Contemporary philosophy 1st Feb
An ideological fight Three movements: posi;vist, historic and humanist All originate in 19th century All have a clear historical development and a mo;va;on to flourish During the 19th century their protagonists divided the globe: East, Europe, West
Posi;vist camp The Galilean legacy: a no nonsense approach to ques;ons of knowledge about nature To speak only on the level where all sayings can be clear and evident To severe disciplines with metaphysical presump;ons from those directly verifiable experimentally Science is made of facts; nature is made of facts
Posi;vist camp Posi;vism was the last era of experimental sciences And it made its own metaphysics And that was the problem nature is made up of facts facts can be named adequately language used in naming can be cleared from inaccuracy that originates in the history of using language in everyday speech
Posi;vist camp Language must be cleared into a tool that func;ons like logic Only proposi;ons clear enough can carry knowledge we need The gap between language and logicalmathema;cal nota;on can bridged Science as such is universal and not dependent on human limita;ons
Posi;vist camp Ques;ons concerning human life don t add anything to scien;fic knowledge Thus knowledge that cannot be given in a mode not formal enough is not scien;fic and the area of knowledge does not belong to science Such a knowledge is belief Ques;ons of ethics or moral don t count in science
Posi;vist camp If we can do it, we ll do it! If we cannot explain it clearly, it is not real! A great divide between exact knowledge that is independent of human And inexact belief that is human Very effec;ve in natural sciences
Posi;vist camp But it also became an ideology: logical posi;vism excluded philosophical thinking from science logical empirism included them again in order to select real ques;ons from those irreal Out of these was elaborated analy;cal philosophy, a highly sophis;cated new philosophy
Posi;vist camp Analy;cal philosophy is interested in how language meets facts or construes them + how theories of nature construe nature + how knowledge is dependent on theories + how human symbol systems can be transfigured into a tool that adequately describes the nature
Posi;vist camp Problems: Interpreta;ons of historical texts using concepts known to us today (forgeries of Plato, Aristotle, medieval writers, etc.) Unhistorical a\tude: we are in possession of the universal key (all must be interpreted with this key) Human reality cannot be studied scien;fically, thus is stays outside significant knowledge
Posi;vist camp Scien;fic knowledge is and must be objec;ve Thus no ethics or moral concerns it
Important classics Wirtgenstein, Tractatus Russell & Whitehead, Principia Mathema4ca Popper, Logik der Forschung Weitz, The 20th c. Philosophy; the Analy4c Tradi4on + In English Wikipedia: well wriben ar;cle on analy;c philosophy
Marxist legacy Karl Marx wrote a history on macroeconomics: Das Kapital, 1867 He described a highly idealized structure of historical rela;ons between people and ownership He followed an older schedule of eras that illustrated certain law in history
Marxist legacy His philosophical contribu;on became to be known as historical materialism It was thought to explain how material good is mul;plied and creates the common good of socie;es The material good does not increase evenly: those who own the means of producion will have more goodies Those who don t become dependent of those who do
Marxist legacy The abstract good is dependent on the material one since material one gives birth to certain immaterial ones Those who own more are the ones who manage the immaterial good as well, say, values, tasks, moral The universal problem is that the class of property owners are in possession of all tools that create culture
Marxist legacy The overall way of thinking follows the lead of those who own It may be a right way to think to them But in other people (in other classes) it is the source of wrong awareness: people think as if they were a part of life they are not Together with not owning anything such a wrong awareness results in rupture
Marxist legacy Such a rupture may introduce 1. either a psychic collapse (neurosis, psycho;c state), 2. or a revolu;onary awareness that aims at changing the structures This model comes from Hegel who wanted to show that history both takes its own way and, at the same, was to be changed by human behavior
Marxist legacy Scien;fic materialism and Marxist Leninist philosophy were the intellectual outcomes of historical materialism It externalized human experiences: a mirror theory: the outward rela;ons and structures become inner rela;ons and structures Replacement is needed: to change the (economic, poli;c, power ) structures will change people s experience
Marxist legacy Some people are aware of this dynamics and they must teach the other so that these will become aware as well The core of the Marxist philosophy is praxis: to do, to change, to teach, to guide, to take the power, and to have it for good
Marxist legacy What posi;vism did inn natural sciences, Marxist philosophy did in poli;cs and power It was no nonsense instruc;on manual to chance the awareness, to change the world Towards what? Towards the common good for everyone To make people happy, prosperous, intellectually free and poli;cally influen;al
Marxist legacy Great problems arise in ethics and moral: structures that guide people as a community, customs to behave as a human, and the degree of freedom a system tolerates Mirror theory was used mechanically, e.g. in science and art ( socialist realism ) In all stages of praxis, aggressive persecu;on of people whose awareness is not right Dynamics turned to stagna;on
Marxists today In France, Britain, USA and Germany: intellectuals who go back to Marx and deny the historical procedure of socialism as a praxis of Marxist philosophy The main themes are again: wrong awaress, class struggle, beber life for all Ethics is in focus: how is proper educa;on and free will possible in a world where big transna;onal corporates create the structures of outer reality?
Literature Marx, Das Kapital All the classics in: hbp://leninist.biz/ Georg Lukács, History and Class Conscioussness Louis Althusser & Jacques Rancière, Reading Capital
Con;nental philosophy Which con;nent? Bri;sh arrogance (from Oxbridge) created the term, like in: The con4nent is blocked by the fog Con;nental means European: French, Italian, Spanish, German, etc. Con;nental philosophy includes most of the tradi;ons save Marxist & Posi;vist
European tradi;on That includes, e.g. German idealism (Hegelianism) Hermeneu;cs Phenomenology Existen;alism Structuralism Cri;cal theory (Frankfurt School) Psycho analy;c theory And all the post
European tradi;on These movements have much in common, most of all the ahtude and method: they belong the human research tradi4on that takes history seriously and avoids clear cut solu;ons in problems where human being and human knowledge is in focus They also include methods that are vague: literature, art, poe;cs, narra;ves, discussion
European tradi;on These movements are highly self cri4cal: they are construed to deny their universality and they aim at explaining the par;cular and the singular This is done by proper naming, minutely describing the phenomena and refraining from theories Instead of theories, discourses are the outcome
European tradi;on Poli;cally, these movements are quite various: Frankfurt School and Existen;alism have been ac;ve in praxis and cri;cal, too Phenomenology and Hermeneu;cs are thought to be conserva;ve and not poli;cal Structuralism is taken as a reac;onary movement and poli;cal
European tradi;on Since human life and experience are in focus, ethics is mostly individual and intellectual A subject is taken seriously, not the collec;ve Problems arise in communica;on between subjects, as well as in living together These are not taken as performa;ve tasks, or opera;onal problems, but as ques;ons of being human
European tradi;on Three main ques;ons are: How to understand the tradi;on? How to know through experiences? How to cope with others? In every movement the answers sound quite different
How to understand the tradi;on Hermeneu;cs originates in Aristotle but in the dawn of 19th c. it became a modern thinking Separates the text (document of any kind) from the interpreta4on Interpreta;on does not give the original meaning but is significant as an independent phenomenon We must recognize the difference but cherish our interpreta;on because it gives us our world in a new angle
How to tradi;on Structuralism reveals cultural (thus historical) structures that are evident but not seen In language, rituals, naming, discourse, etc ancient knowledge is included that guides us unconsciously E.g. the elementary structures of kinship is given in names, orders how to marry, where to live, whom to shag, who is responsible of what Structures are real and emerged with ;me
How to tradi;on Existen;alism gives several histories of everyday life that prevent one from becoming oneself and authen;c Tradi;on is given as a cri;cism that is supposed to open one s eyes If tradi;on is a chain of preven;ve customs, one should get rid of it and struggle towards independence Par;cularly religion and in;mate ;es are thought to be obstacles in one s way to oneself These must be known and get rid of them
How to know through experience In phenomenology the experience is the sole source of knowledge though thought sources (like customs & learned ideas) are needed in order to iden;fy what & where the experience is To experience is quite complicated and there is a need for extreme cri;cism of customs Knowing is not mirroring, nor is there any facts in the world that could be taken as such
How to know World (or, nature) can only be approached in experience but the experience stays human: from the world nothing enters the mind The mind creates its concep;on (or, image) and develops it in constant stream of experiences We are always towards world and in constant change
How to know Human being has (everyone his/her own) lifeworld that includes what has been experienced during the life;me and the history of how one has understand (intrpreted) everything Inside this life world one has a change to think, understand, become wiser, change one s opinions, become a beber person and assess one s life as a whole, even towards an individual ethics
How to... know Frankfurt School developed the idea of social understanding within the life world so that not only individual but collec;ve understanding becomes viable praxis for all We have not only individual history but a collec;ve one as well And even indivisual experiences include features that originates in collec;ve history
How to cope with others The en;re European tradi;on has its eye on ethics and moral, even the most individialis;c part of it Though knowledge and undertanding most open is individual in origin, their contexts are collec;ve, namely the tradi;on We are always already together before we even ask any ques;on about individuality
How to.. others Language is others, being taken care of is others, trying to be alone is others, the surviving is others All these must be aproached from the point of view otherness, dependency, togetherness and being in the world Knowledge must not be detached from its worldly connec;ons; if theory lives on its own it will become unmanageable and may open doors to nothing
How to others The smallest unite is togetherness, you and me Ethics is the first philosophy and all other ques;ons are subordinated to ethics Like knowing and understanding, ethics as well is always under discussion Discussion is the main method
Literature Husserl, Crisis Heidegger, Being and 4me Merleau Ponty, Phenomenology of percep4on Foucault, The order of things Derrida, Dissemina4on Habermas, The theory of communiva4ve ac4on Sloterdidk, Rage and 4me
In the end of the century The fight is nearly over; the con;nental tradi;on has eaten up the others (mostly from inside out) In physics and biology the idea of world as facts is quibed; in social sciences the sta;s;cal approach has proved to be inadequate; social technology is not dead yet but under heavy cri;cism In poli;cs the reality can only be found through discussions The era of philosophical objec;vity is gone