in the bering at all. Similarly, they may have difficulty moral community. making consistent realistic plans for the future.

One of Peter Strawson’s basic excusing And there would be no impulse in play to indicate conditions, under which we cannot praise or blame to them when they are contradicting themselves or a person for their actions, is that the actions were thwarting their own ends (i.e. no cognitive disnot their choice. We should then resent the action, sonance). Collectively, these are all symptoms of

7 psychopathy. Levy (2014) argues that it is for these reasons (not malice) that psychopaths are prone to harm other people: they do not truly see them (or themselves) as persons at all, and of course do not see how their future interests could matter in the present. Psychopaths would still count as persons under Parfit’s (2008) theory. Conversely, one of his person-stages might not be a clinically diagnosed psychopath, but if they believed they were nothing more than a partial synchronic entity as Parfit describes, they may have difficulty justifying any other way of ordering their life.

3. Conclusion Parfit’s reductionist account of personal identity attempts to identify what we actually believe survives over a diachronic existence, but ultimately leads to a deflated, impoverished conception of the self that I do not believe we can practically adopt.

The Narrative and Anthropological views highlight many of the vital features Parfit would leave the self without. While both the Narrative and Anthropological views will also need defending, I believe they will offer a far more robust, satisfying answer to the initial question: What is personal identity?

By focusing on selfhood and the ‘who’ of the question, they approach what it is to have an identity and be a person at all. Parfit’s episodic individuals are problematic from a moral perspective. It is difficult to see how we can justify making any distinct entity responsible for its predecessors.

While I believe Peter Strawson’s argument could be modified to account for this problem, it is still worrying. Finally, Levy’s investigation into the deficiency of personal identity in psychopaths, and their lack of anything like the kinds of selfhood we find in the Narrative / Anthropological views, shows that Parfit’s person-stages may well lack the sort of basic capacities necessary to act as a moral agent.

References: Lane, Andrew (2012) The Narrative Self-Constitu

tion View: Why Marya Schechtman

Cannot Require it for Personhood. Macal

ester Journal of Philosophy, 20(1), 100-115.

Levy, Neil (2014) ‘Psychopaths and blame: The

argument from content. Philosophical

Psychology, 27(3), 351-367.

Parfit, Derek. (1984). Reasons and Persons. Ox

ford: Claredon Press, Schechtman, Marya. (1996). The Constitution of

Selves. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Shoemaker, David. (2016). Personal Identity and

Ethics. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016

Edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/

identity-ethics/ [Accessed November 2016] Strawson, Galen. (2008). Episodic Ethics. In Galen

Strawson (ed.) Real Materialism and

Other Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press Strawson, Peter (1974) Freedom and Resentment

in Freedom and Resentment and Other

Essays, ed. P.F. Strawson. London:

Methuen, pp. 1-25 Teichert, Dieter. (2004). Narrative, Identity and the

Self. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 11,

175-191.

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Mental and Formal Causes Matthew Su: BA Philosophy and LBB with Honors MQ Abstract: This paper addresses the question of what mental properties might be, how they could be said to be mental properties at all, and how mental properties might affect the material world, without multiplying the basic kinds of beings in our fundamental ontology. We shall look at Fodor’s argument that the multiple-realisability of mental properties entails the irreducibility of the mental to the physical, and Kim’s arguments for why they lead either to substance dualism or the unknowability of mental properties. We shall end by considering the notion of ‘property causation,’ which preserves the ontological dependence of the mental upon the physical, while maintaining irreducibility and the causal efficacy of mental properties.

1. Introduction

physical structure- that the physical structure itself must lack. Fodor’s argument is not that such This paper will consider Jaegwon Kim’s arguproperties are somehow inevitable, but that, given ment against the existence of ‘multiply-realisable’ the current state of science, it seems a bad risk to (MR) properties on the basis of their lack of causal bet materialism on the idea that there are no such efficacy. We will consider the argument that he is properties. responding to- namely, Fodor’s notion of MR en- Examples of MR properties include, tailing irreducibility, and Kim’s argument that the for Fodor, the property of “being money,” or of supervenience of MR properties entails that they “being a mind,” or even of “being alive.” Such are not causally efficacious and are therefore not properties, if they are multiply realisable, are said real. It will be argued that Kim’s argument does not to be per se identical to any physical structure, not succeed, because the way in which properties though Fodor also thinks that nonetheless any in general act as causes allows MR properties to event involving such properties is also a physhave enough causal efficacy to be real, without ical event. That is, while being alive and being requiring that his causal efficacy be embodied in a particular structure composed of cells, chemistrict bridge laws between supervenient and subcals, etc. are not identical (plausibly, there might venient properties. be non-conventional forms of life), life always coincides with and depends upon some underlying 2. Fodors Argument physical structure, which allows Fodor to retain his commitment to materialism. Fodor calls his Fodor’s argument for multiple realisability arises position “token materialism,” as opposed to a type out of issues in the relation between physics, the materialism where every natural kind is also a most general of the empirical sciences, and the physical kind. special sciences. Fodor considers himself a token

Token materialism is compatible with type physicalist, in that he believes that all events that materialism, because if every natural kind were the sciences talk about are physical events. What also a physical kind every individual event would Fodor disputes is reductionism, which he holds also be a physical event. However, token materialto be the idea that every “kind” or “natural law” ism doesn’t entail type materialism, so it is weaker in the special sciences, like chemistry, biology or and compatible with a wider variety of positions. psychology, can be replaced in principle by some Indeed, this is an attractive feature of this view, for statement of physical law. MR properties are those it allows the philosopher to be a materialist withproperties which can arise out of a plurality of out sacrificing the irreducibility of mental processunderlying physical structures and behaviours, es. and these plural underlying physical structures/

The lack of bridge laws between the MR behaviours themselves have nothing physically in property and the underlying physical structure, common with each other. This entails, for Fodor, however, leaves the relationship between the MR that MR properties are not identical to physical property and the underlying physical properties properties, since MR properties have a featureobscure. The relationship of multiply-realisable that they are MR with respect to the underlying properties to physical properties is described as

9 one of supervenience, where A supervenes on B just in case there can be no change in respect of A without a change in respect of B. This becomes important for Jaegwon Kim’s critique of multiply-realisable properties.

Having shown that supervenience is too weak to make supervening properties physical, Kim launches a positive argument against non-reductionist physicalism: To be a non-eliminativist about MR properties is to say that such properties are a “legitimate domain of entities.” In order for this 2.1 Kim’s critique I: Supervenience and Casua- to be so, the mental needs to meet a criterion of retion ality, and for Kim, this is the criterion of reality is Alexander’s dictum: that the entity in question has Kim’s critique of Fodor’s token physicalism a causal effect upon the world. There is a good reaproceeds in two stages. First, he aims to show that son to accept this criterion of reality- at least, when there are good reasons to deny that mental proper- it comes to knowable things- because if something ties, because of their supervenience relations, can has no causal effect, then plausibly it cannot cause be causes. Second, he gives a positive argument beliefs, either, and there can be no reason to accept against Fodor’s sort of non-reductionist physicalsuch properties. This criterion means that if an ism. account of mental properties makes them epiphe Kim first takes aim at the notion of “sunomenal, that account will be reduced to absurdity. pervenience,” which describes the relation be Next, Kim argues that mental properties tween MR properties and the underlying physical could not have a physical effect, because physistructures. Kim targets global supervenience: the calists are committed to the causal closure of the idea that any changes in the physical world are physical. If mental properties could cause physical necessarily reflected in changes in the mental. He effects, then it seems that mental properties could thinks that global supervenience is too weak to be be neither partial nor total causes. They could sensibly described as physicalist- changes in the not be partial causes, as being non-physical, they mental don’t have to track changes in the physical couldn’t be a partial requirement for some physical to be consistent with global supervenience, as long outcome. They also could not be a fully sufficient, as some change somewhere in the mental accomalbeit overdetermined, cause of physical effects. panies physical change. This would seem to be There is a “problem of causal-explanatory exclucompatible with an entirely accidental relationship sion,” where any cause, if it is a full explanation between mental states and physical ones, which is of its effect, appears to exclude other independent hard to swallow for a physicalist who believes that purported causes or causal explanations. This the only causes are physical ones, for causal relaproblem can be avoided if one identifies the mental tions qua causal relations follow lawlike patterns, with the physical cause, giving them causal work whereas the causal relations between supervening to do, but this is a way not open to the anti-reducproperties and underlying physical ones are postionist, who wants to maintain a distinction besibly accidental. Thus, insofar as the relationship tween higher and lower-order properties. Kim conbetween two properties is mere supervenience, no siders the idea of “supervenient causal relations,” causal relation can be said to hold either way- if where a supervenient property causes an effect this is the nature of the connection between menin virtue of supervening upon a physical cause of tal and physical properties, mental causation as that effect. This cannot require mere global superconnected to physical causation becomes inexplivenience, but must have a kind of “strong supercable. Making the relation between supervening venience” that acts as a cause upon the physical, and subvening properties stronger than a merely which entails bridge laws which collapse easily accidental one requires causation relations between into reductionism, in which case such properties do MR and physical properties, and therefore lawlike not exist. correlations between MR properties and underly Thus, given Alexander’s Dictum and the ing physical structure, and therefore bridge laws, causal closure of the physical, the non-reductive which subverts the anti-reductionist project, which physicalist is forced into choices between unatis precisely to deny that there are such bridge laws. tractive options that sacrifice important motivations. The argument runs thus: 2.2 Kim’s Critique II: the Dilemma.

1) A thing exists only if it can act as a

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2)

cause. (Alexander’s Dictum) If a thing is not a physical cause or reducible to a physical cause, it cannot act as a cause. (causal clo sure of the physical)

understanding reality. The causally effete, on the other hand, can make no difference to our scientific predictions about the world, so it is more parsimonious to suppose that they do not exist, or must necessarily be excluded from our best understanding of the world. This is of great benefit in culling

3) Multiply-realisable properties out views which involve some great host of causal are not reducible to physical causes, ly effete entities, like Platonism.

and are not physical causes (see

The problem with this ground for accepting

discussion on supervenience Alexander’s Dictum is that it seems instrumen above). tal, or relative to human purposes, rather than ontological. The causally effete entity might not

4) Multiply realisable properties can be causally active, and thus might not affect our

not act as causes. scientific predictions, but that does not in itself entail that there are no rational grounds for accept c.

Multiply realisable properties do ing that thing’s existence, as in Plato’s arguments not exist. for forms, which argue from rational indispensabil ity for all cognition, rather than the difference it

It seems then that if 3) is granted, the makes to our predictions. The point here is not that non-reductive physicalist is either forced to deny the Platonist has good arguments. Rather, it is simthe causal closure of the physical, on pain of adply that there are reasons other than the difference mitting “spooky” causes into his metaphysics and a theory makes to our predictions, to prefer a more therefore denying physicalism, or he denies Alex- complex theory to a simpler one. If there are such ander’s Dictum, which is a plausible measure of reasons, and indispensability reasons are surely existence. Kim’s claim, then, about non-reductive such reasons, parsimony does not secure Alexanphysicalism is that it is an unstable position. Kim’s der’s Dictum. statement thus has two parts to it:

The second consideration is more powerful, and it is that things which make no causal differ (i) that MR properties are not causally ence in the world can make no causal difference to

efficacious, and our beliefs. There is a plausible line of argument that if our beliefs are not caused by their referent,

(ii) that if they are not causally effica then they cannot be knowledge of that referent. I

cious, they are not real. don’t think this argument requires a commitment either way to the debate between causal and rep First, we will examine the inference from resentational theories of reference, because this is the idea that multiply-realisable properties are not not a matter of reference: one’s beliefs might refer causally efficacious, to the conclusion that they to an existent referent, that is, one’s belief may be do not exist, apart from the question of whether true, and still not be knowledge. The important such properties actually have causal powers or not, thing is that the belief be derived in the epistemand in what sense. The logic of the above arguically proper way (however that is cashed out) ment seems valid, so we will have to address the from the matter of fact, but there is no way a belief additional premises of the argument: Alexander’s can be derived from the matter of fact, even in an Dictum and the causal closure principle. indirect way, if the belief is wholly causally effete.

Thus, plausibly, anything which can be known to 2.3 Alexander’s Dictum- Motivations and Obbe, must be somehow causally effective. jections

There is much more to be said for this consideration, since its conclusion has conseThere are two grounds upon which one might arquences for any property which might be alleged gue for Alexander’s Dictum. The first is parsimony to be merely supervenient but also epiphenomenal or economy of theory. Whatever is causally active (which the property would be, if the causal closure makes a great difference to our scientific theories of the physical is also affirmed). It might be said about the world, which are our best methods for that this doesn’t rule out unknowable, causally

11 effete entities, and so doesn’t strictly prove that Alexander’s Dictum is true, but no one is interested in such things, if any such things exist.

It might also be objected that it is not causal connection, but statistical correlation, which allows a belief to be the product of justifying processes, and therefore knowledge. So a belief doesn’t have to in some sense partake of its referent (if only via mediating causes), it simply has to be produced by a faculty that most of the time produces true belief in respect of its object. So we don’t need a causal relation to our objects of knowledge, and a thing doesn’t have to be capable of causing our beliefs in order to be known to exist. I don’t think this objection succeeds, either, since a statistical correlation that simply happened to be right most of the time would be right entirely by accident. There needs to be a tracking relation with the object of knowledge, and that is lacking in a mere accidental conjunction, which is all that could occur without causation. So it would appear that we have good reason to accept Alexander’s Dictum, at least on a broad construal of “cause” (The nature of “cause” is vague, but the epistemic argument above suggests a construal of “cause” as sufficient to help bring about a belief).

Consider, for instance, the type of causation displayed by properties. It is not the kind of causation talked about above, which involves the interaction of physical entities, for properties are not themselves physical entities. By definition, they are not things in themselves, but things predicated of entities which subsist only through that which has them. Properties cause physical outcomes by grounding the natural kinds within the physical causal agent, which in turn is able to act as a cause in virtue of possessing properties of some kind or other. For example, it is possible for a body of water to act in ways characteristic of liquids because it possesses the property of liquidity, which grounds the distinction between the mereologically novel whole and its physical components. Such “property causation” is properly termed causation because there is something- the causal powers of the physical entity- which is dependent upon the property (where “dependent” means could not exist without the property). Such causation is not reducible to physical causes, either, because any causes at the “ground-level” of physics would still need to be characterised by properties.

One might of course make a nominalist move- i.e., to deny that there are such things as 2.4 The Causal Closure of the Physical and properties at all. This move would come at an “Property Causation” extreme cost. It is impossible to explain the traits of physical objects without reference to them, for The causal closure of the physical is plausible for to deny that a thing has properties in general is the non-reductive physicalist because it seems to to deny that it exists in any particular way. One be a sine qua non of physicalism, without which denies the property of liquidity, for example, at the physicalist could not be a physicalist. I want to the cost of denying that liquids qua liquid exist. argue, however, that there is an important excepPerhaps one thinks one might ultimately be able tion to the closure of the physical, namely, the type to do without liquids in one’s ontology, yet even if of causation exhibited by properties. one wanted to bite the intuitive bullet and deny the

Under Alexander’s dictum, the notion of existence of liquids, it is clear that this would not “cause” which is required of real (or knowable) undermine the dependence relation between the entities is ambiguous. One form of cause involves property of liquidity and the existence of causalthe nomological relations between the occurrence ly-effective liquids. Moreover, whatever particular of different events consisting of physical entities objects one might want to eliminate from one’s interacting and this is the notion of “causation” ontology by denying the property which grounds that comes most easily to mind with the physical it, it seems that denying the role of properties in sciences. Certainly, it is plausible that to be a phys- general simply empties out one’s ontology. For icalist requires that all such causes be physical, or this reason, properties appear to be explanatorireducible to the physical- that is, either themselves ly indispensable for any form of causation at all. being physical, or being connected to the physical Property-causation is also not in competition with via bridge laws, since to assert otherwise is to adphysical causation, but complementary to it- the mit of non-physical beings (i.e., dualism). Yet this function of properties is not to act as physical causdoes not mean that such physical causes are the es, but to make physical causes what they are. The only causes which the physicalist might rely on. motivation for the causal closure of the physical,

12 the exclusion of non-physical entities, is difficult to apply to property causation, since property causes are not non-physical entities in their own right, but metaphysical components of physical entities.

Property-causation is thus indispensably useful for the physicalist and a low-cost move to allow an exception to the causal closure principle for property causation. Premise 2) above, then, is false.

2.5 Are Multiply Realisable Properties Causally Effete?

Though being a physical cause is incompatible with MR properties for the reasons Kim elucidates, that MR properties have no special trouble being “property-causes”. MR properties make a property-causal difference to the systems of which they are a part- where they exist, they make it possible for the entities which possess them to have a commonality of function despite having a plurality of physical structure, and to perform such functions despite having different physical structures. Thus, for instance, a human and an AI might be able to perform calculations, which are multiply-realisable, token-physical functions, precisely because they have the MR property of being a calculator.

In absence of such properties, there is no sense in which it is possible for anything at all to perform calculations. This mode of causation is compatible with the property supervening upon the physical, because property causes are not the kind of cause which needs to be reduced to the physical in order to avoid dualism. Dualism posits a plurality of beings and requires ontological reduction of higher-level beings via bridge laws, whereas a plurality of properties is compatible with a monism of beings. Property-causes also satisfy Alexander’s Dictum, because they have an effect on our beliefs via the phenomena which they enable to which they are explanatorily indispensable.

Supervenience only entails that it is difficult to see how multiply-realisable properties arise.

Their origin may be mysterious, but if it can’t be denied that MR properties do causal work in some sense, then there is no reason to deny their existence. Indeed, mystery of origin is not something that afflicts supervenient properties alone, but is, as Kim acknowledges, also a problem for any species of non-eliminativism, like mereological emergence. The existence of such mystery is compatible with acknowledging the existence of mereologically novel properties, and so such mystery should

be compatible with acknowledging the existence of MR properties as well. Because both mereologically novel properties and MR properties accomplish their effects through “property-causation,” MR has no special disadvantage in virtue of its supervenience. This “property-causation” is all that is needed for MR properties to make a causal difference for the sake of Alexander’s Dictum, and also to benefit from the “exception” to the causal closure of the physical.

3. Conclusion: The Claim is False It turns out, then, that the first part of Kim’s claim is incorrect. Despite supervenience, MR properties are not causally effete, at least by the standard necessary to make Alexander’s Dictum plausible.

If “property causation” is a form of causation, then plausibly the kinds of functional properties which Fodor claims are multiply-realisable are causally efficacious in a way sufficient for our judgements to be reliant on them, satisfying Alexander’s Dictum. If, on the other hand, Alexander’s Dictum is defined more narrowly, so that property causation is not causation, we can dispense with the Dictum because there is a counterexample in property-causal but not physically-causal entities of entities which exist despite not conforming to the Dictum. The second part of Kim’s claim is also incorrect, because the second premise of the argument for the non-existence of MR the fact that MR properties are causally efficacious in this way does not violate the causal closure of the physical. Thus, the MR theorist can believe in the existence of MR properties while remaining a (token) physicalist, and the stability of non-reductive physicalism is preserved.

References: 1. Chris Swoyer and Francesco Orilia, “Proper

ties”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Phi

losophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N.

Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.

edu/archives/fall2014/entries/properties/>.

2. Jaegwon Kim, ‘The Myth of Nonreductive

Materialism,’ Proceedings and Addresses

of the American Philosophical Association,

Vol. 63, No. 3 (Nov., 1989). Pp. 31-47 3. Jerry Fodor, ‘Special sciences (or: the Disunity

of Science as a working hypothesis),’ Syn

these Vol. 28, No. 2 (Oct., 1974), pp. 97-

13

115.

4. Edmund Gettier, ‘Is justified true belief knowl

edge?’ Analysis, Vol. 23, No. 6 (Jun.,

1963).

5. James Cargile, “On “Alexander’s” Dictum,“ To

poi, 12-2003, Volume 22, Issue 2, pp 143-

149 Jerry Fodor, ‘Special sciences (or: the Disunity of Science as a working hypothesis),’ Synthese Vol. 28, No. 2 (Oct., 1974), pp. 97-115, 100.

Ibid. 113 Ibid. 103 Brian McLaughlin and Karen Bennett, “Supervenience”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/supervenience/>.

Jaegwon Kim, ‘The Myth of Nonreductive Materialism,’ Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Nov., 1989), pp. 31-47, 46.

Ibid. 43.

Ibid. 43 See, e.g., Edmund Gettier, ‘Is justified true belief knowledge?’ Analysis, Vol. 23, No. 6 (Jun., 1963), pp. 121-123.

James Cargile, “On “Alexander’s” Dictum,“ Topoi, 12-2003, Volume 22, Issue 2, pp 143-149, 143.

Chris Swoyer and Francesco Orilia, “Properties”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/properties/>.

Ibid.

The Case for Predictive Processing Christopher Whyte: BSc Cognitive and Brain Sciences (in progress) MQ 1. Introduction

brain has about the world is delivered to it via sensory transduction in the form of patterns of neural The question of whether the mind is a computasignals. Our brains have no access to the causes of tional system is foundational to cognitive science these signals and yet somehow we come to perand a topic of vehement ongoing disagreement. ceive a world full of interacting distal causes. The Historically, arguments for or against computation- way the brain accomplishes this task is by trying al theories of mind have, for the most part, been to predict the incoming barrage of signals and then based on conceptual considerations (e.g. Fodor, revising its top-down prediction (I will use this 1975; Searle, 1980). These debates although term interchangeably with hypothesis) in light of important have revealed almost nothing about the the mismatch between the prediction and the actual mechanisms actually at work in the brain. A more sensory input. This mismatch is termed prediction productive approach to deep questions such as error, the smaller the prediction error the better the the one targeted by this essay is to investigate the hypothesis. It constantly compares its top-down overall explanatory power of a well-developed the- hypotheses (priors) with bottom-up signals, revisory. It is only once a theory has been laid out and ing them in light of prediction errors, then using its predictions properly explored that we will be in the newly adjusted hypotheses as the next set of a position to decide whether or not it tracks reality. priors. In this way, the brain is able to learn entire Predictive Processing (PP), a fundamental ly without supervision (Hohwy, 2012; 2013). theory of how the brain instantiates the mind, has

The mechanism of minimising prediction recently emerged from the field of computational error sketched above is duplicated throughout the neuroscience (Friston, 2005; 2010) and is begincortical hierarchy. Sensory signals that are not prening to gain traction in philosophy of cognitive dicted at one level generate prediction errors that science (Hohwy, 2013; Clark, 2016). The goal are fed forward to the next level in the hierarchy of this article is to provide a synoptic view of PP which in turn tries to predict the incoming predicand in doing so, explore its overall explanatotion error. A mismatch between the prediction and ry purchase. I will argue that the brain is a very the signal results in the prediction error being fed specific type of computational system, namely, it forward to the level above and the adjustment of is a system engaged in PP. To begin with, we will the top-down prediction being brought to bear on explore the basic mechanisms at work in PP. Next, the level below (see the dark grey and black arrows we will look at how PP accommodates the need in fig 1.). As prediction error is fed through the for context sensitivity. After this, the role of action hierarchy each successive level tries to predict the in long-term prediction error minimisation will be causes and features of the signal over increasingly examined. I will then counter the dark room objec- longer time scales (Hohwy, 2012; 2013). tion. Following this, a summary of the PP account For this mechanism to operate successfully, of visual word recognition will be explored. And Friston (2010) has suggested that there needs to lastly, we shall explore attention and consciousness be a functional segregation of error units that pass through the lens of PP. prediction errors forward and representation units that pass predictions backwards. This may seem 2. Theory and Mechanism extravagant but the cortex is organised in such a way that it can be implemented. Deep pyramidal At the core of PP is the idea that what the brain neurons are said to serve the role of error units, ultimately does is try to predict incoming sensory while superficial pyramidal neurons function as input and then revise its predictions in light of the representation units. disparity between its predictions and the actual input. It is around this notion that the rest of the 2.2 Precision Estimation and Context Sensitivity theory is structured. In the following four subsections, this core idea will be laid out and built upon. Throughout levels of the hierarchy, the precision of error units is modulated by both representa2.1 Perception and Prediction Error tion units in higher levels and lateral connections between error units at the same level (fig 1.). This PP is an umbrella term used to describe a set of is of great import as the variability and reliability closely related models in computational neuroof sensory input and thus the resultant generation science all of which account for brain function of prediction error is highly context dependent. To in terms of hierarchical networks with extensive take a set of contrasting examples given by Clark backwards (top-down) connections (Clark, 2016). (2016), consider driving on a road you know exThe motivation behind this family of theories is ceedingly well in heavy fog and compare it to the best expressed by starting with a brainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye view task of driving on a winding and unfamiliar road of sensory inference. The only information the on a cloudless day. In the former case it is probably

14

15 better to give top-down predictions more credence, and in the latter, one would be well advised to give bottom-up sensory input more weight. This sensitivity to context is a kind of second-order sensory inference accomplished by learning the regularities in sensory input and forming estimations or ‘expectations’ of signal precision that alter the weighting/gain on error units accordingly (see the dashed and light grey arrows in fig 1.) (Hohwy, 2012; 2013). Returning to the above example to illustrate this point, the input while driving in heavy fog would have an exceedingly poor signal to noise ratio. In such contexts, there would be an ‘expectation’ that the signal is an unreliable guide to the external world leading to the modulation of the gain on error units by higher levels in the hierarchy allowing top-down predictions to easily suppress the input unless the signals differ radically from the predictions. In contrast, while driving an unfamiliar road on a cloudless day the signal to noise ratio would be excellent and the prior probability of top-down hypotheses low. In this situation there would be an ‘expectation’ that the sensory input is precise, thereby increasing the gain on error units by top-down modulation and causing any mismatch between the top-down prediction and bottom-up signal to quickly generate prediction errors (Clark, 2016).

Figure 1. Schematic of the prediction error minimization mechanism. Dark grey arrows indicate error units feeding forward prediction error, black arrows indicate backwards projecting predictions from representation units, dashed arrows indicate contextual adjustment of estimated precision and light grey arrows indicate self-inhibitory signals between error units at the same level modulated by precision estimation. Adapted from Hohwy (2013, p.68).

2.3 Active Inference and Long-term Prediction Error Minimisation For the sake of simplicity, I have so far expressed the prediction error minimisation framework in very passive terms. This, however, is not an accurate description of the theory. In order for an organism to minimise prediction error long term, it must maintain a careful balance between both active and passive inference. As we shall see on this view there is no fundamental divide between ac1 - Formally, P(h/e) = P(e/h)P(h).

tion and perception (Clark, 2013). Imagine seeing a figure from some distance away that resembles a friend. In situations such as this, agents have two options. The first option is to passively revise the hypothesis to quash the prediction error. This may work in some situations but mostly it is suboptimal long term as the hypothesis will have a low prior probability and thus be unable to explain away prediction error throughout the hierarchy. The second option is to temporarily settle on the hypothesis with the highest posterior probability (likelihood of the evidence assuming the hypothesis is true times the prior probability of the hypothesis1) and actively test the predictions by walking closer to the figure (Hohwy, 2013). Active inference functions as either a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy that reduces prediction error throughout the hierarchy and thus increases the prior probability of the hypothesis in the process. Or, if the prediction cannot account for the new input, say the figure is not your friend, prediction error will be increased in the short term but in the process, the system will settle on a new set of hypotheses that explain away prediction error. In both cases, action minimises prediction error in the long term and increases the prior probability of the hypotheses deployed (Hohwy, 2012).

2.4 The Dark Room Objection Before moving onto applications of the theory we shall briefly consider a common and at first glance serious objection to the proposed mechanism, the dark room objection.

If what the brain does is try to minimise prediction error, why is it that we do not just predict darkness and sit in a dark room devoid of novel input until we die? This objection seems convincing. Fortunately for PP, there is an equally convincing reply. We do not minimise prediction error in a vacuum. In virtue of being evolved and embodied creatures, we have parameters or ‘expectations’ (see 2.2) built into our hierarchically organised hypotheses that place austere limits on how prediction errors are both generated and minimised. For example, we ‘expect’ to be both warm and hydrated. Divergence from these expected states generates prediction errors that induce responses aimed at suppressing them. Hence, staying in a room devoid of input would generate prediction errors on both a moment to moment and long term basis. Unless we are trying to sleep we do not ‘expect’ to be in a state of total darkness and on a longer timescale we do not ‘expect’ to become dehydrated to a point where we can no longer maintain homoeostasis. In other words, our embodied

16 needs create the setting against which prediction error is minimised across multiple timescales (Clark, 2016).

3.0 Evidence and Applications With an outline of PP now in place, we turn to its application. Like all accounts with extremely broad explanatory scope, PP cannot be tested as a whole. This is not to say, however, that it is untestable. The theory generates a great many domain specific predictions that can be tested individually.

A vigorous review of the evidence in support of the theory is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article. Instead, this section will review three areas that demonstrate PP’s potentially unifying role and are emblematic of the evidence that supports it.

unlike its competitors which model visual word recognition as a feed forward phenomenon, Price and Devlin’s (2011) model is able to account for the extensive backwards connections known to be present throughout the cortex.

3.2 Attention

Attention is often operationalised as a gating mechanism that selects and in some way optimises the processing of a select portion of the sensory stream (e.g. Prinz, 2012). This operational definition is in turn broken down into two distinct processes; exogenous attention and endogenous attention. Exogenous attention is the process by which intense or contrastive stimuli are made perceptually salient in a bottom-up fashion. Endogenous attention on the other hand, is the process by 3.1 Visual Word Recognition which one stream of sensory information is voluntarily selected over another in a top-down manner Research into the type of processing employed (Hohwy, 2012; 2013). during visual word recognition is an exceedingly

Exogenous attention corresponds to situaactive area in contemporary neuroscience. Using tions where intense stimuli create a strong signal. fMRI data Price and Devlin (2011) offer a three Error units throughout the hierarchy have an ‘exstage PP model of the development of visual word pectation’ (recall that expectations are modulated recognition in illiterate subjects. Their account was by higher layers of the hierarchy and are highly able to elegantly predict the changes in activity context sensitive, see 2.2) that strong signals are in the ventral occipital-temporal (vOT) area that precise and as such have a good ratio of signal to accompanied changes in reading ability. At Stage noise. Thus, in contexts where there is a strong one prior to any changes in reading ability, activity signal, error units have a high gain leading to the in vOT was minimal. At this point, people lacked rapid generation of prediction errors that are fed of any kind of task-relevant top-down hypotheses forward to higher levels of the hierarchy which resulting in an inability to differentiate precise and adjusts the hypotheses being deployed and suptask-relevant aspects of sensory signals so predic- presses the prediction errors at the lower levels. tion error was minimal (increased cortical activity This gives the resultant percept a high posterior is the neural correlate of prediction error). At Stage probability and thereby greatly increases its likely two activity in vOT increased significantly. By this hood of becoming salient (Hohwy, 2012; 2013). time subjects had acquired the task-relevant top Endogenous attention is directed by the down hypotheses that although inaccurate were context dependent modulation of error unit preciable to predict the aspects of the bottom-up signal sion. Within the hypotheses encoded in the cortical that were related to the task. The inaccurate predic- hierarchy, there are representations of previously tions inevitably led to prediction errors. At stage encountered causal links between input with a high three activity in vOT was again minimal. Subjects signal to noise ratio and environmental cues. When had become adept in their ability to read and the we come across such cues the gain on error units is task-relevant hypotheses being deployed were ac- increased by top-down precision estimation. This curate enough to account for the bottom-up signals results in the arriving stimulus having a high prior without generating prediction errors. probability causing any mismatch between it and

This account is similar in many ways to the prediction to quickly generate prediction errors already existing models of visual word recognition that are shunted up the hierarchy adjusting the topsuch as the local combination detector of Dehaene down predictions that in turn suppresses the preand Cohen (2011). What makes this explanation diction error at lower levels (Hohwy, 2012; 2013). more attractive as Fabry (2017) points out is that, In line with this treatment of endogenous attention

17 an fMRI study conducted by Kok, Rahnev, Jehee, Lau and Lange (2011) found that when a stimulus was predicted, activity in V1 (primary visual cortex) was reduced but when a stimulus was predicted and also attended to, activity increased significantly. Importantly, as well as attention increasing activity in V1, activity was also increased in V2 and V3 (higher visual areas) even when the stimulus was omitted. On the PP scheme, this result is exactly what one would expect. When the stimulus is predicted and attended to, the gain on error units is increased, resulting in an enhancement of any prediction error generated. This increases the activity in V1, as well as V2 and V3 as the prediction error is fed forward. When attention is deployed and the stimulus is predicted but then omitted, the mismatch between the prediction and the input in combination with the high gain on the error units also generates prediction errors thereby increasing activity in V1 as well as V2 and V3 as the prediction error makes its way up the hierarchy.

3.3 Consciousness

In the consciousness literature, two of the chief explanandum are state consciousness and phenomenal unity. State consciousness refers to the difference between a conscious state and an unconscious state (Klein & Hohwy, 2015). Phenomenal unity refers to the bounded nature of perceptual experience (Hohwy, 2013). The GNW offers an initial explanation of both. The difference between a conscious state that is phenomenally bound and an unconscious state is the integration of perceptual content into the global workspace.

In a process that Dehaene et al. (2011) term ignition, recurrently connected neurons accumulate evidence for perceptual content and upon reaching a certain evidential threshold the content is integrated into the global workspace. This account, although compelling, is only the beginning of an explanation. It is not at all clear how evidential accumulation functions mechanistically, that is, how one interpretation of sensory content is selected over another or why the global availability of perceptual content is experienced as unitary. I follow Hohwy (2013) in arguing that by supplementing the GNW explanation with the probabilistic account of brain function presented by PP, a more encompassing account of both phenomena is available. Although this is obviously speculative it would make sense for ignition to reflect the switch from passive to active inference. Recall that it is the hypothesis that most efficiently explains away prediction error throughout the cortical hierarchy, and in doing so gains the best posterior probability that guides active inference. Furthermore, the profile of functions enabled by content being integrated into the global workspace - executive control, verbal report, and voluntary motor behaviour - fits the profile of the functions required to guide active inference. It is this switch that also explains why it is that we come to experience a phenomenally unified world. We can only perform one action at a time, thus in order to generate motor behaviour, only one hypothesis about its causal structure can guide action at any one time. In other words, we experience a bound and unified world because in order to act in it we must, at least transiently, settle on only one hypothesis about its structure (Hohwy, 2013).

Consciousness is in many ways the elephant in the room for any theory of the mind that claims to be comprehensive. As Overgaard (2015) puts it, â&#x20AC;&#x153;â&#x20AC;Śany theory of the mind or the brain that finds consciousness to be a mystery must either be wrong or incomplete.â&#x20AC;? (p. 4). It would, therefore, be of tremendous significance if PP, a theory of perception and possibly general brain function, was found to be compatible with a theory of the neural correlates of consciousness. The Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW), being one of the most empirically well-supported accounts of consciousness, is just such a theory. First put forward

by Baars (1988) it centres around the prediction that consciousness allows diffuse access between what would otherwise be relatively isolated brain functions. For information to become conscious it must enter the global workspace - a central but widely distributed means of information exchange instantiated in a long ranging prefronto-parietal network that facilitates interaction between numerous consuming subsystems. The content that is distributed by this system enables and guides numerous executive functions such as verbal report and voluntary motor behaviour. On this view, what 4. Concluding Remarks we subjectively experience is the information that is globally available (Dehaene, Changeux & Nac- Throughout this article, I have argued for the idea cache 2011). that the mind is a computational system engaged in

18 PP. Starting with a brainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye view of the problem of sensory inference it becomes apparent that the mechanism that solves this problem only has patterns of neural signals at its disposal. It is only by dint of the hierarchically organised mechanism of prediction error minimisation that this problem is overcome and we come to perceive a coherent world of interacting distal causes. This mechanism is both context sensitive and, in maintaining a careful balance between active and passive inference, invariably action oriented. In terms of experimental evidence, PP is quickly gaining momentum. It has viable accounts of both visual word recognition and attention that have considerable evidence behind them. And, although speculative, PP has the potential to provide a mechanistic backbone for the GNW and in so doing extend the explanatory depth of the theory. Lastly, I must emphasise that this article is only a sketch of PP and its supporting evidence. For the sake of brevity, I have had to omit many of the most interesting aspects of the theory including its foundations in the free energy principle and its application to disorders and delusions. Despite this, it is my hope that at the very least I have made a plausible case for what is, at present, the only foundational theory of mind with such profound explanatory power.

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brains, situated agents, and the future of

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action, and the embodied mind. Oxford

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Dehaene, S., & Cohen, L. (2011). The unique role

of the visual word form area in reading.

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262.

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of Conscious Access: From Neuronal Ar

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Consciousness: From Cognition to the

Clinic? Berlin: Springer â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Verlag, 55-84.

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5). Harvard University Press.

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Lange, F. P. (2011). Attention reverses the

effect of prediction in silencing sensory

signals. Cerebral cortex, bhr310.

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19

Foundationalism, the Regress and Infinitism Katrina Woodforde: BA Philosophy and LLB (in progress) MQ Foundationalism by its definition can halt the regress through providing a basic belief; however the postulated nature of a basic belief creates problems for foundationalism. In this essay, knowledge is taken to be justified true belief1. The regress problem arises where one has a ‘true belief’, but is uncertain whether it is justified. To answer, one must give another belief to give the first belief justificatory weight. However, unless this second belief has such a character that no further inquiry is required as to how it is itself justified (a ‘basic’ or ‘foundational’ belief), a growing chain of beliefs will occur, none more justified than the other.

Consequently, the regress problem says one cannot ‘know’ because one cannot ever be justified2.

Foundationalism attempts to identify the character of basic beliefs. This essay considers two formulations of foundationalism: Cartesian and minimal foundationalism. Each is considered in turn before being evaluated in the extent to which each responds to the regress problem. Finally, infinitism is examined to consider what it illustrates about the gaps in foundationalism’s responses to the regress problem. Ultimately, foundationalism can provide an answer to the regress problem, but the two answers it gives here each come at their own cost.

First, Cartesian foundationalism requires a basic belief to be at least indubitable, and, often, also to be infallible and incorrigible to constitute ‘knowledge’ and avoid the regress. As propounded

by Descartes, foundationalism requires indubitable basic beliefs for a maximally strong foundation.

He uses a methodological doubt to eliminate any uncertain beliefs (1984, ‘First Meditation’). Thus, sensory experience could be inaccurate, or the product of dreams or madness and all individuals could be deceived about logical truths like 1+1=2 by a force beyond us (Descartes 1984, ‘First Meditation’). Descartes argues the most basic of all foundational beliefs is ‘“I am, I exist” because

I think’—knowledge which is only held by an individual about that individual’s self in that moment (1984, p. 17). This basic belief is sufficient to stop the regress. However, when Descartes transitions to reconstructing his knowledge, he is limited to what can be derived through intuition and deduction from this basic belief (Gaskill 2005, ‘Responses to the Regress Argument: Response 1: Foundationalism’). Further, more recent thinkers in the Cartesian tradition have considered a belief must be also infallible and incorrigible to be ‘knowledge’3. Incorrigibility requires that a belief cannot be justifiably revised or rejected by another person or at a later time (Alston 1976, p. 287). An infallible belief is a belief about which it is impossible to be wrong (Alston 1976, p. 294). Given the apparent issues with the high threshold of induitability, adding further requirements only restricts accessible human knowledge more. Nonetheless, on either formulation, Cartesian foundationalism can block the regress through providing a basic belief.

Second, minimal foundationalism likewise seeks a base in justified true beliefs, but requires ‘immediate’ justification, not induitability, infallibility or incorrigibility (Alston 1976, p. 301).

An ‘immediately justified belief’ arises where the belief is not justified by any other belief of the person (Alston 1976, p. 289). A ‘mediately justified belief’ will be justified by having appropriate relations to one or more immediately justified belief(s) to confer justification (Alston 1976, p.

289). Further, minimal foundationalism allows empirical evidence to test a principle of immediate justification (Alston 1976, pp. 296-7). Doing so gives an individual a higher level (mediate) belief from reflecting on why their lower level (immediate) belief is justified4. This higher level belief is itself justified by the empirical evidence where it draws on immediate knowledge (Alston 1976, p.

297). Because a basic belief need only be imme-

1 - This is definition is adopted for the purposes of narrowing the discussion in this essay, notwithstanding Gettier’s critique of this conception of knowledge (see: Gettier 1963).

2 - For examples of the formulation of the regress argument, see: Alston 1976, pp. 300-1; Fumerton & Hasan 2016, ‘1. Regress Arguments for Foundational ism’.

3 - See, eg, Lehrer’s statement of the position (Lehrer 1974 cited in Alston 1976, p. 294) or Will’s statement of the position (Will 1974 cited in Alston 1976, p.

291).

4 - The basic belief does not require the higher level belief for it to be immediately justified; rather the higher level belief is an instance of overdetermination: Alston 1976, p. 293.

20 diately justified and not indubitable, incorrigible, or infallible, the foundation of an individual’s knowledge is not maximally stable (Alston 1976, pp. 293, 299). Rather, basic beliefs and the mediate beliefs reliant on them can be removed if they are later justifiably revised or proven false (Alston 1976, p. 293). Notwithstanding this lesser justificatory strength, minimal foundationalism is still able to halt the regress by its structure (Alston 1976, pp. 299, 301). Additionally, significantly, by only requiring immediate justification, minimal foundationalism allows a more expansive reconstructive project for knowledge. Consequently, minimal foundationalism also has a structure of knowledge which can block the regress, but its foundation is less strong than Cartesian foundationalism.

Third, Cartesian and minimal foundationalism’s responses to the regress argument varies with the relative strength of their definitions of a foundational belief. Prima facie, both types of foundationalism can stop the regress as they share the same structure of knowledge (Alston 2010, ‘Initial Account’; Fumerton & Hasan 2016, ‘1. Regress Arguments for Foundationalism’). However, the picture is more complex. The strength of justification Cartesian foundationalism requires stops the regress for those basic beliefs, but leaves open to the regress all other areas of human experience and thought. This issue arises because Cartesian foundationalism is not able to incorporate degrees of justification (Fantl 2003, pp. 543-5). Degrees of justification arise where, for example, person A and person B have two identical beliefs for believing 1+1=2 but person A also understands why their higher level belief that their belief 1+1=2 is justified is itself justified (Fantl 2003, pp. 546, 549).

The manner in which this is limiting for Cartesian foundationalism is illustrated through a sketch of Descartes’ full project. Descartes starts with the basic belief that at that moment he is a thinking thing; he then reasons that the external world exists through the idea of a ‘perfect being’—the existence of a good God who would not allow humanity to be deceived about the external world (Gaskill 2005, ‘Responses to the Regress Argument: Response 1: Foundationalism’). Problematically, unless one accepts the reasoning of Descartes’ whole project (which many philosophers have found unpalatable), then ‘knowledge’ available to humans is limited to Descartes’ basic belief and logical derivations from it. Therefore, such a

limited definition of a basic belief not admitting of degrees in justification significantly limits what qualifies as ‘knowledge’. Consequently, Cartesian foundationalism’s strength of foundation comes at a cost to the amount of knowledge the Cartesian foundationalist can have.

By contrast, minimal foundationalism can recognise different degrees of justification through its less strong foundation. While this makes available more areas of experience and thought for human knowledge, it is not immediately apparent that what Alston proposes as sources of immediate justification do form sources of immediate justification. Such sources need to be independent of other beliefs (Alston 1976, pp. 289, 292). Alston’s proposed four sources are justification by: i) self-justification; ii) the virtue of its truth; iii) the individual’s non-propositional awareness; and iv) being formed or held in particular circumstances (1976, pp. 295-6). In relation to i) and ii), both sources appear to ones which a Cartesian foundationalist could accept. However, both iii) and iv) appear to be reliant on truthful sensory perceptions and experiences—exactly what Descartes shows to be inadequate sources of knowledge (1984, ‘First Meditation’). Further conditions could be stipulated such as what Alston discusses as testing a justificatory principle by empirical evidence (1976, p. 297). Problematically though, for an individual to understand that they hold a justified true belief, additional justified beliefs are necessary to explain why the individual’s non-propositional awareness or circumstances can provide justification. This requirement for individual access to the reasons for justification appears characteristic of foundationalism but cannot be supplied on Alston’s sources iii) and iv) without requiring additional justificatory beliefs, making the initial ‘basic beliefs’ no longer basic (Fantl 2003, p. 544). Consequently, minimal foundationalism’s threshold for basic beliefs seems to be raised to Cartesian foundationalism’s threshold once minimal foundationalism’s sources of justification are examined.

Finally, to the extent either foundationalist account cannot fully respond to the regress problem, it is informative to consider infinitism as potentially able to address the issues foundationalism faces. Infinitism here refers to justification occurring through an infinite array of non-repeating adequate reasons for the belief and adequate responses to challenges to the belief (Fantl 2003,

21 p. 577)5. Fantl argues this justificatory structure allows infinitism to account for justificatory degrees and provide ‘completeness’ where completeness refers to justification of which there is no higher degree (2003, pp. 538, 553, 558). In contrast to Cartesian foundationalism, infinitism incorporates that justification comes in degrees. Minimal foundationalism also adopts justificatory degrees but doing so raises the problem in the paragraph above, and results in minimal foundationalism being unable to provide a standard for completeness (Fantl 2003, p. 546). Degrees in justification mean that there can be an ever increasing level of justification, making it difficult to set a required level of justification for a belief to be immediately justified in a non-arbitrary way (Fantl 2003, p. 559). Infinitism also struggles to find a non-arbitrary standard of justification (Fantl 2003, p. 559). However, no matter the increase in degree of justification, an infinite array of adequate reasons and responses remains complete, something which is not possible on a foundationalist structure (Fantl 2003, pp.

557-8). Consequently, an examination of infinitism is suggestive of some of the central problems of the foundationalist structure for responding to the regress argument.

In sum, foundationalism’s structure equips it with the capacity to prima facie respond to the regress problem. However, the extent to which either Cartesian or minimal foundationalism can block the regress and at what cost to their account of knowledge suggests that foundationalism itself is not completely suited to responding to the regress problem. Particularly, the relative strength of basic beliefs required by each form of foundationalism produces problems for each—stifling the reconstructive project of knowledge or drawing a non-arbitrary threshold for sufficient justification to constitute knowledge. Further, in attempting to respond to the regress problem, Cartesian and minimal foundationalism have characteristics which mean that respectively they cannot accommodate both an understanding of justificatory degrees and of completeness in justification. Interestingly, embracing the regress (so to speak) provides a possibility for attaining knowledge in a way neither Cartesian or minimal foundationalism seem to be able to.

References: Alston, W P 2010, ‘Foundationalism’ in J Dancy, E

Sosa and M Steup (eds.), A Companion

to Epistemology: Second Edition, Black

well Publishing, Hoboken.

Alston, W P 1976, ‘Has Foundationalism been

Refuted?’, Philosophy Studies: An Interna

tional Journal for Philosophy in the Analyt

ic, vol. 29, no. 5, p. 287.

Descartes, R 1984, ‘First Meditation’ in trans. J

Cottingham, R Stoothoff and D Murdoch,

The Philosophical Writings of Descartes,

vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, Cam bridge.

Descartes, R 1984, ‘Second Meditation’ in trans.

J Cottingham, R Stoothoff and D Murdoch,

The Philosophical Writings of Descartes,

vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, Cam bridge.

Fantl, Jeremy 2003, ‘Modest Infinitism’, Canadian

Journal of Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 4, p.

537.

Fumerton, R and Hasan, A 2016, ‘Foundationalist

Theories of Epistemic Justification’, The

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

<https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/just

ep-foundational/>.

Gaskill, D 2005, ‘The Regress Argument for Scep

ticism’, California State University Sacre

mento, <http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gas

killd/intro/epistemology3.htm>.

Gettier, E L 1963, ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowl

edge?’, Analysis, vol. 23, no. 6, p. 121.

Lehrer, K 1974, Knowledge, Clarendon Press,

Oxford, cited in W P Alston 1976, ‘Has

Foundationalism been Refuted?’, Philoso

phy Studies: An International Journal for

Philosophy in the Analytic, vol. 29, no. 5,

p. 287.

Will, F L 1974, Induction and Justification, Cornell

University Press, Ithaca, cited in W P

Alston (1976) ‘Has Foundationalism been

Refuted?’, Philosophy Studies: An Interna

tional Journal for Philosophy in the Ana

lytic, vol. 29, no. 5, p. 287.

5 - For the purposes of this essay, I will not consider what would constitute an ‘adequate’ reason or response, but simply note that not all reasons or responses confer an equal degree of justification on a belief (see: Fantl 2003, 544-5).

22

Beauty Shall Save the Art World: Why Realising Beauty is the Essential End of Art Matthew Su: BA Philosophy and LLB with Honors MQ Abstract: This essay will consider the question of whether beauty is the end of art. It will explain why one might think that beauty is the end of art, and argue that it is in beauty that the act of making achieves intrinsic human value. This is what I will call the “traditional approach,” which finds modern expression in Jacques Maritain’s essay, Art and Scholasticism (1935). This approach will be contrasted with the approach, particularly as exemplified in Kant, which centres its account of beauty in the subject. I will argue that the latter approach, which I will call the “modern” approach, leads inevitably to a deep unintelligibility in the project of art, dislodging art from its justifications in human nature. It will be argued that a return to the ‘traditional view’ best rescues what anyone should want out of art, while restoring coherence and a unique justification to the project.

1. Beauty as the End of Art In any given work of art, there will be multiple kinds of action bound up in its execution. It may, for example, be a form of self-expression, a form of propaganda with a message, or a reflection on a theme, or it may be missing any of these elements. The classical approach attempts to isolate the kind of action among these others which makes a work a work of art. While there may be a vast gulf between the Classical and the modern world, common starting points are that,

1)

Art has a kind of non-instrumental value—as something worth doing in and of itself (that is, as an end in itself and not a means to an end) for human beings, and

2) Art necessarily involves some man-

ner of making- of imposing design

upon some receptive matter or me- dium.

The search for the end of art, then, is the search for that in the act of making which is good for us in and of itself.

Jacques Maritain, in his essay Art and Scholasticism (1935), posits a solution: the essential end of art, worth achieving in and of itself for man, is realising beauty. Beauty for Maritain isn’t some artificial ideal, or merely subjective reaction to an indifferent world, but is rather an illuminating principle shared between mankind and the world, in virtue of which the world is intelligible— that is, susceptible of union with the human mind.

He maintains Thomas Aquinas’ classic characterisation of beauty as “that which, when contemplated, delights.” Beauty is the very principle of intelligibility itself: that metaphysical principle

in virtue of which the thing contemplated has the distinctive integrity, characteristic proportion, and ‘radiant’ presence which make it itself. Beauty, then, is the intelligible substance of the object, and therefore inherently wholesome to human nature considered as rational. It is the beauty in things which draws us to contemplate them, and in fact allows us to contemplate them, helping us fulfil our rational nature.

Making is necessarily a species of rational action, for the imposition of design presupposes a conceptual grasp of the design imposed. As a species of rational action, making employs intelligibility in a particular way: it realises the intelligible in the thing it makes. Since intelligibility, for Maritain, is the beautiful, making in and of itself consists in the realisation of the beautiful. This is the clue to art’s transcendent value, for if this account of making is correct, then the act of making is more perfectly itself insofar as it realises beauty.

The more perfectly we pursue the realization of the beautiful, the more perfectly we make, and the more perfectly rational (and hence good for us) our making becomes. The perfection of making and the achievement of human value, then, necessarily converge in the realisation of beauty. This convergence of the nature of making and intrinsic value in the realisation beauty satisfies our criteria- thus we may say, the essence of art is the realisation of beauty.

The concept of beauty as intelligibility explains many of the features of beauty which would later be asserted with Immanuel Kant. The beautiful unifies diverse particulars under an intelligible form. This means that complexity delights, as long

23 as the bounds of the human ability to contemplate are respected. The form allows us to contemplate the beautiful object in its intrinsic intelligibility, demanding a disinterested appreciation. That intelligibility of the object as itself also invites contemplation of the beautiful as eternal, abstracted from the accidents of space and time. The connection which beauty forges between the object and the observer draws the observer into intimate awareness of the susceptibility of the beautiful to rational contemplation, making man at home in the world and perceiving in the world a kind of teleological significance, or self-revelatory tendency.

This conception of beauty as intelligibility thus gives rise to a conception of art that is both expansive and demanding. Even the most outlandish attempts to push the boundary of “art” cannot do justice to the expansiveness of art: beauty is a transcendental, a precondition of the categories which divide existence into individual intelligible beings, rather than bound within those categories itself. To call beauty a transcendental does not mean that beauty is ‘beyond’ common reality, available only in extraordinary visions, but that it suffuses all of reality to some degree or other. It can be present in the crudest child’s scratching, or in non-representational musical symphony. Yet beauty-in-making is also a demanding ideal. Not everything made exhibits the same degree of intelligibility- some things are lacking in one or another of integrity, proportion, and radiance, and so are ugly, and so in that respect are less-perfect examples of art. Nor are all acts aimed at realising the intelligible in the object, rather than some extrinsic and limited end; while realising-the-intelligible is bound up with most acts of human design, many such acts have additional ends- economic, political, social, etc, which predominate to most observers, rendering the art in the act a minor element of the whole. Nor are all things produced equally or obviously made. The imposition of intelligibility is obscured when a mechanical origin is more obvious, and the intelligible thought in the act of making recedes by comparison.

2. Kant and the Divorce of Art and Beauty As tightly as art and beauty are bound under the classical conception of art, the modern trend has been toward a decoupling of art from beauty. This move corresponds to the loss of beauty’s objective authority, which in turn originates in the reloca-

tion of beauty from the world to the subject. In my assessment, Kant was the high point of subjectivist aesthetics, affirming many of the features of beauty and its connection to art. It therefore behoves my argument to demonstrate that even at this high watermark, the very attempt to situate beauty entirely within the subject leads to its downfall as a justificatory value for art.

Kant’s project in the Critique of Judgement (1790) seems precisely to be an attempt to rescue the various features of beauty from the modern abandonment of the classical reasons for their unity—to find a home for these features of beauty in the brute facts of the human constitution. For Kant, beauty occupies something of a midpoint between a theoretical, universalised judgement which is taken to be true for everyone, and a private expression of interested affection. To judge an object as beautiful is to make a judgement to which one holds everybody else, while at the same time acknowledging an utter lack of any basis in reason or conceptual understanding of reality for such universal judgement. Kant is, it seems, motivated to this account of beauty by a concern for capturing beauty’s transcendence of finite concepts (also a feature of the classical conception) and its capacity for demanding universal delight within his model of human cognition. Yet on Kant’s model, there is no metaphysical principle of intelligibility connecting the rational agent and his object, and there is therefore nothing in the beautiful object which the rational agent qua rational agent can be said to delight in. Whatever ‘transcendental’ ideals there are, for Kant, are elements of the rational agent’s own internal cognition. Yet the rational agent cannot be delighting in some aspect of himself, either, for the experience of beauty is supposed to be ‘disinterested,’ and outward-directed toward the thing contemplated. Only the movement-toward beauty can remain in the human subject. Thus the taste for beauty, rather than an attempt to perfect intelligence in a real object, is reduced merely to a by-product of the underlying mechanisms of intelligence pursuing a necessarily non-existent, non-objective object. Beauty is reduced to a hopeless paradox.

The beautiful for Kant, then, has all the features of classical beauty, such as a disinterested attractiveness, a certain recognition of teleology, and universalizability. Such features are not unified in the perfection of reason, but rather as by-products of reason. Aesthetic judgement is the result of

24 the “free play” of imagination with formal cognition. It is the cognitive froth which arises where our conceptual faculties, capacity for sensation, and capacity for practical reason meet, giving us an incomplete reason (universalizability without concepts), and an incomplete direction (teleology without telos).

It is difficult to see why this kind of beauty, a mere by-product and shadow of reason, should please us, rather than merely happens to please us.

Where beauty is bound up with intelligibility and therefore with reason, its pursuit necessarily perfects the human being as rational agent. On Kant’s model on the other hand, beauty is a mere by-product of the human constitution, hence is accidental to human fulfilment, and there is nothing wrong per se with denying its value. The value of beauty becomes something one “just gets” or does not, rather than something demonstrable through rational argument. In this way Kant’s account, despite its attempt to universalise the faculty of aesthetic judgement and to connect that faculty to art, leaves itself no principled recourse against those subjects who claim not to share Kant’s affection or concern for beauty. Art, accordingly, cannot find a principled justification in the merely subjective idea of beauty, and must seek some other justificatory principle.

to defy the categorisation of artwork as objects of any kind of craftsmanship or appeal, or else by the narrow focus on perfecting a particular form of making apart from other human values. This has led to the bifurcation of art into what Greenberg terms Avant-garde, which is the domain of “artists’ artists” attempting to refine and purify art, and Kitsch, which deals with the manufacture of suitable objects of popular affection. Each approach has its problems.

The avant-garde attempt to set up self-definition as an ultimate end for art represents the desire to ‘purify’ art of any subjection to other human values, and articulate the ends of art in its own terms. Which terms count as its own, however, are precisely in issue in such an act. In order for self-definition to serve as an end, art must either lack such a definition, or such a definition must be occult (that is, hidden), or such a definition must be indefinitely put off (which amounts to the occult).

Neither concepts are capable of playing the role of the intelligible in the artistic act—that is, guiding the act of making. The occult is cut off from access by the intellect, and a lack-of-definition cannot play an intellectual role at all. Art, then, is left to derive its intelligibility from other concepts and values, which compromises the very independence which was sought through self-definition.

Kitsch, on the other hand, is qua kitsch 2.1 Art and Modernity bound up with the mere affections of individuals.

As such, it is a mere creature of fashion and subIn seeking other foundations for art, Clement ject to any and all values as aggregated by extrinGreenberg best captures the spirit of the modern sic social dynamics, rather than being somehow approach. According to Greenberg, a discipline bound up with an intrinsic and authentic value. succeeds at being modern to the degree that it While there certainly have been efforts to combine can justify itself on its own terms, that is, to the the two, as in the work of Jeff Koons and Andy degree that it is not justified in terms of anything Warhol, it is not clear that the combination helps else. This gives rise to a problem. On the one hand, solve the problems that both sets of values repredespite the loss of beauty as its patron value, we sent—the art so produced has both a puerile and retain the desire to maintain art as intrinsically and a sterile affectation, but that merely makes it both distinctly valuable, with a value that cannot be puerile and sterile. reduced to mere entertainment or therapy. On the other hand, attempting to set art on its own founda- 2.2 The Redemption of Art tions leads to a kind of conceptual self-obsession which robs it of general human value and leads to In light of the failure of self-justification, there is a profound practical self-contradiction. the temptation to 1) subject art to other values like

The orientation of art toward its own entertainment, history, politics or therapy, or else self-definition has, in the 20th century, taken the to 2) restrict the scope of art to merely exploring form of attempting to explore the limits of art by a finite medium, with the accompanying sacrifice counterexample. The trend is exemplified in works of art’s relevance and worth, or 3) to keep the like Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), and Piero faith that some indeterminate concept of art will Manzoni’s Artist’s Shit (1961). Both attempted continue to work itself out somehow. All of these

25 approaches to art are in some way a surrender to despair at having a guiding concept of art. The first sacrifices the autonomous value of art, denying or downplaying the idea that art could have an intrinsic value: art is only relevant to human beings insofar as it serves other ends. It is to say that all art is servile art, since ends like politics, history and therapy are accidental to the act of making itself.

The second denies art its relevance to human value—merely perfecting the use of a medium fails to find a ground of unity between the use of the medium and the nature of the artist. To put one’s faith in the occult, in turn, leaves the artist with no answer to the questions of relevance and human value, and gives us no framework to understand the answers to such questions which artists may give in their work, if there are such answers at all.

The question, now, is what artists are to do: are they stuck with the modern vision? I would suggest that they are not. The arguments in favour of a Kantian vision of beauty, which leads to the loss of beauty’s rational authority, do not directly demonstrate the classical view to be false.

Moreover, as far as the artist is concerned, the metaphysical move to reject intelligibility as an objective feature of the world is merely received opinion, and there is more than one option available. If art as an autonomous value is the basic datum for the artist, and the artist is looking for competing metaphysical frameworks in which to situate that value, the metaphysics which illuminates and comfortably situates the values of art in human nature, are the rational choice. It is obvious that a modernist metaphysics (which, in all its forms, rejects the idea of objective intelligibility and thus, beauty) does a poor job.

The modern artist, for whom an emaciated, subjective beauty is not enough, has much to gain by tying his understanding of art to the traditionalist concept of beauty. Such would serve to heal the rift in communication between popular and avant-garde art, avoid the incoherence of a circuitous self-definition, while setting Art on as firm and autonomous a foundation as any intrinsically worthwhile human activity. Concerns about beauty as a ‘restrictive’ ideal are unfounded: as a transcendental, beauty is present in every intelligible end, hence every intelligible end is available as something for the artist to explore. If beauty imposes standards, they are internal to and complementary to the act of making, rather than restrictive. There is simply no good reason, then, for the artist not to

accept beauty as his guiding end, and every reason to embrace it. If the artist is free to choose how he will understand the end of art, then reason recommends that he choose beauty for his end.

3. Conclusion The traditional concept of art grounded the fundamental value of artistic endeavour in a conception of beauty as intelligibility, a metaphysical principle bridging the gap between the subject and the artistic object. Since man is a rational animal, which by nature seeks the intelligible, and the act of making is at its core the act of realising the intelligible, there is bound up with the artistic act an inherent complementarity with human nature, and thus with human values. Where beauty is redefined so as to be entirely subjective, there ceases to be a necessary value for the maker in the act of making.

Even in philosophers like Kant who otherwise seek to preserve all the traditional features of beauty save for its metaphysics, removing beauty’s metaphysical dimension confines beauty to the subject, and robs it of its ability to provide a transcendent justification for art.

In the vacuum left by the discrediting of beauty, all manner of attempts to find in the act of making something intrinsically worthwhile have failed: the attempt to justify art by defining its end in terms of itself, apart from any considerations of human nature, merely channels art into masturbatory decadence. Disavowing any sort of intrinsic point to art, or saying that the point of art lies beyond some infinitely-distant horizon, leaves us none the wiser. To return to beauty as the end of art would re-establish the link between art and human nature, and restore to us an appreciation for the distinctive human value of the act of making art.

References: 1. Jacques Maritain, ‘Art and Scholasticism’

(1935) http://www3.nd.edu/Departments/ Maritain/etext/art.htm 2. Immanuel Kant, ‘Critique Of Aesthetic Judge

ment’ Book 1 s18. Ebooks.Adelaide.Edu.

Au. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kant/

immanuel/k16j/index.html.

3. Clement Greenberg. ‘Modernist Painting’

(1978). http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/

wittgenstein/files/2007/10/Greenbergmod-

26 4. Clement Grenberg, ‘Art and Kitsch’ http://www. sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html Maritain, Jacques. 2015. ‘Jacques Maritain Center: Art And Scholasticism 5’. Www3.Nd.Edu. http:// www3.nd.edu/Departments/Marit ain/etext/ art5.htm.

Ibid.

Kant, Immanuel. ‘Critique Of Aesthetic Judgement’ Book 1 s18. Ebooks.Adelaide.Edu.Au. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kant/immanuel/ k16j/index.html.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Greenberg, Clement. 1978. ‘Modernist Painting’. http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/wittgenstein/ files/2007/10/Greenbergmodpaint.pdf.

Politics, Ethics & Religion

28

The Project of Public Enlightenment Alexander McDonald: BA Philosophy MQ 1. Introduction

conditions of enlightenment over the ideals is fairly simple; the ideals of enlightenment can be The Project of Public Enlightenment viewed as contentious, and not every rational perEnlightenment is something of a loaded word, and son would agree that each ideal is worth pursuing there are several ways we might unpackage it: as as a matter of our collective, public enlightenment. a sequence of historical periods, as a set of princi- On the other hand, the possession an enlightened ples and ideals, or as a signifier of our intellectual and rational disposition seems to be a precondiand moral development. In the essay that follows tion for reflecting on the ideals of enlightenment, I will focus on the last of these, and argue that thereby assessing for ourselves whether we wish to the project of public enlightenment requires three adopt them or not. In this sense questions about the major features: the establishment and maintenance value of enlightenment ideals are secondary to the of a sizable intellectual community, sufficient question of how we are to achieve enlightenment access to educational institutions, and the adequate for ourselves and our societies. provision of social welfare. I will start with a few

Secondly, I will not be addressing, in words of clarification. After which, I will introduce any substantial fashion, the inexcusable bigotry the concept of enlightenment as understood by a found among the works of the historical figurenumber of Enlightenment era intellectuals. I shall heads of the enlightenment movement, such as then discuss some problems with the project of Hume, Kant, and Locke. Which is to say, I will public enlightenment, namely, the tension between not be dealing with the racist and sexist legacy of independence and authority, and in doing so I will enlightenment era thought, or the problems that also introduce the work of several contemporary arise in separating the good from the bad in any thinkers. one thinker’s discourse (Buchan, ‘The Empire of

Before I begin the essay I would like to Political Thought’, pp. 22-26; Mills, pp. 11, 15). clarify a few things, namely, what I will and will Instead I will assume that all peoples are capanot be discussing. Firstly, I will be focusing on ble of becoming enlightened if the necessary and the conditions of enlightenment as elucidated by sufficient conditions are met, keeping in mind that Enlightenment era intellectuals, not on the ideals these conditions must be sensitive to the real-world espoused by the intellectuals of that era. Let me context of these individuals and communities. explain this distinction briefly. By the conditions of And, I believe this assumption to be warranted: enlightenment, I am referring to those conditions public enlightenment refers to the development of which are necessary for an individual, or society, a society’s intellectual and moral capabilities as a to become enlightened, such as education and whole, not merely at the individual level. We may welfare. In contrast, the ideals of enlightenment live in a time more favourable to enlightenment refers to those philosophical ideals that figures and that those of the past, in the sense that many forms proponents of the enlightenment expect an enlight- of social disadvantage and discrimination have ened person to adopt, such as an acknowledgement been actively addressed and diminished. But forms of universal moral principles, an acceptance of the of social disadvantage and inequality persist in the “supremacy” of objective reason and rationality, world today, and if we are truly concerned with the and the elimination of prejudice, superstition, and enlightenment all peoples then the project must be oppression, in short, the “abolition” of injustice sensitive to the less than ideal context of the world and inequality (Condorcet, ‘The Future Progress we share. Which is to say, each of our journeys of the Human Mind’, p. 27; Mills, ‘Defending the towards enlightenment will differ, just as we differ, Radical Enlightenment’, pp. 10-11). The reason and it will be the case that some of us will require I have chosen to focus on a discussion about the more assistance than others in order to achieve the

29 intellectual and moral maturity necessary for our collective enlightenment.

2. In Their Own Words Now that I have established the boundaries of this discussion, let us turn back towards the topic at hand: what does it mean to be enlightened, and, what are the conditions of enlightenment? To answer these questions, I am going to employ several essays that were written by Enlightenment era intellectuals, namely, Immanuel Kant, Karl Reinhold, and the Marquis de Condorcet.

In a sense Kant is quite to the point with his response, equating public enlightenment with an “exit from self-incurred immaturity” (‘An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?’, p. 58).

However, he thinks this exit requires several conditions to be met in order for us to be considered enlightened, such as possessing the “courage” to move beyond the use of “rules and formulas” in order to think for ourselves, and the capacity to act in accordance with the “public” and “private” use of reason (Foucault, ‘What is Enlightenment?’, pp.

34-36; Kant, pp. 58-61). While I am not particularly interested in Kant’s thoughts about the “private” use of reason, which refers to our use of reason as institutional representatives, I think his comments on the “public” use of reason can help to illuminate the topic (Kant, p. 60). Quite simply, the public use of reason is “that use which anyone makes of it as a scholar before the entire public of the reading world”, which is to say, the reason one employs when participating in an intellectual discourse on a topic of public concern, in accordance with one’s duty as a rational member of society (Kant, p. 60).

This is the means by which the public can “enlighten itself”, through an engagement in scholarly discourse, and I think this can help us to reveal some implicit preconditions necessary for our personal and collective enlightenment (pp. 59-60).

Let me explain my previous statement, and in doing so attempt to reveal those implicit preconditions hidden among Kant’s arguments: in order for any member of a society to be capable of behaving in a scholarly fashion, the institutions of public education would have to be sufficiently accessible so to allow for the equitable development of these skills across that society, so to prevent enlightenment becoming the pass-time of those who possess a surplus of social privilege. We cannot expect everyone to have the innate inclination, or favourable

circumstances necessary to educate themselves in the types of scholarly skills required for the public use of reason; in this sense, and contrary to some of Kant’s remarks, we do require some form of “guidance” on our journey towards enlightenment, even if that journey ends with us gaining the courage to relinquish that helping hand (pp. 58-59).

And so, it seems that education is a necessary condition of our personal and collective enlightenment because of its institutional role in developing our intellectual capacities.

The work of Condorcet, a contemporary of Kant, overlaps quite neatly with the issue of education and our enlightenment. Condorcet was concerned with the “development of the intellectual and moral faculties of man”, and the role inequalities play in obstructing the progress of this development (pp. 26-27). He identified three primary “differences”, that is, inequalities that stymie the project of public enlightenment: differences in wealth, social privilege, and education (p. 30). This led him to argue in favour of forms of social welfare, and for an expansion of the institution of education to the point where it was a “universal system”, so to provide the optimal conditions for our enlightenment (pp. 34-35). And this is where the connection between Condorcet’s work and some of Kant’s thoughts becomes more obvious; if public enlightenment, that is, if the moral and intellectual development of a society requires the public to possess sufficient scholarly abilities, as Kant argues, and also the favourable circumstances in which to utilize them, as Condorcet seems to argue, then the social institutions that effect these two prerequisites, education and social welfare, must be made accessible to all participants in order to ensure the equitable distribution of these foundational conditions of our enlightenment.

The project of public enlightenment is just that, an effort to provide enlightenment to the whole of society, not merely the gatekeepers of knowledge and social privilege; the persistence of social disadvantage necessitates action, through forms of welfare, so to provide the less fortunate a means of achieving enlightenment. And on this point Condorcet’s words converge with Kant’s again, if a society does indeed “enlighten itself ” through a self-directed engagement in scholarly discourse, so to reveal and address social problems to the benefit of all its members, then an increase in the amount of participants capable of behaving in this manner should result in an increase in the

30 production of such scholarly discourse (Condorcet, pp. 34-35; Kant, p. 59). And this is an instrumental argument in support of the role played by education and social welfare in the project of public enlightenment. The more social problems that are revealed by intellectual activity, the more that can be done to potentially address them; and the more people that are capable of engaging in scholarly discourse and research, the more solutions we might come across in the process; and the more social problems that we solve, the more favourable circumstances we can provide so to help others on their journey towards enlightenment. And so, it seems as though the institutions of social welfare are also a necessity, alongside that of education, in order to guarantee the conditions for a genuinely public enlightenment that does not leave the less fortunate behind. Forms of social security, like healthcare or the old age pension for example, work to combat the effects of social disadvantage and inequity. And as we live in a less than ideal world, the provision of such support is necessary to ensure the potential for anyone, no matter what circumstances they face, to access the means of achieving their own enlightenment.

Reinhold, much like Kant, also offered a rather direct response to the question of enlightenment, stating that an “enlightened individual is one whose reason is noticeably above ordinary”, and equating enlightenment with “the making of rational” individuals (‘Thoughts on Enlightenment’, pp. 65-66). And like Condorcet, he emphasized the role played by our existential circumstances, which is to say, the role played by opportunity and social privilege in our intellectual development, arguing that almost everyone was capable of reason, and that “the ordinary fool is thus not born but bred” (Reinhold, pp. 69-71). He also argued in support of the importance of education as a “necessary precaution” for ensuring the provision of reason to the public (pp. 66-67, 70-71). However, and again like Kant, there are additional requirements must be met to secure the conditions of our personal and collective enlightenment. To begin with, he thinks reason requires more than mere rational thought and behaviour, but also necessitates the capacity to define “distinct concepts”, which are “clear ideas” coupled with “unique insights”, and the ability to communicate these concepts to the public in such a fashion as to maintain their intellectual integrity as ideas, while also being readily understandable by the average member of society (pp. 65-66, 68-69).

In other words, we might view Reinhold as arguing in favour of the establishment of an intellectual community, one which works to disseminate scholarly discourse through “distinct explanation”, that is, through a form of literary interpretation into articles that are sufficiently accessible to those who lack the education and experience needed to penetrate the “monkish fog” of academic jargon and retrieve an understanding for themselves (p.

68-69).

Reinhold’s arguments about enlightenment also seem to hold interesting implications when contrasted with those of Kant; where Kant seems to imply that public enlightenment requires a broad section of society to possess something of a scholarly skill set, so they might engage in reason for themselves without the guidance of authority figures, Reinhold seems to shift the burden of enlightenment over to the scholars, arguing that the intellectual authorities themselves have some responsibility in providing the public the means of access to enlightenment, through the provision of scholarly discourse and critique whose “cloak” is “neither too dirty... nor too dazzling” (Reinhold, p. 68-69; Kant, pp. 58-59). However, Kant and Reinhold’s positions are not that far apart in the end, as Reinhold requires another two conditions two be met in order for us to be considered enlightened as both individuals and as a collective.

Firstly, the enlightened individual, in their role as an “enlightener”, has to have “served a large part of his nation well” in order to “maintain” the title of being enlightened, something they might achieve through the acts of education or scholarly explanation (p. 66). And secondly, a society needs to be made up of a significant number of such enlightened individuals, and their influence upon that society would have to be sufficient enough to satisfy the first condition (p. 66). Furthermore, if the public is to be capable of taking heed of disseminated academic material in order to participate in this “rational culture”, then it still requires a sufficient degree of education to foster the “passive” intellectual skills needed to understand the material produced, while also encouraging them to reason and reflect upon it for themselves (pp. 66-67). And so, Reinhold seems be another voice in favour of education, while also introducing the need for adequate explanation and translation of scholarly discourse, so to provide the conditions of public enlightenment.

31 2.1 Problems With The Project Now that I have provided an outline of the conditions of public enlightenment as understood by Enlightenment era intellectuals, let us turn our attention towards a pair of problems that arise from a closer analysis of their arguments. In doing this I will use the work of Jean-François Lyotard, Jürgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault.

There are two interrelated issues I want to address: one pertaining to the use of reason without the “guidance” of “any authority”, and the other dealing with the role of interpretation and “language games” (Foucault, pp. 37-38; Kant, pp.

58-59; Lyotard, ‘The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge’, pp. 9-10). To begin with, one of the conditions Kant thinks is key for our individual enlightenment, the capacity for self-directed thought and reason, that is, the “courage” to move beyond the “guidance” of intellectual and moral authorities, seems to lead towards something of a discrepancy (Foucault, pp. 37-38; Kant, pp. 58-59).

Let me explain: we cannot be expected to have the capabilities of autodidactic polymaths, mastering mountains of intellectual fields off the back of our own intellect and self-direction; we are forgetful beings limited by circumstance and physiology, only able to learn and retain so much during our brief existence (Reinhold, p. 66). We, those ordinary members of the public, lacking superhuman intellect or unfathomable wealth, require the assistance of an intellectual community so to gain an insight and understanding in those areas we lack experience or expertise. And this is not because we lack the rational capacities to become enlightened by way of our own intellectual independence, but rather because of the necessity of interpretation and dissemination of scholarly material to provide us with the resources for our own rational assessment. And so, even under our own self-direction we must, in some sense, rely on the guidance of those who know better than us, leaning upon their expertise so to become capable of self-reflection on fields outside of our immediate knowledge and experience.

And this is where authority creeps back into picture: educators, researchers, and academic interpreters all need to be invested with some form of institutional authority to be qualified for the positions they hold, and to participate in the types of “language games” necessary for academic discourse; this works to provide the public a

guarantee of integrity and expertise, in short, an assurance of quality and legitimacy (Lyotard, pp.

9-10, 17). As the “operator” of a “nodal point” or “channel” of communication, that is, as a participant of an academic “language game” essential for our enlightenment, these intellectual authority figures guide not only the passage of knowledge and information, but subsequently guide us, the public, towards our own understanding, and this is a form of authority that we cannot dispense with if we seek collective enlightenment (Lyotard, pp.

9-10, 17; Reinhold, p. 69).

However, this tension between authority and independence might be the result of an overly strict interpretation of Kant’s arguments; as I mentioned earlier, Reinhold seems content shifting the burdens of expertise and explanation onto the shoulders of a society’s intellectual authorities, and Habermas also seems to be an advocate for the role of expert interpretation and critique, describing it as a “productive supplement” which is “part of the process” for the adequate provision of particular forms of discourse (Habermas, ‘Modernity: An Unfinished Project’, pp. 45, 48, 51). And so, perhaps the Kantian position is not so much a suggestion that we should come to know all things for ourselves, avoiding the work of experts and commentators in fear of tainting the self-direction of our reason, but instead a comment on the need to internalize academic materials in such a way that we do not have to rely on the guidance and authority of experts.

And the resolution of this tension seems to reinforce the bridge between the thoughts of Kant and Reinhold about the conditions of enlightenment, as it would mean that we could partake of the products of an intellectual community, accepting their authority and guidance in the production and dissemination of the scholarly discourse necessary for public enlightenment, while also being assured of the moral and intellectual independence required for our personal enlightenment. And so, while they might have placed the emphasis of their arguments on different spheres of society, on the public as individuals and on the scholars as authority figures, Reinhold and Kant’s arguments about the conditions of public and personal enlightenment end up overlapping. Having said that, we cannot leave enlightenment as the “concern of experts” alone (Habermas, p. 45). The institution of education still has a responsibility to provide the intellectual skills necessary for public engagement

32 in intellectual and moral matters, skills that also facilitate the development of self-directed reason.

As Habermas warns: the concepts and ideas found in scholarly discourse “do not automatically come into the possession of everyday practice”, there must be a dialogue between the various spheres of society, between the public and the scholar in this case, otherwise we risk increasing “distance between these expert cultures and the public”, which would impede the project of enlightenment (p. 45).

And so the provision of interpretation and critique of scholarly materials seems to be as important as the dissemination of that material itself, providing “bridges of communication” between the scholar and society, improving the possibility of a practical and public implementation of scholarly thought, while also working to increase the influence and visibility of the scholars themselves (Reinhold, pp.

66, 68).

The social institutions that provide public education, academic discourse, and scholarly interpretation are the products of a society in possession of a sizable intellectual community, and each of these seem to be necessary conditions for our individual and collective enlightenment, affording us the abilities and resources we need for our moral and intellectual development. However, I do not think they are sufficient enough to ensure a genuinely public enlightenment; a myriad of existential circumstances might intervene upon a person’s ability to engage with these institutions, such as poverty, disability, discrimination, or a lack of time or inclination, and this would effect how widely and thoroughly enlightenment might spread and take root within a society. In order to pursue a public enlightenment that includes the whole of the public, not merely those members who possess the right forms of social privilege, I think the institutions that govern the distribution of social welfare, working to counter the effects of social disadvantage, should also be considered among the conditions necessary for our journey towards enlightenment. And while I have not offered any argument as to why we might want to foster the moral and intellectual development of society in the first place, in essence, why we should support the project of public enlightenment, I think it should be obvious by now that I believe the pursuit of such personal and collective development speaks for itself.

References: Buchan, B 2008 ‘The Empire of Political Thought:

Indigenous Australians and the Language of

Colonial Government’, Chp. ‘Savagery,

Civilization, and Political Thought’, Pub.

London: Pickering & Chatto, 17-52.

Condorcet, M 1996 ‘Sketch for a Historical Picture

of the Progress of the Human Mind’, ‘The

Portable Enlightenment Reader’, Pub. Pen

guin Books, pp. 26-38.

Foucault, M 1984 ‘What is Enlightenment?’, The Foucault Reader, Ed. Paul Rabinow, Pub. New York:

Pantheon, pp. 32-50.

Habermas, J 1997 ‘Modernity: An Unfinished Proj

ect’, Pub. Cambridge MA; MIT, 38-54.

Kant, I 1996 ‘An Answer to the Question: What is

Enlightenment?’, ‘What is Enlightenment?’,

Pub. University of California Press, pp. 58- 64.

Lyotard, J F 1979 ‘The Postmodern Condition: A

Report on Knowledge’, Pub. Manchester

University Press, pp. 9-18.

Mills, C 2002 ‘Defending the Radical Enlighten

ment’, Pub. Social Philosophy Today, Vol.

18, pp. 9-29.

Reinhold, K 1996 ‘Thoughts on Enlightenment’,

‘What is Enlightenment?’, Pub. University

of California Press, pp. 65-77.

Locke on Religious Toleration Mia Carey: BFA Photography BA Philosophy (in progress) UNSW

1. Introduction

advantage of, he has the right to administer justice against the perpetrator. The motivation for man to John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration consent to a state structure rather than endure the (1689) confronted the ramifications of binding growing instability of the state of nature is that the the church and the state after King James II’s political state is responsible for the protection of attempt to achieve unchecked power in England. his individual rights for property. In order to enter This period in political history inevitably threatthe contract, however, he must accede his natural ened the liberty of the individual in the state. This right to persecute others when he has been agwork, in refining the roles of religion and the state, grieved. highlights how religious toleration would be more Locke identifies a limited political power successful in respecting the natural rights of man, to be only concerned with the maintenance of civil than a state in which religion is forced onto the liberties such as property rights and law enforcecommonwealth. I will argue that although Locke’s ment, “making laws with penalties… regulating appraisal of limited government may allow for and preserving property… employing the force of religious freedom in a limited sense, his concepthe community in the execution of such laws… tion of man’s natural qualities is problematic for the defence of the commonwealth from foreign his understanding of toleration. In this essay, I will injury… for the public good” (p.2). The basis of firstly explicate Locke’s account of the individuthe magistrate and its jurisdiction over the comal, the role of the government and the function of monwealth, hence, is inaugurated by the consent the church. Secondly, I shall examine the kind of of the individual to enter a contract in which the organised beliefs Locke sees as fit for civil tolerstate is responsible for the protection of individation. Finally, I will pose an objection to Locke’s uals’ property, entailing their own self preservaaccount of the atheism in relation to his definition tion. As a consequence of his view of the nature of the individual. of individuals, Locke suggests that a government with restricted power over the individuals is able 2. The individual, limited government and the to better uphold the contract for the public good. church Unimpeded power of an absolute state subdues the civil liberty of the individual and their rights.

Locke suggests that religious toleration is observed The structure of the magistrate which Locke takes by a government in which the power to make deto be compatible with religious freedom is not an cisions over the commonwealth is limited. In this absolutist state structure, but rather one which has section, I will provide an outline of the nature of limited power. Locke does not contest monarchy as man in a pre-political condition as described in his a form of state, he does, however, contest a power work The Second Treatise of Government (1689). I which is unchecked. shall, in addition, explore Locke’s ideas pertaining For Locke the role of religion is something to the function of the church and the state as ones which pertains to the relationship of the individuthat are limited and highlight their divergent func- al and God, rather than being enforced through a tions in A Letter Concerning Toleration. systematic structure. Individuals will only engage

Locke ascribes man fairly liberal qualities. with the ‘true church’ when they intend to find He highlights how man in a pre-political society, salvation as the individual can come to religious that is, the state of nature, is sociable, equal and belief through their own reason. By establishing an independent, “wherein all the power and jurisdicindividual connection to God, Locke remains contion is reciprocal, no one having more than anoth- sistent with his liberal delineation of man over his er” (p.2). Locke identifies man’s body to be the two texts, suggesting that the church is principally property of God and any violation that is made by concerned with the salvation of souls on a volunhimself or others is considered to be trespassing tary basis. Locke writes for toleration in opposition on this property. When the law of nature is threat- to religious persecution. Locke, hence, outlines the ened and man’s liberty, life and property is taken church as something which entails the consent of

33

34 the individual. As the individual is not characterised as religion upon birth, but rather participating through their own consent. He argues that there is no legitimate obligation for the individual to follow the church and engage with their orthodox practices unless they have come to believe that their soul is in need of salvation.

2.1 The nature of religion as separate from the state

identifying them with several positions disqualifying them from toleration: their loyalty to the pope, their failure to embrace toleration, and their civic unreliability” (p.250). This point, however, does not extend to Locke’s rejection of atheists.

For atheists, Locke argues that the bonds that are used to comply with civil society are not validated by a higher being and, subsequently, atheists are not deemed to be fit for societal toleration, “Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an Having outlined Locke’s conception of the nature atheist.” (p.145). I argue that this is problematic of man, the function of the state and the church, in two key respects. Firstly, it is in tension with we are in a position to explore his position on the Locke’s conception of human beings as being toleration of belief. Following this, I will argue sociable and equitable and in pursuit of self-preserthat Locke’s conception of human beings as being vation. As Locke himself points out the purpose of sociable and equitable is in tension with his rejec- the state is to protect property rights of the individtion of atheism. ual and since by nature man pursues self-preserva As briefly outlined in the previous section, tion, his interests are in line with that of the state Locke suggests that each individual is orthodox regardless of religious belief. A rational atheist is, to their own religion and, if they were under the hence, no more likely to violate societal values vehement jurisdiction of absolutist sovereign, there than a devout theist. Secondly, I follow Warden (as would be an infringement of their natural rights. cited in Tate, 2009) in arguing that the primary reaIn light of Locke’s understanding, an absolute son for Locke’s concern with religious toleration state would additionally destroy the foundation of is that it is the means to achieve the end of conorganised religion, “If he did so, he would destroy vincing more individuals to find salvation, rather the church itself: the end of the institution is only than the maintenance of their civil rights. It may to worship God with freedom after its own manbe argued that Locke focuses on the toleration of ner.” (p.135). It is, hence, manifestly evident that divergent religions as a strategy to achieve a higher because of Locke’s conception of religion as ultireligious intake, as such their oaths are no more of mately a personal exercise, that involves coming to genuine value than that of those who reject theism. accept the truth of God through reason, it has to be separate from the state.

3. Conclusion

Locke argues for the toleration of a multitude of religious beliefs, such as the sects of For Locke political power ought to be limited Christianity, Judaism, Islam and pagans as there to the maintenance of civil liberties. The role of are tensions at play with the foundations of being religion is emphasised at the level of the individual a good theist and forcing beliefs upon another and their relationship to God. He argues that there through unjust persecution. Locke, however, puts ought to be toleration of multiple religious beliefs forward objections for the toleration of Catholias state mandated religion is inconsistent with the cism and non-theists by the magistrate. Catholtheistic virtue of coming to know the truth of God icism is a religion which does not appear on the through reason. Locke excludes Catholics for a list as tolerable despite it being a denomination of confliction of civil interests because of their obediChristianity. Catholicism is omitted because it is ence to the rule of the sovereign pope. He, furtheralready grounded in a hierarchical structure and more, excludes atheists arguing that as they do not thus impedes the magistrate’s governance and, answer to a higher power, their oaths cannot be hence, would not be compatible with the practice trusted, and as such they are not fit for participaof other religions. Lorenzo (2003) following this tion in civil society. As I have argued, the omission rejection of Catholicism, argues that the Catholic’s of atheists from toleration is problematic for two loyalty to the pope, being a religious sovereign reasons. Firstly, his focus on toleration rather than power, is in tension with an individual’s loyalty to being a plea for equanimity, can be more accuratethe state, “He treated Catholics at greater length, ly characterised as a strategy to achieve a higher

35 religious intake and, secondly, it is out of step with his view of human beings. This last point seems especially prescient given the lingering reputation of atheists as immoral and destructive.

References: Locke, J. (2002). A Letter Concerning Toleration,

1689 (T. Crawford Ed. 3 ed.). Mineola,

New York: Dover Publications.

Locke, J. (2002). The Second Treatise of Govern

ment, 1689 (T. Crawford Ed. 3 ed.). Mineo

la, New York: Dover Publications.

Lorenzo, D. J. (2003). Tradition and Prudence in

Lockeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Exceptions to Toleration. Ameri

can Journal of Political Science, 47(2),

248-258.

Tate, J. W. (2009). Locke and toleration. Philoso

phy & Social Criticism, 35(7), 761-791.

36

The Plight of Reason: Kierkegaard and the Whirlwind of Faith Liam Johnson: BA Philosophy (in progress) MQ

Søren Kierkegaard (d. 1855) may be the most enigmatic figure in all of recent philosophical history.

Over the course of his relatively brief life he produced fifteen full length treatises as well as countless fragments ranging from philosophy, theology, poetry, literary criticism and edifying discourses to what could be considered the first speculative excursion into the field of psychology. Despite his eccentric habit of writing under pseudonyms, thereby implicitly disowning any opinions expressed therein, Kierkegaard’s personal metaphysic is difficult to pin down. Nevertheless, toward the end of his writing career Kierkegaard wrote what could be regarded as a summation of his major theses, in a work entitled Concluding Unscientific Postscript.

In the spirit of its title, the book hops erratically from an analysis and critique of empiricism and religion, to a chapter devoted to the praise of German playwright Gotthold Lessing, to a treatment of the existential implications of subjectivity. The underpinning thread of the whole book (and of S. K.’s whole corpus) can be summarised in a remark of Kierkegaard’s own: “[Truth is] an objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation-process of the most passionate inwardness.” In a broad sense Kierkegaard’s whole philosophical mission is to reintroduce people to themselves, their soul, the person with whom they are enjoined their whole lives. He proclaims this pursuit of ‘inwardness’ to be “the highest truth attainable for the individual” (Kierkegaard, 2009).

I will argue that Kierkegaard, contrary to the opinion of his detractors, was not advocating an irrationalism or total moral relativism, but was offering a much needed correction to a religio-social epistemic framework that was dead in the water; such a framework, which encompasses both a partiality toward scientific knowledge as well as natural theology, renders the existence of the individual a triviality (Solomon, 1977). On the other hand I will argue that Kierkegaard’s method of ‘indirect communication’ was a poor means by which to convey a crucial point, and that he was irresponsible in not being clearer.

By the time of Kierkegaard’s birth in 1813, Christianity in Europe was in its death throes. The Enlightenment and all its accompanying scientific advances had not shone well on what was regarded as the stultifying effects of Christianity on the free pursuit of knowledge. Philosophers like Hegel and Kant, moved by a sort of institutional nostalgia, sought to reconcile the discoveries of science with the perceived philistinism of religious dogma.

Kant believed that one could be nothing but agnostic about true religious ‘knowledge’. Phenomenologically, however, Kant believed that if one was to be a responsible moral agent, one had to subscribe to certain a priori assumption about the nature of existence, including the potential existence of a First Cause of all subsequent causes. It was a categorical imperative that one should obey the injunction to love thy neighbour, or to feed the poor, or visit the prisoner. It was a matter of indifference whether these actions provided one with a sense of fulfillment or accomplishment; in fact, the moral value of such acts were to be derogated in proportion to the extent to which one sought to fulfill these ends. Much like Hegel, Kant’s philosophy had duty -- not passion -- at its heart. It was a code of ethics in which one assumed the existence of a deity or Absolute for the sake of social and personal order. Both Hegel and Kant sought to subsume the individual into the totality of the many, thus diminishing the role of the individual in the spiritual life (Soloman, 1977). To make matters worse, academic inquiry into the historicity of the Christian gospels was at its peak, with an avalanche of illuminating critical scholarship pouring out of German universities providing fresh perspectives on the origins of the Bible. Many of the theses of German scholars were threatening an orthodox interpretation of the Christian scriptures.

In reaction to these troubling developments, Christian apologists sought to combat the critics on their home turf and developed historical and speculative arguments in defence of the Church. Such was the pitiable condition of the religious life of Christian Europe in the early 19th century; one which had

37 leached of its vitality and personality for the sake of objectivity, and which so horrified Kierkegaard when finally he picked up his quill.

Kierkegaard’s primary criticism in Postscript hinges on the idea that a ‘complete system’ of the world, such as the Sittlichkeit (social duties) of Hegel and the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant, will always be deficient by virtue of an inherently overwrought epistemic ambition. Joseph Rouse illustrates the problem as such: “A system must be universal and eternal for similar reasons; if there were possible alternative systems, or if the system could change over time, there would have to be a greater context within which the changes or the alternatives could themselves be situated. A system must be the context of all contexts.” Kierkegaard believed that contemporary interest in the historicity of the Bible in order to confirm or disconfirm its validity as a piece of divinely inspired writing was to miss the point: the fact of the matter, according to Kierkegaard, is that religion does not contradict reason so much as confound it utterly through paradox. Kierkegaard begs us consider the incarnation, which is the central Christian paradox: the fullness of God and fullness of man united in one human individual, who, now a baby in a manger, now a young man, now an ascetic rabbi, is the divine logos familiar to Plato and the Greeks. This fact of Christian doctrine, observes Kierkegaard, cannot be reasoned historically or scientifically, but must be accepted and relished on the basis of faith. The traditional reasoning of the Church was, in Kierkegaard’s mind, quite insufficient for the cultivation of radical religious faith in the life of the individual.

In his Introduction to the Postscript, Kierkegaard delineates two categories of truth, that is:

1)

Historical truth: a critical consider ation of various reports.

2)

Philosophical truth: a critical con sideration of doctrine as it relates to pre-established eternal truths.

Though it may seem somewhat intuitive for one’s philosophical framework to be derived from an established historical framework (e.g. Hegel), Kierkegaard denies prima facie that such a thing as ‘established historical truth’ even exists. In order to live spiritedly in the world, one must “appropriate”

a given set of historical claims subjectively, without consideration of its objective merit, and without mind of any discoveries further down the track.

This approach to religious faith stands in stark contrast with many defenders of orthodox Christianity even today, who, when challenged, point perfunctorily to the historical merit of the New Testament accounts. Avid evidentialists point to the preservation of key texts in the ecclesiastical tradition, the existence and univocality of early church creeds and their corroboration with a wide variety of manuscripts. Though superficially compelling, this reasoning for the merit of the Bible, says Kierkegaard, is wanting. Kierkegaard gives the analogy of a tunneling project, in which all of the time and money and resources of the government are invested. It is a project that has taken many man hours to progress to the point it has, but that this progress, given its costs, is slight.

Not only this, but at the sign of a single obstacle, operations can be halted for months, or years.

Though this analogy illustrates an aspect of the problem, that is, the almost Sisyphean sluggishness of academia to reach any sort of consensus regarding anything important, it also draws attention to the fact that the human lifespan is simply too short a time for an individual to decide anything but the way he will act in the world. While the scholars and critics are bickering, Kierkegaard asks, how, in the meantime, is the ordinary man to act? Kierkegaard presents the problem as such: “Have an individual appear; have him with infinite, personal interest impassionately want to attach his eternal happiness to this result, to the expected result -he will easily see that there is no result, and none to expect, and the contradiction will bring him to despair…” (Kierkegaard, 2009, p. 182). Thus an investigation of the historical merit of scripture is simply not an avenue of fruitful enquiry, as no investigation will turn out any satisfactory conclusion, at least not in the space of one lifetime. The avid truth-seeker will here uncover nothing but an “approximation” on which to found his rickety belief.

It is almost impossible to read Kierkegaard without having some gripe or other with him. In light of the seismic, if delayed, impact his work has had, especially on 20th century thought (Brown, 1969), it is no surprise that Kierkegaard’s detractors are many times more numerous today than they were when first he published. Kierkegaard’s flamboyant, broad-stroke and occasionally

38 occasionally contradictory prose style means that two readers can often come away with opposing interpretations of what he is driving at, not least because Kierkegaard is oftentimes deliberately obscure, in order to incite the reader to a more active readership. For instance, in light of the above, one could reasonably conclude that Kierkegaard’s own opinion of religious belief was that it was thoroughly irrational, but that nevertheless, by some demented act of the will, one should embrace the absurdity of Christian dogma and live life in a state of passionate uncertainty, paying no mind to any systematic argumentation either for or against the faith, all the while somehow harbouring a deep unrest about the sincerity and security of one’s own salvation. This would be a reasonable interpretation; it is, theoretically, also wrong.

Note here that Kierkegaard does not relegate any and all hypothetical systems to the dustbin. Anticipating this accusation of irrationalism, he remarks: “Does this mean that no such system exists? By no means; nor is this implied in our assertion. Reality itself is a system-for God; but it cannot be a system for any existing spirit.”

(Brown, 1969). Kierkegaard does not deny the potential, even probable, existence of a coherent system of belief, he merely declares that no human being could comprehend it, let alone construct a workable model himself. For this reason Kierkegaard ridicules Hegel, whom he believes is guilty of what he would probably deem blasphemous ambitions to ‘play God’. Kierkegaard demonstrates his rationale by comparing Hegel -- of whom, of all the idealists, he is particularly critical -- to a “passenger in a carriage holding onto the seat in front of him in order to stop the carriage: he determines himself in continuity with the age, and yet he wishes to hold it in check. No, the only thing to do is to get out of the carriage, and so hold oneself in check.” Thus Kierkegaard’s intense dislike of systematic philosophy -- as well as his intense interest in the individual -- comes to the fore. Kierkegaard insists on an a priori subjective commitment to an eternal truth, a “truth which is true for me… A truth by which I can live and die.”

Alas, even given a keen defence, Kierkegaard’s metaphysic (or anti-metaphysic) undoubtedly comes up short in some key respects. For all his sound and fury, as one commentator observed, when Kierkegaard is at his most bombastic his argument is usually at its weakest. For instance, in the Postscript Kierkegaard gives his most infa-

mous declaration that “truth is subjectivity”. This statement is self-evidently problematic in the sense that it is plainly self-refuting. If truth is a matter of subjectivity then what impetus is there for me to accept this statement as true? And why, therefore, should I obey it? Why believe anything Kierkegaard henceforth proffers as a ‘true assessment’?

J. L. Austin speculates that because a thinker of Kierkegaard’s calibre would have surely noticed such a blatant fallacy in his thinking, that his meaning must have been deeper than a cursory analysis would indicate. Austin differentiates between what he calls the ‘constative’ or ‘descriptive’ aspects of truth and the ‘speech act’ or ‘performative’ aspects of truth. The descriptive aspect is defined as “thoughts without a thinker”, facts of the world in which the state of the thinker is a matter of indifference (Austin, 1962). By contrast, the performative aspect is defined as the success of the individual in carrying out particular actions. Austin gives the example of a marriage, the confines of which are, on one level, defined by legalities -- documentation, prenuptial agreements, witness testimony and the like -- but which, on another level, are defined by the decision of the bridegroom and bride. Robert Solomon puts it this way, “Getting married is not coming to know or describe anything new about oneself or one’s situation; it is doing something. What makes marriage “subjective” is that it involves a doing — a commitment.” (Soloman, 1977). Yes, indeed.

And this commitment is act of perpetuity in which the individual perpetually recommits himself to a vow already made. A vow written down on paper may be ‘true’ in the sense that it is a real, tangible object with words that can be read and understood, but thereafter the onus is on the individual to fulfill -- or stay ‘true’ to -- the obligations therein. By this reasoning “subjective truth” does not claim to state a truth about the world, but to state a truth about the disposition of an individual. Its truth is not binary, but qualitative. Truth in Kierkegaard’s way of using the word is of practical, ethical significance, and this notion fits snugly within his framework of “infinite passionate inwardness”, which manifests itself in acts of faith. Rather it is in the human individual that objective truth is granted its definition. This squares well with orthodox Christology, which maintains that Christ is the paradigmatic man as well as the perfect image of God, and is therefore the perfect propitiatory sacrifice for sins.

In spite of this nimble distinction I do not

39 I do not believe Kierkegaard is excused with regard to his ethic of belief. Alister McIntyre rebuts, “If I refuse to produce arguments, on the grounds that there can be neither argument nor criteria in such a case, then I appear committed to the view that any view embraced with sufficient subjective passion is as warranted as any other” (as cited in Soloman, 1977). If an individual is already committed to a view, and thus he is shut off to any reasoning with regards to his foundational beliefs, no matter how “authentic” his conduct in the world is, one still faces the problem of fanaticism and irrationalism, even if one’s own closely held beliefs are rational and liberal. It would be interesting indeed to see Kierkegaard attempt to dissuade an Islamic extremist from dynamiting himself at a football game or an Ariana Grande concert. If the extremist is already resolved, through a process of personal, passion, inward appropriation of the more severe injunctions of Mohammed in the Qu’ran, to destroy the lives of those around him, then who is Kierkegaard to tell him otherwise? And, if Kierkegaard were then to resort to historico-critical analysis of the Qu’ran in order to destroy its reliability, Kierkegaard himself would be guilty of hypocrisy. His only recourse would be to plead the merits of Christ and perhaps put on an affected voice and recite the biblical injunction to “love thine enemy”. And what of Abraham, who, by the command of an invisible God, was prepared to sacrifice his son on an altar, with the ludicrous expectation that this same God would resurrect him from the dead? Would we not today call such a man demented and in need of psychological counsel? In his treatment of this topic in Fear & Trembling Johannes Anti-Climacus has no response but to marvel in awe at this Abraham, whom he proclaims the preeminent “knight of faith”. Nothing in Kierkegaard’s dialectical process of appropriation seems to solve this very troubling problem.

In a way Kierkegaard’s intractability as a thinker is precisely what makes him such an interesting subject of study. Perhaps what makes him so intriguing to the God-fearer and so infuriating to the irreligious is his insistence on faith as being the prerequisite for proper understanding of the self and the world. In St Augustine’s words, the Christian life is “faith seeking understanding”, a position only made sensible if one already has a prior existential commitment to faith, but baffling to all others. One must believe on the power of the absurd that one will receive back the slain son,

if only because he hopes and is not perturbed by reason. Søren Kierkegaard is a fascinating person in his own right, and his philosophy reflects in its author a rich and nuanced understanding of life and the human spirit.

Kierkegaard’s preoccupation with the individual’s relationship to God moved Heidegger to dismiss Kierkegaard as merely a “religious writer”, and in a way, Kierkegaard’s philosophical speculations are only a means by which to reach a thoroughly religious and yet thoroughly individualistic end; a sort of “theology of authenticity”.

For prising man out of the existential deadlock of modernity Kierkegaard should be praised. Though it can be said with surety that his allegiances are with Christianity, unfortunately it is sometimes the case that in his violent rhetorical defibrillations of Christendom, Kierkegaard’s often hyperbolic style does little to lend credence to his case, and misrepresents him more than he deserves. On the other hand, Kierkegaard’s reinstatement of the individual in the search for truth has ramifications for social ethics, which Kierkegaard, to all appearances, fails to address. It is well known that Kierkegaard admired Socrates, and that he sought to model his career in step with his master. If this is the case, then -- much like Socrates -- Kierkegaard is a spirit of negation; one sent not to produce a solution to the problem of pure objectivity, but rather to induce apropia in his audience, to upset the conceptual foundations of objective, empirically verifiable ‘facticity’ that had nestled itself too comfortably into the subconscious of his hearers, and which has thereby robbed them of uncertainty and passion.

Kierkegaard once described his philosophy as a ‘corrective’ to a system of belief he regarded as fundamentally sound, as “just a bit of cinnamon”; that is, a sort of seasoning which transforms a bland broth into an aromatic soup. Nevertheless, as one critic has remarked, “As a corrective to something else, cinnamon can be pleasant. But you cannot live forever on a diet of it.” (Brown, 1969).

References: Adams, R. M. (1977). Kierkegaard’s Arguments

Against Objective Reasoning in

Religion. The Monist, 60(2), 228-243.

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with

Words. Lecture, 4-11. Oxford University Press.

Bartholomew, C. G., & Goheen, M. W. (2013).

40

Christian philosophy: A systematic and

narrative introduction. Baker Academic.

Kierkegaard, S. (2009). Kierkegaard: Concluding

unscientific postscript. Cambridge Univer

sity Press.

Solomon, R. C. (1977). Kierkegaard and. Philoso

phy Today, 21(3), 202-215.

Wood, D. (2014) What Does Not Kill Me Makes

Me Stronger: Why We Still Read Kierkegaard & Nietzscheâ&#x20AC;?. Lecture, Vanderbilt University.

Kant’s Enlightenment and the ‘Alternate Facts’ World Jeremy Amin: BA Philosophy (in progress) MQ

1. Introduction

be expected to know all of the information in the natural and social sciences, let alone the myriad Immanuel Kant’s essay “An Answer to the Quesother spheres of knowledge and experience. This is tion: “What is Enlightenment?” [1784] is both where legitimate authority figures are important as interesting and light shedding on the state of our arbiters of such information. Contrast this attitude ‘alternate-facts’ world. In this essay I will explore to a person who is in “self-incurred immaturity”; a Kant’s idea of the enlightened attitude for an person who relies on sources other than their own individual, the relationship the enlightened perreason and judgement to form beliefs is one who son has with themselves and the world, and the is not yet enlightened. They are unquestioningly possible consequences of abandoning a rigorous dependent on an external authority to tell them approach to such an attitude. I will be drawing on what they ought to think, believe, and do. “I need the activity of White House Press Secretary Sean not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon Spicer and Senior White House aide Kellyanne enough take the tiresome job over for me.”[Kant.

Conway as illustrations of how the deviation from 1784, pp.1] Some sources of external authority Kant’s vision of enlightenment can lead to truth include: science and scientists, religion, politicians and falsity being conflated by figures in authority and political documents, folk wisdom, vulgar & positions. I will use the events of Spicer’s press sophisticated common sense etc. It is important to conference addressing the crowd size at the recent note that the main issue does not lie solely with Trump inauguration, and Conway’s defence of his the nature of the authority, although this is an claims in the press conference as specific examimportant factor for Kant. The main issue is when ples of the susceptibility an unenlightened person a person accepts what an authority figure says as has to being led astray, and of the importance of true merely because they are an authority figure. striving for enlightenment. For the purposes of this To accept what is taught as uncriticised dogma is essay, the content of the press conference will not to delegate thinking to another and thus to place be addressed, but the way it was conducted and oneself into an unenlightened position with regards responded to by defenders of Spicer’s comments, to the dogma in question. in particular Conway.

Kant believed that the only authority which is valid and relevant for an enlightened person 2. Kant on Enlightenment is the authority of reason itself; not reason in the abstract sense, which excludes relevant experience, for this would lead to mere conceptual analysis Enlightenment for Kant is the seizing of self-own- devoid of content. Rather, reason as an integrating ership over one’s reason and by extension one’s process which takes the facts of the world as they life. It is an attitude of radical responsibility over are and as objectively as possible. If this reasonone’s thoughts, beliefs, judgements, actions, habits, ing process leads to sound judgements which the and character. In essence, an enlightened person person claims ownership over, that is the reasoning takes ownership and control of their entire being, of an enlightened person. If a person never comes and can rationally account for their beliefs in the to intellectual maturity as described, they will tend fullest sense of justifying them. This is not to say to be easily swayed by the whims of those who that every single aspect of a belief or attitude is to would take advantage of them. A politician who be accounted for in full, as such a process would acts as a demagogue would be acting on precisebe impossible given the sheer vastness and comly those individuals who have not yet attained an plexity of any given persons web of beliefs and enlightened attitude. Consider also a scientist who their life as a whole. It is, however, to have good appeals to their authority in their select field, say in warrant for any given belief, warrant built upon biology, to then be considered an authority in other valid experience and reason. No single person can fields. Such a biologist commenting on the origins

41

42 of the universe, where a fallacious argument from authority would be committed yet not challenged, would be acting on the assumption that an unenlightened person will not question their authority and thus uncritically take their word to be true.

2.1 Kant’s Enlightenment Attitude and ‘Alternate Facts’ The ‘alternate facts’ movement in the current political sphere is illustrative of what can happen if a people abandon the rigorous, deep reflection of truth and wisdom which enlightenment champions.

If the majority of people do not have an enlightened attitude, the doors to demagogue rule are opened. Such events as when White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated that the crowd size at President Trump’s inauguration was more than the ‘Mainstream Media’ (MSM) made it appear to be.

This particular announcement was immediately preceded by the truthful claim that “Some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting...One was a particularly egregious example in which a reporter falsely tweeted out that the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office. After it was pointed out that this was just plain wrong, the reporter casually reported and tweeted out and tried to claim that a Secret Service agent must have just been standing in front of it. This was irresponsible and reckless.” [Spicer, 2017]. This presentation of two seemingly equally true facts by a figure in authority is precisely what Kant was warning against. The first was demonstrably true, and the second, demonstrably false. To a person who has not cultivated the enlightened attitude, at least in part, the truth of the first correction may lead to an uncritical belief in the truth of the second. Conway’s explanation of Spicer’s remarks as being ‘alternative facts’ further adds to the vague rhetoric used. [Conway, 2017]

An interesting way Kant’s presentation of enlightenment interacts with the ‘alternate facts’ attitude mentioned above is the critique of mere authority as the reason to hold a given set of beliefs.

What happens when the chosen-by-the-people authority itself calls us to question authority? Where does a person turn to become enlightened and thus know which evidence to believe? In criticising the Mainstream Media as a false authority, implying it is one which only an unenlightened person will believe in, Spicer places the current administration

as the reliable source of truth. The importance of Kant’s enlightenment project becomes clear when such a state of affairs is analysed. For Kant this state of affairs would be a good example of why authority must only be accepted in the light of the enlightened attitude. Even if it is said authority who is asking us to become enlightened, this does not permit us to suspend a critical attitude towards them, for this would be against the very point of the attitude in the first place.

2.2 The Enlightened Person The enlightened person is one who is governed by their reason. When presented with a supposed fact, they are able to analyse it with sound judgement and wisdom. In the process of considering an authority legitimate to follow, the necessary precondition for such a person would be the ability to critique said authority. The whole point of delineating enlightenment was to know what enlightenment is, and to make clear the dangers of its contrary. The shift in a person’s mind of an authority figure having a special place of privilege with regards to knowledge, to becoming the only source of knowledge, is what the enlightened person is able to detect and keep in check. If this discerning ability is uncultivated or forgotten, the person’s life becomes no longer their own. The light of reason was for Kant the one source from which a person could escape their self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity as the lack of ownership of their being, from their thoughts to their actions and their character.

Without it they would be merely accepting an authority which, for all they know, could be the least qualified in what they teach. Any other standard would leave them to the whims of opinion, emotion or superstition.

3. Conclusion Kant’s essay cuts to the heart of the enlightened attitude and the issues with its contrary. It foreshadows the enlightened person of the 21st century and sheds light on just which authority is the best one to follow. The authority of reason is for Kant just the kind of authority which we can legitimately submit ourselves to, since it tends to be a self-correcting authority which has as its agenda cultivating enlightened beings free from the trappings of self-deception and propaganda.

43 References: Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question:

â&#x20AC;&#x153;What is Enlightenment?â&#x20AC;? Konigsberg,

Prussia, 30th September, 1784.

Kellyanne Conway denies Trump press sec

retary lied https://www.theguard ian.com/us-news/video/2017/jan/22/kel lyanne-conway-trump-press-sec retary-alternative-facts-video Sean Spicer Press Conference Addressing Inau

guration Crowd Size - https://www.you

tube.com/watch?v=amz62uUYPeo

The Phantom Centrality of Work in the Information Revolution; a Hegelian Perspective Nikita Podlasov: BA Philosophy (in progress) UNSW

1. Introduction

a good life. As it is through socially meaningful work that one is recognised by society and beWithin this essay, I will examine what the effects comes an integrated part of the whole. of the information revolution mean for the role of

All well and good in Hegel’s time and work in Hegel’s Civil Society. First, I will examine for most of the 20th century, but just as he found modern perspectives of work in Hegel, particularly himself amidst an industrial revolution, we find those of Jean Philippe-Deranty and Hans-Chrisourselves now going through a qualitatively differtoph Schmidt am Busch. Next I will show why ent info-tech revolution. What this means, is that their conception of work is lacking by presenting the nature of work, the working class, and identity a brief history of the working class, the changing have fundamentally changed. nature of work in modern society, and the effects

of the information revolution. I will end the essay 2.1 The Sublated Working Class on why Universal Basic Income is the only way out of the malaise and what Hegel’s Civil Society In 1982 Andre Gorz published ‘Farewell to the will look like.

Working Class’ where he claimed that the proletariat’s role as an agent of world change has disap2. Contemporary Hegelianism and Work peared and the battlegrounds have shifted beyond the work sphere. To understand this claim one only In ‘Work, Recognition and the Social Bond’, Jean needs to examine how different the working class Philippe-Deranty and Nicholas H. Smith examine was before 1945 when compared to the 70s and the role of work within different paradigms of 80s when neoliberal policies, focused on policies post-Hegelian thought. From the prime focus on such as privatization, deregulation, and union-bustwork within the initial ‘Productivity’ paradigm to ing were first put into action. To understand where the complete lack of focus in the subsequent ‘linwe are now, however, will require us to look at the guistic’ paradigm; they claim that within the new effects of those policies against the backdrop of an paradigm of ‘recognition’, based on Axel Honinfo-tech revolution. neth’s theory, there needs to be a renewed focus on The ‘common proletariat way of life’ and “work as a locus of recognition, [and] misrecogni- its physical geography were decisive to class contion” (Smith, 2011, p. 3). sciousness before 1945. Solidarity was preserved

Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch focuses within generations and conveyed implicitly in the on the role of bourgeois honour within civil socicultural mesh and framework of the families. It ety finding a place for work within the recognition was formed from experience and centred in geoparadigm. What constitutes someone possessing graphic clusters of working-class towns. One’s this honour is that one “has made himself belong job was inherited through family and geographic to one of the ‘moments of bourgeois society’… connections, growing up in a cotton-weaving town earned skills and qualification whose application in would imply that your future was going to be in the work world is of use to society… who does not the cotton-weaving industry. (Mason 2015, pg. receive goods from society without producing…

202) [and] is recognized by members of society with

The ‘levers of solidarity and struggle’ had regards to the above points” (Schmidt am Busch lost all effect on workers in the 70s. With the rise 2011, pg. 76). It is then in the interest of the indiof neoliberalism, the notion of a united proletariat vidual to participate in the social process of prowas finally smashed. The elections of Reagan and duction. Work is not something that the individual Thatcher were symptomatic of working-class conwants to minimise but rather is integral to living servatism.

44

45 No longer could capitalism exist alongside organised labour and so, through the policies of offshoring, de-industrialisation, and anti-union laws and actions, its power as a global agent was diminished (Mason 2015, pg. 207). The working class sublates, surviving and having undergone serious transformation.

In his essay ‘WTF is Eleni Haifa’ Paul Mason outlines what a fictional character in our social-media époque should look like. Virginia Woolf claimed that “on or about December 1910 human character changed” and sometime during the 2000s, due to the combined effect of technology, economic downturn, and freedom, Paul Mason claims that it has changed once more (Mason 2014). Although primarily focused on how to depict modern-day individuals within works of storytelling, he nonetheless provides a clear outline of how those individuals think and communicate and how that moulds a version (or versions) of themselves.

Mason notes some key characteristics symbolic of the ‘networked’ individual. First, the idea of a multiple self that “we present clearly defined versions of ourselves in different digital arena” (Mason 2014). Which is to say, we no longer define ourselves as a barista or a writer, rather, we can be the McDonalds employee, a Dr. Who fan-fic writer, or a professional e-sports player depending on our environment and our choice. When we choose one of these selves to represent us, the others do not disappear, but reconfigure around us.

The second key idea, is the branded self, with “people maintaining a carefully constructed version of the self, aimed at the two most essential things in life: getting a partner and getting a job” (Mason 2014). The newly allowed anonymity allows one to put certain ‘selves’ in the spotlight while hiding the others. The self that is shown on social media is constructed with purpose, although not necessarily consciously and almost always offers a single facet of the self (think of both the anonymity within online communities but also the ability for a close level of interaction). Mason’s key point is that although the idea of the multiple self is in no way novel, the networked individual has “a publicly multi-identity lifestyle on a scale… impossible one generation ago” (Mason 2014).

Although it is difficult to imagine that the working class in African countries has time to play online video-games, one might look at the explosion of social media in China and East Asia

to see that the number of networked individuals is growing. What marks this info-tech revolution as different from the industrial, is in the ability of information (something with zero-marginal cost) to empower individuals.

The modern day working class is marked by several features. First, there is a great demand placed on the ability to reinvent, realign, and relearn within the work environment (Mason, 2015, p. 207). Most of this peripheral work is abstract and largely automated, requiring the worker to adhere to a strict time schedule or worse, submit emotional and mental behaviour to discipline.

Second, the line between work and leisure has become blurred; the modern-day worker is constantly available in the work network (through mobile-phones), and is “paid, effectively, to exist, to contribute your ideas to your firm and to meet targets” (Mason, 2015, p. 209).

Finally, today the worker experiences geographic displacement to a greater degree. Originally, long commutes from suburbs, whose culture is either non-existing or bears no relation to work, required people to recreate physical communities in gyms, bowling alleys, etc. With information technology, more and more community-building has shifted online moving to forums, social networks, and other online groups (Mason, 2015, p.

209).

In summing up the differences, Mason claims that “The worker of the Keynesian era had a single character… The networked individual creates a more complex reality: s/he lives parallel lives at work, in numerous fragmentary subcultures and online.” (Mason 2015, pg. 210) But there is more to be said on the working class.

In 2013, a study by Oxford Martin showed that around 47% of US employment is under risk of automation (Frey, 2013). Two things deserve to be said of this. Firstly, the amount of employment at risk is staggering and cannot be treated as an incident of “contingent physical factors and circumstances based on external conditions” (§241), more on why later. Secondly, a large amount of current jobs, so called ‘bullshit jobs’, are not required due to current automation (Consider the checkout workers at McDonalds or Woolworths when there are already automated ordering machines available). These jobs have no socially significant impact and are phantom remnants of a society with work as its centre.

46 2.2 Hegel without Work.

society one must belong to, so in this regard, it can be considered neutral.

Armed with an understanding of the current work- Following this, my argument is that UBI ing class looks like, we can return to the role that is the only route that civil society could rationalwork has in Hegel’s Civil Society and revaluate its ly take. The task of police and corporations is to necessity. secure “the livelihood of and welfare of individ During the industrial revolution there was uals… particular welfare should be treated as a an increase in the division of labour and Hegel right and duty actualized.” (§230). Presented with had done well to comprehend it. According to a crisis of potential mass unemployment and the Knowles, he speaks of the division of labour in proliferation of socially meaningless work, it is in two regards, “it increases production through the the hands of the police and corporations to ensure honing of specialized skills… thus increases the welfare of its members. Although operating in dependency of workers on each other”, while accordance to the free market structures that Hegel on the other hand “[he] appears sanguine about saw emerging with the industrial revolution, we this: ‘the human being is eventually able to step must consider what a sublated police and corpoaside and let a machine take his place’ (§198)” ration would look like after experiencing the info (Knowles, 2002, p. 269). So, Hegel both anticipat- revolution. ed the extreme alienation and misery that entailed The police, whose role is in managing “the life in the modern factory, but equally so, he aninfrastructural tasks necessary for the effective opticipated the liberating power of automation. What eration of the economy” (Knowles, 2002, p. 285) he could not anticipate was the need for a new have, to Knowles dismay, “no objective boundary economic system and rightly so, as he was writing line” (§243A) on the scope of their action. It is in during the time when capitalism was beginning this limitless power that a route to UBI, and seemto take its first steps. What would Hegel’s civil ingly out of the confines of Hegel’s free market society look like when the human can step aside? economy, is laid. In fact, one could claim it is the It would’ve been impossible to imagine in his time genius of Hegel that there is no boundary on their and still difficult now, but for inspiration we once action, allowing them to adjust economic condiagain turn to Andre Gorz. tions to the necessities of time.

Influenced by Marx’s ‘Grundrisse’ (written One might object and say that the path to before ‘Kapital’, unpublished until 1939), Gorz UBI is not guaranteed and any of the victims of auargued for the need to embrace the liberating tomation deserve to be treated as victims of “conpotential of the increasing automation in factories tingent physical factors and circumstances based and services as a central tenant of the socialist on external conditions” (§241). The first reason project. Later, he argued for the need of a guaranwhy this is not the case is that such a claim would teed basic income; “[in] contrast to the guaranteed be ignoring the structural economic changes that social minimum… our regular monthly income the info revolution is bringing about; it would have will be the normal remuneration we have earned been pithy for Hegel to have applied a feudalistic by performing the normal amount of labour the paradigm towards the industrial revolution and it economy requires each individual to supply… that would be pithy for us to make a similar mistake. the amount of labour required is so low that work The second reason is in the loss of centrality that can become intermittent… should not be an obsta- work possesses in daily life; as I have pointed out cle… This income corresponds to the portion of previously, the current ‘networked’ individual does socially produced wealth to which each individual not have a single character and any model of sociis entitled by virtue to their participation in the ety must accommodate for this. social process of production.” (Gorz, 2016, pp. 61- What would a society without a focus on 62) The idea of guaranteed basic income (or Uniwork look like? This is a difficult question and versal Basic Income, UBI) seems to fit, albeit not far outside the scope, however, some preliminary perfectly, into Hegel’s Civil Society. Consider once foundation can be laid. For the first time in history, more, the idea of ‘bourgeois honour’ and you will humanity would be at a point where the time availfind that UBI fits all criteria but the first, belonging able for leisure greatly surpasses the time needed to an element of ‘bourgeois society’. In fact, UBI for work. New avenues of recognition will arise makes absolutely no claim as to what element of and old ones will become more prominent as the

47 individual has the time to do what they want.

The flexibility of this future working class puts it at odds with the conception of corporations as static and work specific, further, the primary role of corporations is no longer in securing a livelihood for their members. Instead, the focus of corporations would shift to the second element, recognition. These corporations would be tied to the idea of the multiple self, providing recognitions for a certain facet of the individual. These could look like more connected internet forums, online gaming communities (particularly those that facilitate competition), or an updated version of trade unions.

Once again, the conception of the particularities of a post-work civil society (and afterward and further, the state) is outside the scope, but it remains clear to see just how a synthesis of Hegel’s civil society and UBI is not only possible, but necessary. Just as Hegel, writing amidst the industrial revolution, sought to accommodate and resolve the potential tensions he could see and anticipate, the task for us now, is to do the same with the info revolution. The transforming nature of work and the potential contained in automation will do well in guiding us to resolve these tensions.

Frey, C. B. and M. Osborne (2013) The Future of

Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to

Computerisation, University of Oxford.

Gorz, A. (2016) ‘A New Task for the Unions:

The Liberation of Time from Work’ in

Waterman, P. (ed) Labour Worldwide in the

Era of Globalization, Springer, 41-63.

References Knowles, D. (2002) Routledge Philosophy Guide

book to Hegel and the Philosophy of Right,

New York: Routledge.

Hegel, G. W. F. (2014) Elements of the Philosophy

of Right, London: Cambridge University Press.

Smith, N. H. and J.P. Deranty (2011)

‘Work, Recognition and the Social Bond:

Changing Paradigms’ in Smith, N. H. and

J.P. Deranty (eds) New Philosophies of

Labour, Leiden: Brill, 1-40.

Schmidt am Busch, H.C. (2011) ‘The Legacy of

Hegelian Philosophy and the Future of

Critical Theory’ in Smith, N. H. and

J.P. Deranty (eds) New Philosophies of

Labour, Leiden: Brill, 63-100.

Mason, P. (2015) Postcapitalism: A Guide to our

Future, Penguin Books.

Mason, P. (2014) WTF is Eleni Haifa?, Verso.

Available at

http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/1801- wtf-is-eleni-haifa-a-new-essay-by-paul-ma son

Isolated Worlds: Subjectivity in Consumer Culture is a Threat to Realising Freedom Nicholas Webb-Wagg: BA Philosophy MQ

Abstract: In this paper I employ Marxian and Hegelian concepts to form a critique of modern consumer culture. Consumerism overemphasises individuality and subjective needs, reproducing them endlessly to the exclusion of a more universal and profound ethical existence. I consider the nature of Hegelian freedom and spirit against Marxian diagnoses of alienation and oversubjectification, within the context of wage-systems, consumer culture and modern phenomena. Between them, it becomes readily apparent that modern man is encouraged to remain fixated on his own isolated abstract being, at the cost of contribution to the ongoing history of the ethical spirit and the realisation of true freedom.

1. Introduction Through a congruence of interrelated factors, modern civil society1 has been constructed in such a way that actually impedes our potential for genuine human freedom. An overemphasis on the importance of a vague conception of individual liberty has been achieved at the expense of a more holistic mode of being.

In this essay I will argue that our human capacity for a more profound engagement with the world has been undermined by consumer culture, which shares many of the maladies Marx diagnosed in alienated labour, along with new forms of alienated value. By fetishising abstract individual autonomy, human-beings are distracted from progressing beyond abstract morality towards actual ethical engagement with the world.

For Hegel, the state, as the reflection of the people, is supposed to embody the human spirit (man’s subjective will towards universality), and therefore actualised freedom. Consumer culture can be seen as the new religion, in the Marxian sense: symptomatic of a spiritual decline. I ask, what happens to actualised freedom when people acknowledge value only at the subjective level?

Like Kant before him, Hegel emphasises the importance of willing towards the universal, which he means employing one’s free will in a way consistent with the very idea of willing itself.

Both philosophers extrapolate from this concept principles of moral obligation that seek to optimise free will wherever it exists. But where Kant develops abstract moral laws, Hegel is more interested in actualised ethical activity: a process towards the embodiment of the Good, in which abstract concepts are just one moment. A good will is one that takes the universal as its principle of action (will in harmony with its own nature), and an evil will is one that rejects the universal and instead clings to its own subjectivity. Paradoxically, by willing its subjectivity, the content of the evil will becomes its own natural drives, inclinations, and desires, which, being subject to natural determination, negates the will itself.

2.1 Multiplying the Needs and Commodification

Unlike animals, humans must transform the natural world through effort in order to make it suitable to use and consume. Hegel argues that animals are driven by simple natural needs, with restricted means of satisfying them, whereas humans express 2.0 The Free Will: Subjectivity and Universality our universality in the way we keep multiplying our needs and means of satisfaction. It is always In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel identifies the possible to divide and rarefy a basic need into Good – that which has unconditional value and more abstract variations, making human needs should be the pursued – with manifest freedom. theoretically infinite, limited only by our capacity That is to say, freedom that is fully realised, and to form new concepts (i.e. educate our palate or exists in actuality, rather than merely abstractly. refine our tastes). In doing so, the object of our (Hegel, 1991) It is a teleological idea, in that the need – the means to satisfy it – becomes something goal is for the particular will (i.e. a person’s free real for other people to exploit. We become depenwill) to reach a point at which it perfectly embod- dent on the others who supply the human effort ies the concept of the will itself. necessary for those means. Hegel explains that the 1 - For the sake of this essay, I am focusing primarily on the past few decades, coinciding with the rise of neoliberalism.

48

49 pursuit of these abstractions becomes the basis of mutual relations between individuals, transforming them into social needs.

While Hegel has some reservations about the strain this relationship can place on the poorest members of industrial societies, he also seems to believe this development of ever more abstract and artificial needs is liberating in a way. Inventing needs seems more preferable, more human and autonomous, than being merely subject to necessary external (natural) needs. But I wonder how he would feel about modern consumer culture. There is a brief acknowledgement in his work that once it becomes evident that inventing new needs generates corresponding value, needs are more likely to be created by those who seek to profit from them than by those who experience them. And since human needs are potentially limitless, it would pay to generate as many new needs as possible. On the one hand, it is possible for these social needs to have as their object ever more sophisticated social institutions with the aim of perfecting systems of justice and ethical practice. On the other hand, this psychological process could be channelled towards generating vain individual needs that serve no purpose other than to be exploited by opportunistic capitalists. Does constant exposure to marketing designed to create new needs promote our autonomy, or does it exploit our psychology into expending more of our limited human effort for the sake of greed, limiting our capacity to pursue more genuine expressions of our developing will?

Remember that, in an important sense, it is human effort itself that we consume. With a few exceptions, everything we consume must first be transformed, and as our needs become more complex we must increasingly depend on others to provide the necessary labour. As Marx notes, commodities aren’t just the products of labour: labour itself – and the worker himself – also become commoditised (Marx, 1983).

2.2 Alienation and Subjectivisation Marx argues extensively that once a competitive economic system in which labour is a commodity incorporates wages, it will inevitably result in a kind of quasi-slavery for the labour-worker. In a competitive environment, some people will be better positioned and equipped to exploit the needs of other people, ending in the accumulation of power

amongst a few individuals. While Marx paints quite a bleak picture of capitalist society and the life of the working class, conditions have improved considerably since his time (in the Western world).

As such, I will focus on the nature of the instances of alienated labour he describes, and consider how they might apply today.

Marx describes four kinds of alienation: (1) The labourer is alienated from the thing he labours to produce. Where normally an object he creates would be a physical expression of his own will, here the labourer expends his effort to create something not his own (in exchange for a wage). It is the product of another person’s will, generated through his own investment of effort. (2) As the product is not of his will, similarly the act of producing it must be foreign to him. He feels a kind of other-self, an inauthentic being, which is not him. Since humans are actualised through what we do (how we expend our effort), wage labour leaves no time for genuine human activity.

The worker is someone else when he’s active, and when he is himself he’s not active. (3) As with Hegel, man has the capacity to universalise himself as part of the human species, and that the species is man’s objective (practically and theoretically). The character of the species is free conscious activity: the exercise of the conscious will. But wage labour subverts this function, transforming the capacity to live as a man, for basic animal sustenance (continued physical existence). Man loses his species-being. And finally (4) Man is alienated from other men. Alienated from his own species, self, and the fruits of his activity, he can no longer universalise himself in the other. Isolated from his own nature, he can no longer sense his own nature in the other.

I think it is reasonable to claim that workers in our own society are still alienated from the products of their labour in the way Marx describes, in that they are still paid a wage in exchange for the production of goods that reflect another person’s will. Likewise, they must also still be subject to the second form, in that the act itself becomes something outside their own volition. It might be argued that we have more time for leisure and recreational activities in the modern age, but these are not the forms of human activity Marx seems to have in mind 2. In fact, they are defined by the fact that they are secondary, inessential modes of activity, reflective of the desire for petty need-satisfaction: i.e. ‘treating’ oneself, on the level of 1

2 - Marx seems to imply the labourer would still be labouring, perhaps just as hard, but on his own projects, reflecting his own will.

50 species-being as free conscious activity – is more interesting, as it seems to have compounded into two extremes of the same problem. I think in many cases, Marx’s original diagnosis still applies. People are still expected to forgo their free creative capacity in exchange for the means of mere subsistence. However, in many cases, a new problem emerges in that people in many forms of employment are not supposed to make this sacrifice: they are expected to pursue the activity as an authentic means of expressing their true selves.

Stephan Voswinkel calls this phenomenon “subjectivisation”. (Voswinkel, 2012) In some ways, this is an even worse predicament, in that the worker is possibly reshaping their own value system in order to make the activity “authentic”. In a sense, they alienate their own character, in the attempt to save their free conscious activity on a technicality.

Most vitally, though, I do not believe anything has diminished the prevalence of Marx’s fourth form of alienation: Man from man. If anything, certain recent global trends may indicate that it is becoming worse 3. Crucially, this form of alienation may serve to undermine the kind of collective human will Hegel believed was essential for the actualisation of the free human spirit as a state.

2.3 Species, Spirit and State Where Marx talks of species-being, Hegel talks of spirit. For Hegel, the spirit is the progress towards the Good (actualised freedom) across the individual moments of ethical life. In the same way that we may get a sense of the character of a person by moments of interaction with them, and yet the character is not reducible to those moments, so it is that the spirit emerges through many individual human lives, and yet exists above them as its own actuality with a definitive (if not revealed) character. “The spirit has actuality, and the individuals are its accidents.” says Hegel. As such, it could be said to emerge out from our species-being.

Hegel believes that the ethical spirit incorporates itself as the state. It is the universal will given form and actual worldly capacities (rather than abstract properties). It is empowered by the ethical will to act, to make itself the actualisation of freedom. Some modern theories interpret the state as the psychological reflection of its members. That is to say, they have a shared conception

of justice, and are together responsible for participating in and reinforcing the system they help to create. Therefore they identify with the will of the state and recognise it as good. (e.g. Nili, 2010)

Nevertheless, Marx argues that there are ways to sense a kind of sickness of the spirit in society. In his animated criticism of religion, he makes it clear that that institution is itself merely a symptom of a larger social malaise, and I believe it was his intention that one could substitute “religion” in his argument for any other institution that represented the same problem. In the modern era, I believe this could be expanded to reflect consumer culture itself. He describes the institution as the opiate of the people, offering false happiness and sham self-esteem for the masses unable to reconcile the absence of these values in their lives. He describes it as a narrowness that senses but misunderstands itself, and he predicts a system of government that thrives on the poverty of spirit it represents. He is describing an institution that is both symptom and perpetuator of a society in which the majority of workers are kept weak and distracted by hollow promises of satisfaction and meaning. In our modern society, we are psychologically conditioned to fixate on the acquisition of more goods, responding to needs we did not invent; to fill the gap in our lives left by labours not our own. We have replaced our universal ethical life with subjective social needs.

3. Conclusion In this paper I have given a brief overview of some Marxian and Hegelian ideas with reference to the problem of freedom for the isolated individual in society. Both philosophers insist that a subjective will with the universal as its principle is key towards achieving freedom. Hegel claims that willing the subjective in spite of this is outright evil, and lowers the individual to the level of an animal. Yet they would still have the complex, ever expanding needs of a human, which can always be expanded further by clever capitalists and advertisers. These forces, I have argued, would like to keep us distracted by our own greed, focused at the subjective level, rather than exploring a more profound life.

In the wage-system, even the workers themselves become commodities. Man is alienated from his creations, from himself, and from his own

3 - Again, I have in mind here the rise of neoliberal attitudes in the latter part of the 20th Century.

51 activity of his human species-being, or else subjectivise himself and surrender his own authentic character. In any case, he is left as an isolated creature, unable to sense himself in other human-beings.

Together, these factors inhibit the progress of the objective ethical spirit towards making a state that truly embodies their universal will for actualised freedom. Modern consumer society distracts individuals at the level of abstract subjectivity, preventing them from seeking true happiness and meaning4.

References: Hegel, G.W.F. (1991) – ‘Elements of the Philoso

phy of Right’, Allen W. Wood, H.B. Nisbet,

Cambridge University Press.

Marx, Karl (1983) – ‘The Portable Karl Marx’:

‘Aliented Labour’ & ‘Contribution to the

Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right:

Introduction’, Eugene Kamenka, Penguin Books.

Nili, Shmuel (2010) – ‘A Poggean passport for

fairness? Why Rawls’ Theory of Justice

did not become global’, ‘Ethics & Global

Politics’, Vol.3, No.4, pp.277-301.

Voswinkel, Stephan (2012) – ‘Admiration without

Appreciation? The Paradoxes of Recog

nition of Doubly Subjectivised Work’,

‘New Philosophies of Labour: Work and

the Social Bond’, Nicholas Smith, Jean-

Philippe Deranty, Brill.

4 - I believe this quote sums it up nicely: “[T]here are always only two possible viewpoints in the ethical realm: either one starts from substantiality, or one proceeds atomistically and moves upward from the basis of individuality. This latter viewpoint excludes spirit, because it leads only to an aggregation, whereas spirit is not something individual, but the unity of the individual and the universal.” Hegel – ‘Elements of the Philosophy of Right’, §156

On Two Notions of Conspiracy Theory Robert Lawson: BA Political Science and Philosophy (in progress) MQ

1. Introduction

nothing particularly special about what we would generally call “conspiracy theories,” as they are, in Conspiracy theories are a recurrent feature of his words, simply a “theory that posits a conspirahuman society. Rumors abound, from simple and cy” (Pigden, 2007: 222). They may be true or false straightforward allegations about secret plots to but that judgment should be based on their individseize power, to claims that the international bank- ual merit, we cannot a priori rule them out simply ing system is under the control of malevolent because they are deemed conspiratorial. However, forces. There is much epistemologists should be as some may still argue (of course allowing for worried about. There is, of course, the concern to some exceptions), we should as a general principle avoid lines of thinking that are not only patently err on the side of caution and almost always accept absurd but also epistemologically dangerous, how- the official view or the mainstream opinion. ever, there is also the impetus not to blind oneself

Sunstein and Vermeule argue that in an to often disturbing and secretive abuses of power. “open society, with a well-functioning marketplace

To resolve this dilemma, it is necessary to of ideas and free flow of information … conspiracy separate conspiracy theories into two general cattheories will usually be unjustified” (Sunstein and egories. The standard conspiracy theory (any such Vermeule, 2009: 209-210). Similarly, Levy argues theory which merely posits that a secret conspiracy that we “ought to accept explanations offered by has taken place) is a concept whose validity has properly constituted epistemic authorities” (Levy, been firmly confirmed by a wealth of historical 2007: 187). While fine in principle we must conexperience and thus cannot ever be summarily cern ourselves only with “the real truth of a matter dismissed, but must always be judged on a casethan the imagination of it” (Machiavelli, 1515: 71). by-case basis. There is also the global malevolent Even in what are considered the most democratic conspiracy (which posits the existence of a secret societies, there is still a considerable degree of group which controls everything including the ideological as well as informational control. world economy, and manipulates extraordinary

As Chomsky and Herman detailed in the events), however, no such prior inductive base can book Manufacturing Consent, the American media be adequately justified (save for the revelation of is subjected to the five control mechanisms - media overwhelming evidence which establishes the con- consolidation, dependence on advertising, right cept validity), and thus should always be summari- wing flak, reliance on official sources and the rully dismissed. ing ideology - which subordinate the media to corporate and state interests (Herman and Chomsky, 2. Standard Conspiracy Theories 1988: 1-2). While by no means a conspiracy of the American mass media (it is mainly market forces In the popular lexicon, the phrase conspiracy thewhich determine and shape the output of media), it ory has taken a pejorative meaning, any idea or set nonetheless points to serious deficiencies in even of ideas labeled as such are to be deemed suspect, the freest nation, large concentrations of wealth the product of a faulty reasoning and a paranoid and power are still present and quite willing to mind. But as Keeley notes, conspiracy theories systematically spread disinformation in order to “as a general category, are not necessarily wrong” support their narrow interests. Furthermore, as (Keeley, 1999: 111). History is littered with the Coady states, even the sciences, the most revered machinations of small, secretive groups, which and authoritative epistemic institutions, have never have affected and even launched extraordinary completely lived up to the idealized image that has events. The Watergate Scandal, the killing of Franz been created for them (Coady, 2007: 199).

Ferdinand and the 1973 Chilean coup are but some This is not to say that therefore such instiof these numerous conspiracies. tutions should be systematically distrusted and that

Pidgen rightfully argues that there is we have no grounds to believe anything, rather it

52

53 is to say that conspiracy skeptics grossly overstate their case. It is useful to look to necessary epistemic authorities with a critical eye and not merely chalk up any of their failures to innocent mistakes, as Coady points out it would take a coincidence theorist not to find it alarming that all 175 editors of Murdoch-owned publications across the global supported the invasion of Iraq (Coady, 2007: 197).

Thus the possibility must necessarily be entertained that perhaps, serious and secretive abuses have not only taken place but also escaped detection.

lish that such a conspiracy did in fact exist, a fact which would counter all prior experience, would require an extraordinary amount of evidence in its favour.

Basham, however, claims that “openly secretive governmental and corporate institutions is the norm in contemporary civilizations” (Basham, 2003: 97). But also “despite the occasional “leaks,” they appear to have been quite successful in their control of extremely disturbing information” (Basham, 2003: 97). While the first part is certainly true, the second issue is far more complex then Basham suggests, though it may be easy 2.1 Malevolent Global Conspiracies for conspirators to conceal small matters, the larger and more destructive the policy, the harder it is to There is, however, another well-documented brand contain. To draw any conclusions about the likeliof conspiratorial thinking, the so-called malevolent hood of a malevolent global conspiracy from that global conspiracy. Such theories are distinguished would be a faulty analogy at best. by their insistence that “A cabal of unaccount One only has to look at the long and able, parasitic power elites virtually unknown to well-documented history of US criminality, which the public controls the economy, politics, popular is easily accessible to anyone. To give one examideology and popular culture and so, by causal im- ple, it is now known that the Ford administration plication, the lives of the masses” (Basham, 2003: acquiesced to the Indonesian invasion of East 91). Such theories are truly enormous in scope Timor, in violation of both US and International explaining almost everything from major events to law (Burr and L. Evans, 2001). All of the major the basic way people lead their daily lives. Though US and Indonesian planners involved avoided any the identity of the group varies, their specific char- persecution and most have still remained widely acter is remarkably similar, namely that they are respected political figures. These examples didn’t always working towards evil ends. involve a grand malevolent conspiracy, but only

If we allow that small-scale conspiracies needed the will to abuse power coupled with an have taken place then surely, as Basham argues, atomised society in order to achieve such success. a global conspiracy would then in all possibility

Even in the most totalitarian of societies, be extremely likely, a well-placed group that is Nazi Germany, there has been an almost total failhighly organised could be pulling the strings while ure at keeping even the most damaging and embarsimultaneously escaping the usual pitfalls that rassing crimes secret. Consider the Holocaust - SS doom conspiracies - leaks, exposures, and obvious chief Heinrich Himmler had hoped that it would mistakes. While it is admittedly true that such a remain a “page of glory never mentioned and conspiracy could take place, the mere possibility never to be mentioned” (Jewishvirtuallibrary.org, that such a thing could take place does not provide 1943), but as later studies have shown, there was any warranted grounds for its believability (Keewidespread awareness among the German Public ley, 2003: 107). It is one thing to acknowledge the about the genocide well before the war had even existence of what are, by comparison, small-scale ended (Ezard, 2001). conspiracies, it is quite another to jump to the idea Such conspiracies seem to be wholly that there exists an all-encompassing global one. unnecessary, enormous crimes can be quite open Standard conspiracy theories can always ly committed or at least relegated to the status of be analogised, that is to say, there is a vast well of an open secret without any serious repercussions. historical knowledge which we can refer back to Furthermore, simple inferences are not proof of a in order to establish the very possibility of them conspiracy of that magnitude; such facts, which are occurring. But Malevolent Global Conspiracies so far out the realm of ordinary existence, would cannot make such a claim, as we cannot refer to require extraordinary evidence. It would be a sepast experience of any conspiracy of that type rious waste of time to worry about these conspirabeing discovered or well-documented. To estabcies, but there are other, just as serious reasons that

54 infer one should distrust such explanations.

Indeed, malevolent global conspiracies exhibit all the hallmarks of starting from a fundamental attribution error. We typically overestimate dispositional factors (the inner workings of a person), and underestimate situational factors (environmental influences), when attempting to explain social behavior (Sherman, 2014). Clarke notes that overcoming the fundamental attribution error is difficult, we are cognitively predisposed to favor dispositional explanations over situational ones (Clarke, 2002: 146). Such theories, while emotionally satisfying, play on our worst cognitive biases.

Malevolent global conspiracies are the logical culmination of a process Keeley described when he discussed so-called unwarranted conspiracy theories. After a period of time, when a conspiracy theory has, by all appearances, been repeatedly disproved, adherents are faced with a choice to either abandon it or attempt to explain away such damaging refutations (Keeley, 1999: 122). Those who choose the latter are thus forced to draw more and more people and institutions into the conspiratorial web to overcome such deficiencies. What started as a relativity small-scale event has bloomed into one of truly gigantic proportions (Keeley, 1999: 122).

While Keeley worries that such skepticism would undermine a belief in anything, I argue this class of theories presents the opposite problem.

It is that they believe too much. They fetishise power, its potential to achieve anything and therefore their own ability to understand everything.

In a seemingly chaotic world, it is the malevolent global conspiracy that provides an anchor to those caught up in the tides of uncertain events. As Sartre noted with the anti-Semite, and which can be applied to this kind of conspiracizing, “How can one choose to reason falsely? It is because of a longing for impenetrability. The rational man groans as he gropes for the truth; he knows that his reasoning is no more tentative… But there are people who are attracted by the durability of a stone. They wish to be massive and impenetrable; they wish not to change” (Sartre, 1944: 12). Those who embrace the global malevolent conspiracy may feel a certain satisfaction in having a firm understanding of the world. But with this sense of certainty they lose the impetus to discard old dogmas and search for better ways of understanding the world.

3. Conclusion From this analysis two things can be concluded.

Firstly, those theories which fit the standard definition of a conspiracy theory should be investigated and judged on their individual merits. No special classification can summarily dismiss any theory simply for being conspirational in nature. Secondly, those theories which fall under the category of malevolent global conspiracy should always be dismissed (that is, of course, unless extraordinary evidence comes to light), not only can no relevant examples give a positive warrant for their existence, but they also exhibit severe epistemological defects and serve to cripple a person’s search for knowledge. So while we should also be on the lookout for those groups working secretively to advance their own interests, I think we can safely say that no secret group controls the current world economy.

References: Basham, L. (2003). Malevolent Global Conspiracy.

Journal of Social Philosophy, 34(1), pp.91- 103.

Burr, W. and L. Evans, M. (2001). East Timor Re

visited. [online] Nsarchive.gwu.edu.

Available at: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/

NSAEBB/NSAEBB62 [Accessed 5 Jul.

2017]. Clarke, Steve. “Conspiracy Clarke, S. (2002). Conspiracy Theories and Con

spiracy Theorizing. Philosophy of the So

cial Sciences, 32(2), pp.131-150.

Coady, D. (2007). Are Conspiracy Theorists Irra

tional?. Episteme: A Journal of Social Epis

temology, 4(02), pp.193-204.

Ezard, J. (2001). Germans knew of Holocaust

horror about death camps. [online] the

Guardian. Available at: https://www. theguardian.com/uk/2001/feb/17/johnezard

[Accessed 5 Jul. 2017].

Herman, E. and Chomsky, N. (1988). Manufactur

ing consent. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books.

Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. (1943). Himmler’s Posen

Speech - “Extermination”. [online] Avail

able at: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary. org/himmler-s-posen-speech-quot-extermi

nation-quot [Accessed 5 Jul. 2017].

Keeley, B. (2003). Nobody Expects the Spanish

Inquisition! More Thoughts on Conspir-

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cy Theory. Journal of Social Philosophy,

34(1), pp.104-110.

Keeley, B. (1999). Of Conspiracy Theories. Journal

of Philosophy, 96(3), pp.109-126.

Levy, N. (2007). Radically Socialized Knowledge

and Conspiracy Theories. Episteme: A Jour

nal of Social Epistemology, 4(2), pp.181-

192. Machiavelli, N. (1515). The Prince.

Pigden, C. (2007). Conspiracy Theories and the

Conventional Wisdom. Episteme: A Journal

of Social Epistemology, 4(2), pp.219-232.

Sartre, J. (1944). Anti‐Semite And Jew. 1st ed. New

York: Schocken Books.

Sherman, M. (2014). [online] Available at: https:// www.psychologytoday.com/blog/real-men- dont-write-blogs/201406/why-we-dont-

give-each-other-break. [Accessed 5 Jul. 2017].

Sunstein, C. and Vermeule, A. (2009). Symposium

On Conspiracy Theories Conspiracy The

ories. The Journal of Political Philosophy,

17(2), pp.202–227.

Academic Piracy & Open-Access Intiatives: Perspectives from the Enlightenment Alexander McDonald: BA Philosophy MQ

The practice of academic piracy, despite an expansion of open-access initiatives, seems as if it is here to stay (Bohannon, ‘Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone?’, 2016). And while pirates and open-access advocates approach the issue as though opposites, one breaking the law while the other works within it, the outcome sought by each party seems to be the same: improved public access to cutting edge intellectual discourse. The essay that follows will, first of all, offer an explanation of the topic at hand - the issue of access to academic material. After which, this essay will explore, over several paragraphs, intersections between this contemporary dilemma and ideas found among the works of the Enlightenment.

Academic piracy involves the illegal access, or provision, of copyrighted material, often through the circumvention of a paywall using a third party website, like Sci-Hub (Bohannon, 2016). Open-access is a little more complicated.

On one hand it refers to a movement that advocates for improved access to peer-reviewed academic works that have been, even partially, funded by the public (Butler-Adam, ‘Opening up access to research and information isn’t a luxury - it’s a necessity’, 2015). On the other it refers to the actual methods of access some publishers have already implemented (Tomaselli, ‘Open access is not free. Someone is doing the work. Someone is paying’, 2015). In light of that brief explanation, the pirates and open-access advocates could be said to have a common interest: the implementation of free access to contemporary peer-reviewed academic material. Furthermore, both seem to take issue with the pricing of electronic papers, and both seem to want to remedy inequalities of access that exist between educational institutions around the world, despite pursuing these problems along dichotomous paths.

As I mentioned above, there are a number of methods available that allow one to access academic material for free, in a legal manner, and so it might seem as though the pirates are merely acting out of an ideologically selfish motive,

behaving as academic free-riders, so to speak, but I do not think the issue is as clear cut as that. There are many examples of academics and students who have had to turn towards piracy because they face exorbitant costs and delays in acquiring legal access to the materials they need in order to continue their research and education (Bohannon, 2015).

And such costs and delays might be significant enough to not only end or injure academic careers, but could be seen as contributing to the inequality of access that exists between rich and poor educational institutions (Bohannon, 2016; Butler-Adam, 2015). Open-access initiatives are a good thing, but they seem to fall short in their effort to ensure ease of access to academic discourse, and as an insider of the publishing industry concedes, the increasing rate of academic piracy seems to point to a “failure to provide a path of access” for those who need it most (Bohannon, 2016).

The issue of access to intellectual discourse, shared by pirate and advocate alike, intersects with the attitudes and ideas of the Enlightenment era. One example is that of the work Denis Dedirot, who helped establish the ‘Encyclopedie’, a multi-volume book which published contemporary intellectual essays in the interest of improving access to such work, and thereby progress the project of public enlightenment (‘Encyclopedie’, pp. 17-18). Do not, however, allow the immediate similarity between Dedirot’s endeavour and that of today’s publishing industry to beguile you: modern academic journals might continue the tradition of intellectual publication, but many seem to do so in the interest of profit and prestige, rather than from a desire to provide humanity the means of enlightening itself through ready-access to academic discourse. Moreover, Dedirot spoke quite directly against the urge to restrict access to knowledge in order to benefit “special interests”, going so far as to call those who would neglect the betterment of all in preference of bettering their own as “narrow minds, deformed souls”, for whom the term humanity had no meaning (pp. 18-19). And while I would not go so far as to insult those who work in

56

57 the academic publishing industry, some of whom also voice concerns about the current climate of access, I do think the paywalling of knowledge production is a restriction on intellectual activity that many Enlightenment figures would have taken issue with.

I would argue that the modern state of academic publishing has become something of a grotesque distortion of Dedirot’s intention, a profession no longer concerned with the project of public enlightenment but instead the maintenance of profit margins. And while that might seem overly dramatic, professional academics are themselves already comparing the price of access to contemporary academic papers to that of the cost of “luxury” goods, and this is the heart of the matter: the pursuit of excessive and unfair profit extraction from an endeavour that works to benefit society and culture as a whole (Butler-Adam, 2015).

And in this sense the satisfaction of unjust profit margins runs counter to the provision of a social service. Dedirot more than likely made money and prestige in the pursuit of publishing and promoting the ‘Encyclopedie’, but the difference here lies in the sheer extent to which access has been monetized for private, corporate gain. A monetization which in turn becomes as societal cost through the provision of state funded university education and research. And so the issue of pricing becomes problem for us all, regardless of our direct participation in these institutions ourselves, because of the utilization of public resources in both the production and provision of access to academic materials.

The Marquis de Condorcet, another figure of the Enlightenment, also wrote on the issue of access to academic material and public education (‘’Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind’, pp. 26-35). Condorcet thought stable, longterm social progress would require the minimization of three major “differences”, namely, inequalities in wealth, social status, and education (pp. 27, 30). One might characterize Condorcet as an early advocate for equality, as he not only argued in favour of something like an old-age pension, in order to address inequalities of wealth, but also spoke about the benefits that might be gained from a “universal system of education” (pp. 27, 32, 34-35). And it is on that last point that the topic of access becomes more apparent: in order for the system of education envisaged by Condorcet to be properly universal, everyone would require access

to reasonably equivalent educational materials. In addition, the public would also need ready access to the “elementary knowledge” necessary to awaken their intellectual interest in a particular field of study (pp. 34-35). And so, it seems Condorcet can be seen as an advocate for equitable access to academic resources, so to provide the public with a social service that works towards the betterment of society as a whole.

Paywalls and copyright restrictions do not merely mediate the modern world’s access to knowledge, they police it in a manner that seems to stand in opposition to the attitudes of the Enlightenment. Dedirot argued for access in the name of posterity and public enlightenment, and Condorcet went a step further, giving us an instrumental account, more immediate in nature, as to the benefit of universal access to education and academic knowledge; in short, arguing that an increase in the number of educated individuals would allow for an increase in the amount of academic activity (pp. 34-35). And while quantity does not necessarily equate to quality, I think the basic premise of Condorcet’s suggestion has some merit. If the state of access was such that it encouraged people to behave as citizen-academics, engaging in academic endeavours on a casual basis, then scientific observation and verification, and critical reflection and investigation could be conducted on a far larger scale than they currently are, amounting to a more effective utilization of society’s intellectual resources.

Dedirot and Condorcet might not have had much of a problem with academic piracy, as each argued in favour of ready access to knowledge and education, but Immanuel Kant would have had a few things to say about the issue. Indeed, the issue of academic piracy and open-access advocacy seems to echo Kant’s discussion about the public and private use of reason (‘An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment’, pp. 59-61). The public use of reason refers to the use one makes when addressing society in a scholarly fashion, in an effort to bring the attention of the public to bare on a particular issue that one wants to pursue in a civilized manner (p. 60). The private use of reason refers to the specific use one makes while attending to their professional duties as a representative of a particular institution within society (p.

60). And while Kant discussed these distinctions in reference to the duties of “clergymen” and the institution of religion, I think they are applicable

58 to the academic world in reference to the topic of attempting to effect an improvement in access (pp.

60-61).

Open-access advocates seem to act in accordance with both the public and private use of reason, as they approach the issue of access as intellectuals in the public arena, while also attending to their duties as institutional representatives, working within the confines of law and reason in order to effect social change. The academic pirates, however, recognize a “contradiction” within the structure or activity of their institution, for example, the frequency with which publicly-funded research gets placed behind private paywalls, and then pursue this matter not as public intellectuals, but rather in breach of the professional duties they have as institutional representatives, through the provision or accessing of pirated materials (Kant, pp. 60-61). And so, from a Kantian perspective the pirates, at least those who are professional academics, might be said to have a responsibility to “resign” from their academic posts (pp. 60-61).

Having said that, I do not believe Kant would be all that impressed by the extent to which copyright law is used to restrict and control access to contemporary knowledge, after all:

“One age cannot bind itself, and thus con

spire, to place the succeeding age in a

situation in which it becomes impossible

for it to broaden its knowledge, to cleanse

itself of errors, and generally to progress

towards enlightenment” (p. 61).

As I inferred earlier in the essay, the contemporary issue of academic access and the attitudes and ideas of Enlightenment era figures seem to intersect. And over the previous pages I explored a number of these echoes and interconnections, not in an effort to bring any real resolution to the topic at hand, but rather to evidence a congruence between modern problems and thinking from the Enlightenment. However, I do think there are significant problems with the modern state of academic publication. Let me be clear: those people employed by the publication industry, who work to edit, review, typeset, and store these materials deserve to be paid; these services and efforts are not costless. But the motivation to extract a profit margin akin to that of luxury goods from an activity that falls within the public service seems to me a disturbing trend. Society as a whole

benefits from the production and distribution of academic resources, in the fields of both education and research, and it is society as a whole that will pay for the cost of inequitable and unfair access to such resources, in both an economic and intellectual sense, through exorbitant access fees and the subsequent reduction in public distribution because of the prohibitive price.

References: Bohannon, J 2016, ‘Who’s downloading pirated

papers? Everyone?’, last accessed online 12

Apr 2017.

Butler-Adam, J 2015, ‘Opening up access to re

search and information isn’t a luxury - it’s a

necessity’, last accessed online 12 Apr 2017.

Condorcet, M ‘Sketch for a Historical Picture of

the Progress of the Human Mind’, ‘Porta

ble Enlightenment Reader, pp. 26-38.

Diderot, D ‘Encyclopédie’, ‘Portable Enlighten

ment Reader’, pp. 17-21.

Kant, I ‘Answer to the Question: What is Enlight

enment?’, ‘What is Enlightenment?’, pp.

58-64.

Tomaselli, K 2015, ‘Open access is not free. Some

one is doing the work. Someone is paying’,

last accessed online 12 Apr 2017.