kokorodoko wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 6:34 am

VaticanShotglass wrote: Sun Oct 30, 2022 1:15 pmI have more or less lost my ability to seriously engage this book, what little I had. That's not a criticism, just an acknowledgment that one makes choices where one gets to competently dig deep, and this is not the path I went down. I'd like to refresh myself with secondary sources, if for no other reason than the significance for later work I'm more directly interested in.

My current reading is especially in the hope of laying some groundwork for delving into German idealism, in order to get a better handle on Marx. I understand a lot of their concerns revolve around the subject and subjectivity, which is a central topic in a lot of communist theory. Also maybe you can trace there some roots of totalitarian thinking. At the same time, a short summary I read of Fichte suggested that he was searching for a non-statal form of sovereignty rooted in the in-themselves-free individual. Max Stirner comes from that same stock. So yeah, probably lots of interesting things to be discovered.

Also neo-Kantians excercised quite some influence on the first wave of socialists and social democrats. Not one I am keen on, by the looks of it, but I'd like to know more about it.

Then there are more recent anti-Kant folks I'm interested in. Deleuze states in the preface of his book on Kant that he wanted to write a book about his enemy. Nick Land also engages with Kant in an antagonistic manner. So the question is why.

Grappling with something huge like Kant, Hegel, or German Idealism is daunting. I'm sure all of them had good and bad influences. I try not to moralize too generally with historical figures, but rather direct such judgements to particular facets of thought. Though it was an ambition of the 17th C early modern philosophers, systematic philosophizing really exploded in the German academic tradition with and after Kant. Having been trained in traditions that took a step back from that, I can easily find such things ominous or at least ripe for unintended impact. Poor Kant was still alive when he noticed German Idealists using his name and work towards ends he thought incorrect.

I'm very rusty on this, but I want to learn a little more on some of the diametrically opposed neo-Kantian traditions of the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially among the sciences. My slim understanding is that there were similarly (more so even) fractured Hegelian lines. I've never been able to draw a bead on Hegel, mostly from neglect. Outside of film and lit classes I never spent much time with Marx. I guess I'm too motivated by intellectual whims and stimulation in my reading. I've benefitted from the partial success Marx's ideas enough to find many of them right enough to be boring. I'm open to correction, and my whims do shift.

Still, with Hegel, I can't see the big deal beyond clear historical impact. I have to be missing something. Again, Hegel may be suffering from his own success. I find the whole thesis/antithesis/synthesis affair and the historical back and forth to be right in so far as it is, though also a smidge vague. I don't know enough about it to get a feel for it within his own historical context. The entire P & ~P thing seems all but trivial when you get to the most reasonable interpretations I've read. Furthermore, I find his teleological bent a disappointing step back from modernist criticisms of teleology. More innocuous interpretations of his teleological history are at odds with what I've read in his work on art history, which comes off as near German supremacism. Basically, I'd love a good, solid secondary source for current readers to clear me up. Other than sheer influence, I don't know enough to tempt me past an article length reading, let alone his own tomes.

Unpopular positions, maybe. I don't like dismissing thinkers like this. I just have to be honest about my personal limitations with this sort of thing.

VaticanShotglass wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 1:29 pmI try not to moralize too generally with historical figures, but rather direct such judgements to particular facets of thought.

Indeed. I don't like when people want to draw direct lines between these particular ideas and these supposed logical consequences, purporting to discover its hidden truth. Makes it seem as if you just need to pick the right idea and the rest will work itself out automatically, and always seems to allow you the excuse to not go deeper into things.

At the same time as I would never avoid that question either. It is interesting, and worth asking, how you end up in one place from another, especially when that conclusion is not immediately obvious in the original idea. Where is the fascism lurking in Heidegger? And given that I am drawn to Heidegger, is fascism lurking in me? (well this I know it does, but you get what I mean).

Though it was an ambition of the 17th C early modern philosophers, systematic philosophizing really exploded in the German academic tradition with and after Kant. Having been trained in traditions that took a step back from that, I can easily find such things ominous or at least ripe for unintended impact.

Seems that German thought of this period shows up as both holistic and fragmentary, each with its own potential ominous conclusions. At the same time there is fascination with massive systems in politically correct Enlightenment thought as well, with society imagined as a machine capable of optimization in the minutest detail (Condorcet), as well as sympathy for despotism (Diderot and Voltaire). Against which if anything Romantic philosophy is a protest in the name of freedom and individual dignity. Goes back to my first point.

In any case, my own inclinations lie toward the anti-systemic tendencies from Nietzsche on, partly for this reason.

Still, with Hegel, I can't see the big deal beyond clear historical impact.

I'm only scaling the foothills of Hegel, but I can just say that it has provided me with a new frame of mind and allowed me to solve some significant difficulties especially in navigating between different concurrent strands of thought (including political ideologies and movements).



Reading about this period some of the debates of the day mirror current ones:

The Enlightenment faith in reason was based first and foremost upon its belief in the powers of criticism. Reason was identified with the faculty of criticism, that is, the power to determine whether we have sufficient evidence for our beliefs. The guidelines of criticism were laid down by the principle of sufficient reason: every belief should have a sufficient reason, such that it follows of necessity from other beliefs known to be true.

The Enlightenment conferred great authority upon its tribunal of criticism. The principle of sufficient reason suffered no exceptions; all beliefs had to submit to its requirements. Nothing was sacred before the criticism of reason, not even the state in its majesty nor religion in its holiness. Nothing, that is, except of course the tribunal of critique itself, which was somehow sacred, holy, and sublime.

But such a conspicuous and dubious exception only created suspicions about the Enlightenment faith in criticism. Some philosophers began to recognize that an unqualified demand for criticism is self-reflexive, applying to reason itself. If it is the duty of reason to criticize all our beliefs, then ipso facto it must criticize itself; for reason has its own beliefs about itself, and these cannot escape criticism. To refuse to examine these beliefs is to sanction 'dogmatism', the demand that we accept beliefs on trust. But dogmatism, which refuses to give reasons, is clearly the chief enemy of criticism, which demands that we give reasons. So, unless criticism is to betray itself, it must become, in the end, meta-criticism, the critical examination of criticism itself.

Hamann's emphasis on the social and historical dimension of reason had very clear - and very threatening - relativistic implications. If the language and customs of a culture determine the criteria of reason, and if languages and customs differ from or even oppose one another, then there will be no such thing as a single universal reason. Reason will not be able to stand outside cultures and to judge between them since its criteria will be determined from within them. Herder argued that the Enlightenment's tribunal of critique only universalized the values and interests of eighteenth-century Europe.

- from Beiser: The Fate of German Reason from Kant to Fichte

Tarantino's recent book about film, which begins in the late 60s when he was first taken to theaters by his mother and her male friends.

I'm enjoying it, but he is overly-prone to italics to emphasize his statements, and it's bothering me more than it should.

kokorodoko wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 12:41 am

VaticanShotglass wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 1:29 pmI try not to moralize too generally with historical figures, but rather direct such judgements to particular facets of thought.

Indeed. I don't like when people want to draw direct lines between these particular ideas and these supposed logical consequences, purporting to discover its hidden truth. Makes it seem as if you just need to pick the right idea and the rest will work itself out automatically, and always seems to allow you the excuse to not go deeper into things.

At the same time as I would never avoid that question either. It is interesting, and worth asking, how you end up in one place from another, especially when that conclusion is not immediately obvious in the original idea. Where is the fascism lurking in Heidegger? And given that I am drawn to Heidegger, is fascism lurking in me? (well this I know it does, but you get what I mean).

Though it was an ambition of the 17th C early modern philosophers, systematic philosophizing really exploded in the German academic tradition with and after Kant. Having been trained in traditions that took a step back from that, I can easily find such things ominous or at least ripe for unintended impact.

Seems that German thought of this period shows up as both holistic and fragmentary, each with its own potential ominous conclusions. At the same time there is fascination with massive systems in politically correct Enlightenment thought as well, with society imagined as a machine capable of optimization in the minutest detail (Condorcet), as well as sympathy for despotism (Diderot and Voltaire). Against which if anything Romantic philosophy is a protest in the name of freedom and individual dignity. Goes back to my first point.

In any case, my own inclinations lie toward the anti-systemic tendencies from Nietzsche on, partly for this reason.

Still, with Hegel, I can't see the big deal beyond clear historical impact.

I'm only scaling the foothills of Hegel, but I can just say that it has provided me with a new frame of mind and allowed me to solve some significant difficulties especially in navigating between different concurrent strands of thought (including political ideologies and movements).



Reading about this period some of the debates of the day mirror current ones:

The Enlightenment faith in reason was based first and foremost upon its belief in the powers of criticism. Reason was identified with the faculty of criticism, that is, the power to determine whether we have sufficient evidence for our beliefs. The guidelines of criticism were laid down by the principle of sufficient reason: every belief should have a sufficient reason, such that it follows of necessity from other beliefs known to be true.

The Enlightenment conferred great authority upon its tribunal of criticism. The principle of sufficient reason suffered no exceptions; all beliefs had to submit to its requirements. Nothing was sacred before the criticism of reason, not even the state in its majesty nor religion in its holiness. Nothing, that is, except of course the tribunal of critique itself, which was somehow sacred, holy, and sublime.

But such a conspicuous and dubious exception only created suspicions about the Enlightenment faith in criticism. Some philosophers began to recognize that an unqualified demand for criticism is self-reflexive, applying to reason itself. If it is the duty of reason to criticize all our beliefs, then ipso facto it must criticize itself; for reason has its own beliefs about itself, and these cannot escape criticism. To refuse to examine these beliefs is to sanction 'dogmatism', the demand that we accept beliefs on trust. But dogmatism, which refuses to give reasons, is clearly the chief enemy of criticism, which demands that we give reasons. So, unless criticism is to betray itself, it must become, in the end, meta-criticism, the critical examination of criticism itself.

Hamann's emphasis on the social and historical dimension of reason had very clear - and very threatening - relativistic implications. If the language and customs of a culture determine the criteria of reason, and if languages and customs differ from or even oppose one another, then there will be no such thing as a single universal reason. Reason will not be able to stand outside cultures and to judge between them since its criteria will be determined from within them. Herder argued that the Enlightenment's tribunal of critique only universalized the values and interests of eighteenth-century Europe.

- from Beiser: The Fate of German Reason from Kant to Fichte

Thank you for these thoughtful comments. All very interesting, and I enjoy how you share it all.

Since writing this I’ve noticed a few things worth mentioning: My experience is mostly with 17th C rationalism and empiricism and 20th C “analytic” philosophy. I’m much less comfortable with later 18th and early 19th C. What 19th C work I know is later and more related to influences on 20th C analytic philosophy, pragmatism, or psychology.

My observations and instincts on systematic philosophy apply to the post Kantian German tradition, but I should mention how systematic, unifying theory was very much the ambition to earlier thinkers from Descartes to Newton. Few tied things together at that time so much as Spinoza (I like that dude), who actually delivered on a lot of things Descartes claimed one could do with his own ideas. Namely he more or less completed a philosophy which unified the new mechanical model of the universe, human psychology, morality, and the divine all expressed in the “geometric method” Descartes alluded to.

My aversion to sytamization is methodological. I find piecemeal, bottom up investigation (or at least a sort of pincer attack) to produce more empirically sensitive results. The less commitment to a priori reasoning the better. Should overarching systems emerge fromthis work, then good, so long as they can be revised moving forward. This comes from my pragmatist and naturalist tendencies. I actually favor holistic perspectives. That is an influence from Dewey and Quine. I was recently re-reading how German idealism along with Darwin were fundamental influences on Dewey. I think teleology is a danger, depending on how you take it, in both of those traditions.

I miss this being my day job. Well, maybe not the job part.

Has anyone read Fire in the Belly or Man's Search for Meaning? Thoughts?

Both were recommended to me recently.

bigc wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 11:09 am Has anyone read Fire in the Belly or Man's Search for Meaning? Thoughts?

Man's Search For Meaning is excellent, it was recommended to me by a psychologist. Also it isn't a long read, only about 165 pages.

bigc wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 11:09 am Has anyone read Fire in the Belly or Man's Search for Meaning? Thoughts?

Both were recommended to me recently.

I'll second Man's Search For Meaning. The first half is so gripping that I've never actually made it all the way through the second part about logotherapy. But the first section is unforgettable. I've read it a few times.

zircona1 wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 11:50 am

bigc wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 11:09 am Has anyone read Fire in the Belly or Man's Search for Meaning? Thoughts?

Man's Search For Meaning is excellent, it was recommended to me by a psychologist. Also it isn't a long read, only about 165 pages.

Read it recently, it really helped me.

Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion. Much of the content hasn't really worked for me, but I enjoy his style as much as any story he tells.

I read the new Cormac McCarthy joint a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed the first 2/3 immensely, but I found the last 1/3 to be a bit of a slog. I get the sense that these two parts of the book were written at different times, as the momentum and humor let up after Bobby Western visits his grandmother. I’m going to read it again. Maybe it was attributed to distractions in my own life.

I needed some light reading afterward, so I read Aransas by Stephen Harringen. It was his first book, published in 1980, about two dolphin trainers, a dolphin researcher, and their different points of view on dolphins. A little clumsy and I did some eye-rolling, but I wanted to read something that took place on the Texas coast.

Dipping into The Wine Of Youth by John Fante here and there. Always a fun read. Italian-Americans in Denver during the 1920-30’s.

Currently reading A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher. Historical fiction about hardships on the Oregon Trail.