There is a danger, of course, of predicated human solidarity on the representative man, the one who, in setting himself against the prevailing convention and exemplifies its reformation. Of course, one might well give one's self over to Ghandi, or to King, but the 19th century valorization of Napolean and the 20th century valorization of Hitler serve to remind us that, if one gives too much credence to the satanic impulse, one may well give one's self over, not to an hypothetical, but an actual hob-goblin of evil. It is perhaps this possibility that causes Rorty, for example, to hold firm on the distinction between private and public. It is one thing to recreate one's self, to radicalize one's thinking, quite another to insist on one's self as a representative man, the exemplar of an emergent order. The difficulty, of course, is manifest and stems from the predicating assumptions. If there is nothing but what we have constructed for ourselves, if we are the pure product of an historical contingency resulting in this convention, if that historical contingency has gone somehow awry -- and inevitably history has gone awry -- then it must posit a way of being more authentic. There is a temporal dimension to this, a looking back and looking forward. The romantic impulse is, more often than not, fundamentally regressive insofar as the truly authentic existed (or its potential existed) before historical contingency went awry. Hence the romantic impulse to recover more primitive folk religions, and as Ian Buruma points out, "elegiac sentiments and leftist politics are not necessarily in contradiction. At one point Judt describes the left as a permanent form of protest: 'and since the thing most protested against is the damage wrought by rapid change, to be on the left is to be a conservative." The irony for Marx was this: with the communist manifesto, he ceased being a social scientist and became prophetic. Socialism is one thing, communism another, and the latter is predicated on an apocalyptic vision different in detail but not in kind from the apocalyptic vision of religion, except that it required, not patient endurance, but active engagement for its realization. The romantic impulse is essentially a revolutionary impulse, but if the revolution were ever wholly successful, if the intentionality of their acts ever fully satisfied, the opposition that defines them dissipates and no longer has meaning. Consequently, the revolution must never be allowed to complete itself. The representative man, whether it be Mao on the left or Hitler on the right, falls into the same pattern. The revolution, once institutionalized, wages war against a prevailing subjectivity, the remnants of an old subjectivity not yet fully subjected to the new way of being in the world, the new form of life.
It is a central insight of the late romantics, that no comprehensive doctrine is fully comprehensive -- that is to say, true once and for all. I have made the claim elsewhere that Adam and Eve in Eden provides a central organizing myth for the American psyche, and if Adam and Eve learned a central truth from their own interaction with Satan's willful obversity, they learned the Eden had boundaries -- that it was fully comprehensive of God's universe. The fall represents the transition from the innocence of pure ignorance to the knowledge of boundaries, first and foremost the boundary between good and evil, innocence and guilt, but also the boundary between a lost paradise and the present contingency of a world replete with suffering. This nostalgia for a lost innocence, signals the prevailing characteristic of the willfully obverse in American political morality. The willfully obverse becomes an insistence on the innocence of pure ignorance, and for American conservatism represents a turn from both the rational and the secular. On the right it is represented by such potentially representative men as Jerry Falwell, whose legacy one sees reiterated in the current swing to the right. It insists on recovering a faith-based theocentric state, one guided by a set of evangelical principles that are, if not satanic, then clearly oppositional. The paradise lost was the America of the 50s, and they are against the historical contingency that emerged in the so-called 60s and early 70s, a state of innocence lost with the changes in American demographics and the integration of blacks, with the changes in sexual mores made possible by the pill, and the list, of course, goes on across the full panoply of oppositional values. The same, however, could be said of the American left and its opposition to the still emergent historical contingency of the new global economy that has decimated the working class. The paradise lost was the new deal America, and they are against the historical contingency that emerged in the so-called 80s and early 90s, a state of innocence lost with the changes in American economics and the damage wrought by the rapid change from a labor-based to an information-based economy.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
a game of chess
A Game of Chess
I want to explicate the game of chess as an exemplar of the basic structure as socially constituted. I am not making special claims for the game of chess, per se, except to say that it is familiar enough that one can lay bare one or two crucial points. The first point, one that I have already made, is that any particular game is governed by intentionality, and the moves in the game are instrumental to that end. The whole game, of course, is arbitrary -- that is to say, it could have been otherwise -- and one could easily imagine a history of the game where the rules and expectations of play might have had one trying to capture the queen, not the king. The arbitrariness of chess suggests what might be called its intermediacy -- that is to say, the game in its entirety serves the purpose of another intentionality, which in turn suggests a basic structure for the intentional as we might typically understand it, a point I will return to later. In the end, however, there is nothing or little in chess or its governing intentionality that might suggest a "natural" or a "basic" need. Once engaged in a game of chess, however, checkmate becomes the governing intentionality, and one makes moves to arrive at a state of affairs, a condition of the world (at least that portion of it represented by the chess board) that "counts as" checkmate.
Here it might be useful to note that in chess one has an opponent. While it strains credulity a bit to think that the originating framers of the game could imagine a situation where the opponent is a machine, it is not particularly difficult for us, in this day and age, to imagine the same, and so it is not necessary to think of one's opponent as another subjectivity beyond the confines of the game, but it is necessary to this of it as subject to the same imperative to reach checkmate. In this respect, I and my opponent are the same, and when I think of my opponent, I think of him it in terms of a "desire" to reach checkmate, knowing full well that it is, so to speak, merely a programmed desire captured in its hardware and software. If we confine ourselves to the game, and only the game, it is unnecessary to think of one's opponent in any other way -- unnecessary to think of one's opponent as anything other than an automaton -- but of course we do think of our human opponents in other ways, and this too suggests the intermediacy of chess. In a tournament setting, for example, the game itself might well be instrumental to the additional end of receiving the cash prize and the recognition that comes of being a "winner." It is the intermediacy of chess, as a social constituted game, that allows for its instrumental application to another governing intentionality, and here again of course the instrumental act may have more or less utility relative to that end. One might, for example, lose the match and fail to gain either the prize money or the recognition, in part because lacks cognitive capacity relative to one's opponent.
Here too, it might be useful to note that one's opponent is actively trying to prevent one from achieving checkmate or, perhaps more precisely, is attempting to reach checkmate first. It is presumptive to the game, and allows one rationalize the opponent -- that is to say, to ask "why?" of its moves and assign a "because" to it. This is not so much a psychological claim as a logical claim. One does not necessarily proceed through the game asking "why did he move his pawn there?" and answering one's own inquiry, "ah because he wanted to threaten my knight and weaken my attack." Indeed, such questions are often asked and answered, not as running commentary, but retrospectively as explication, but it is sufficient at the moment to note that one can ask and answer such questions if one "knows" the governing intentionality. Imagine, for example, watching a game of chess, not knowing that the opponents are pursuing checkmate. One might imagine it as a game, not unlike checkers, where the governing intentionality is to remove the opponents pieces from the board and have the last piece standing. The game would appear irrational both in its progress and its end, leading one to believe (perhaps) that one missed the point (though not necessarily so). I am suggesting, of course, that the basic structure "rationalizes" our lives -- provides, as it were, the formal element in a form of life. This is an important point, and I will advert to it often, but for the moment it is enough to point it out.
Along that line, however, one might expect to find the rules of chess set out, quite literally, in a rule book that defines and prescribes the game. This need not necessarily be the case for all forms of life, insofar as the instrumental act is chosen, not solely for its utility, but as a signifier to a signified intentionality -- a choice that prescribes limits on those acts potentially instrumental to a given intentionality. Within chess, however, it is clear enough that the rules of the game -- that is to say, the restrictions on the moves of the various pieces -- rationalize the game in quite another sense. If there were no limitations on the various pieces and allowable limitations on their moves, the game itself, as a game, is inconceivable. It is an instructive mental exercise to imagine what a game of chess might be like were there no division of labor, so to speak, among the pieces, and no prescriptive limitations on their movements. For the players, there is no ontological reason, as it were, to follow the rules and move the bishop only diagonally across the board, but there is a deontological reason to follow the rules. Once one enters into a game of chess, as a game of chess, one is more or less obliged to abide by the restrictions on the various pieces. I say "more or less" obliged, because it is always possible to imagine cheating, moving a piece impermissibly, say, when one's opponent is out of the room, but it is only possible to imagine cheating, breaking the rules, if there are rules in the first place, including the rules that set out the governing intentionality of checkmate. It is likewise an instructive mental exercise to imagine watching a game of chess as a spectator and detecting one of the players in the act of cheating. One can ask, "why did he cheat as he did?" and answer "because in two moves he will be able to escape his opponents attack and mount his own." Intentionality, in short, rationalizes even the act of cheating.
One can imagine cheating in a different sense. Here again, imagine watching a game of chess as a spectator and detecting one of the players in the act of cheating. One can ask, "why did he cheat as he did?" and answer "because he has set his opponent up for checkmate in two moves. Clearly he wants to lose!" One can imagine the same even without "cheating," per se, by choosing moves that lack utility relative to the governing intentionality. One can still rationalize the act, "because he wished to lose the game," but such a rationalization seems to beg the question and elicit a subsequent "why?" -- the answer to which points to the game's intermediacy, the instrumentality of the game itself within a broader social network of intentionalities -- "because he stands to make less on the prize money than the gambling bets he made on the side." Insofar as chess is wholly prescribed within the rules of the game, and insofar as one chooses to enter into (or not enter into) the game, both forms of "cheating" are possible. I am suggesting the difference between a form of cheating that violates the obligation to pursue checkmate -- that violates, so to speak, the given intentionality of the intentional act -- and a form of cheating that violates the obligation to do so within permissible limitations on the pieces -- that violates, so to speak, restrictions on the instrumentality of any instrumental act.
Neither form of cheating is permissible, of course, but the distinction enters into moral and political discourse around a question of banality. Imagine, for example, a broadly conceived social game, the governing intentionality of which is "the extermination of the jews." It is not, unfortunately, an uncommon game, and one could conceive it as "the extermination of the sunni muslims," or "ethnic Serbs," or the like. Given the intentionality, one can further imagine means instrumental to the satisfaction of the given intentionality -- in the case of the social game aimed at the extermination of the jews, an extensive network of labor camps and railways to transport the jews to the labor camps. Within that, one can imagine Adolf Eichmann, whose governing intentionality was to "keep the trains on schedule," a game that itself involved a range of acts instrumental to its satisfaction. The banality of evil that Arendt points to is, perhaps, captured in my phrase, "broadly conceived social game." At one level, of course, I want to argue that "the extermination of the jews" is no different than any other broadly conceived social game, at least insofar as its basic structure is concerned. It is no different than, say, "maximize corporate profits," though I would also want to argue that the former is morally reprehensible, while the latter is morally neutral, at least within our current moral sensibilities. We would expect, in other words, those in a position to do so, like Eichmann, to help throw the over-arching game aimed at "the extermination of the jews." He did not, of course, and continued playing his particular role, "keeping the trains on time," with some managerial competence -- a role that would have been perceived in and of itself as morally neutral had the cargo been, say, potatoes for the troops and not jews for extermination.
One can imagine cheating in a different sense. Here again, imagine watching a game of chess as a spectator and detecting one of the players in the act of cheating. One can ask, "why did he cheat as he did?" and answer "because he has set his opponent up for checkmate in two moves. Clearly he wants to lose!" One can imagine the same even without "cheating," per se, by choosing moves that lack utility relative to the governing intentionality. One can still rationalize the act, "because he wished to lose the game," but such a rationalization seems to beg the question and elicit a subsequent "why?" -- the answer to which points to the game's intermediacy, the instrumentality of the game itself within a broader social network of intentionalities -- "because he stands to make less on the prize money than the gambling bets he made on the side." Insofar as chess is wholly prescribed within the rules of the game, and insofar as one chooses to enter into (or not enter into) the game, both forms of "cheating" are possible. I am suggesting the difference between a form of cheating that violates the obligation to pursue checkmate -- that violates, so to speak, the given intentionality of the intentional act -- and a form of cheating that violates the obligation to do so within permissible limitations on the pieces -- that violates, so to speak, restrictions on the instrumentality of any instrumental act.
Neither form of cheating is permissible, of course, but the distinction enters into moral and political discourse around a question of banality. Imagine, for example, a broadly conceived social game, the governing intentionality of which is "the extermination of the jews." It is not, unfortunately, an uncommon game, and one could conceive it as "the extermination of the sunni muslims," or "ethnic Serbs," or the like. Given the intentionality, one can further imagine means instrumental to the satisfaction of the given intentionality -- in the case of the social game aimed at the extermination of the jews, an extensive network of labor camps and railways to transport the jews to the labor camps. Within that, one can imagine Adolf Eichmann, whose governing intentionality was to "keep the trains on schedule," a game that itself involved a range of acts instrumental to its satisfaction. The banality of evil that Arendt points to is, perhaps, captured in my phrase, "broadly conceived social game." At one level, of course, I want to argue that "the extermination of the jews" is no different than any other broadly conceived social game, at least insofar as its basic structure is concerned. It is no different than, say, "maximize corporate profits," though I would also want to argue that the former is morally reprehensible, while the latter is morally neutral, at least within our current moral sensibilities. We would expect, in other words, those in a position to do so, like Eichmann, to help throw the over-arching game aimed at "the extermination of the jews." He did not, of course, and continued playing his particular role, "keeping the trains on time," with some managerial competence -- a role that would have been perceived in and of itself as morally neutral had the cargo been, say, potatoes for the troops and not jews for extermination.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Freedom
Freedom
If the basic structure is meaningful, then it might be useful here to lay out more explicitly the implications for human freedom. The basic distinction is one between freedom from and freedom to -- not a particularly startling distinction, but one that is often confused, particularly in a discussion of rights and obligations on the social scale. I will return to both, but for the moment we can look at the basic correspondence between freedom from and intentionality -- that is to say, I must free myself from my subjectivity to the given imperative -- but then too, insofar as I must free myself, I must be free to act instrumentally.
We could look at the basic structure through a slightly different frame, as a matter of choice. At one level, thinking of this physiologically constituted form of life, I do not choose intentionality. I do not choose, for example, to become hungry. I just do, and I must act on that imperative. We would not normally think of the desire to satisfy an appetite as an obligation, per se, but let us just say that we are more or less obliged to go about the task of finding something that will serve as food. At another level, thinking of this as a socially constituted form of life, I do choose, for example, to play chess, and in that sense give myself an imperative. There is an artificiality about the given imperative to seek checkmate, and I can simply quit playing at any time, but to do so for most leaves something unfinished. I suppose too that I could go through the motions of seeking checkmate and not really seek checkmate -- engage in a duplicity or hypocrisy -- but insofar as I am going through the motions of chess as a form of life, I am going through the motions of seeking checkmate. Regardless whether I am given the imperative physiologically or I give the imperative to myself, it is a given imperative none the less. Once I have chosen to play chess, I am obliged to seek checkmate. In either case, freedom from the given intentionality predicates a future state, a not-yet, and to be free from predicates a future state of being in which one is no-longer beset with the given intentionality. As an aside, speaking of the temporal frame implicit within the basic structure, we might think of it as eschatological. Insofar as intentionality brings me into being and does so recurrently, again and again I grow hungry, and I must free myself from my subjectivity to its imperative recurrently, again and again I must go in seek of food, one can better appreciate the eastern eschatological imperative to free oneself from the cycle of birth and death or the more western imperative to free oneself from the trials and tribulations of this existence for a predicated future state of being once and for all free from subjectivity to intentionality.
Beyond that, neither are we perfectly free to act instrumentally. The first and perhaps most significant limitation is utility. While in some respects, I might be free to eat sawdust, eating sawdust will exacerbate, not free me from my subjectivity to my hunger, and in this sense, utility has a sort of prima facia primacy as a first level consideration in choosing how to act. This is not to suggest that the utility of the act is somehow self-evident or obvious. If we imagine our hunting-gathering ancestors traipsing into new territory, coming upon an unfamiliar berry, it might suggest itself as food, but we might also imagine some hesitation, some trepidation among those who first raise it to their lips. Not all things that suggest themselves as food turn out to be good for food. For the moment, I don't want to make too much or too little of utility, and I am clearly considering it from an individual perspective where the proof is in the pudding so to speak -- whether or not it frees me from my subjectivity to the given intentionality. As an aside, however, utility, this differentiation between those acts good for (over against all those not good for) the satisfaction of a given intentionality, also implies a primitive sort of semanticity. If we consider hunger, for example, we come into being within a world already divided between those things which have utility as food (and many others things that do not have utility as food). The dividing line between food (and all that is not-food) may not be immediately obvious, but the dividing line is there, is discoverable, and the objects of the world fall into place on one side or the other of the line. I am suggesting, in other words, that intentionality brings me into being, but it is being already meaningful.
The second limitation is capability. If utility relates to intentionality, whether or not a particular act satisfies my intentionality, capability relates to instrumentality, the range of acts available to me. Here again, given my physiology, eating sawdust might not have much utility as food for me, but I do have the capacity to eat sawdust. I could choose to eat sawdust, even though it would not have much utility, in ways that I simply cannot choose to flap my arms and fly, even though flying might have considerable utility on a number of occasions. If we enlarge the discussion a bit, placing it in a more modern political economy, the distinction between utility and capacity takes on a greater significance. For example, there are acts that might have perfect utility in the alleviation of an appetite -- e.g. stopping by a restaurant, ordering up some food, and eating it. In some theoretical sense, I also have the human capacity to do so. There is nothing in my make up as a human being that prevents me from ordering up food in a restaurant in the way that my physiology prevents flight without considerable mechanical help. I can read the menu, speak clearly enough to get my preferences across to the wait staff, and in this sense, I have the given capacity to order up food and I am perfectly free to do so, supposing I have the money. Because I am a bit impecunious at the moment, however, I lack what might be called the contingent capacity. I am not free to engage in an act that otherwise would have considerable utility in freeing me from my hunger. Here again, for the moment, I don't want to make too much or too little of capacity, and I am clearly considering it from an individual perspective where the proof remains in the pudding -- whether or not I have at my disposal the means to free myself from subjectivity to the given intentionality.
All of which brings us to the third limitation, contingency. If intentionality brings us into being, it brings us into being here and now, into a contingency that is not of my choosing. This, of course, is the existential conundrum. We come into being as one who grows hungry, but what one can do and how one can do it are limited within the here and now. I am not wholly free to act as I might want to act. One can easily enough imagine being born into a famine where that which might have utility to alleviate my hunger is simply not available, or where I lack the capacity to engage in those means available to others and resort to other means -- e.g. rummaging through the dumpsters behind the restaurant. As much as I might want to be the person in the restaurant, not behind the restaurant, I cannot choose to be other than who I am, such as I am, where I am, when I am. There is much to say about contingency, and most post-structuralist philosophy is an examination of contingency -- what it means, so to speak, to be present in a world already meaningful, where the "already" points to being before and beyond my being, and my intentionality is felt, if I may pun a bit, a hole in what is whole -- a lack that must be filled -- a not-yet that must be fulfilled. I am free to, but not perfectly free to, fulfill myself from within a given contingency, and there is of course a great injustice, a great inequity in contingency, one that will be repaired in the end times.
If the basic structure is meaningful, then it might be useful here to lay out more explicitly the implications for human freedom. The basic distinction is one between freedom from and freedom to -- not a particularly startling distinction, but one that is often confused, particularly in a discussion of rights and obligations on the social scale. I will return to both, but for the moment we can look at the basic correspondence between freedom from and intentionality -- that is to say, I must free myself from my subjectivity to the given imperative -- but then too, insofar as I must free myself, I must be free to act instrumentally.
We could look at the basic structure through a slightly different frame, as a matter of choice. At one level, thinking of this physiologically constituted form of life, I do not choose intentionality. I do not choose, for example, to become hungry. I just do, and I must act on that imperative. We would not normally think of the desire to satisfy an appetite as an obligation, per se, but let us just say that we are more or less obliged to go about the task of finding something that will serve as food. At another level, thinking of this as a socially constituted form of life, I do choose, for example, to play chess, and in that sense give myself an imperative. There is an artificiality about the given imperative to seek checkmate, and I can simply quit playing at any time, but to do so for most leaves something unfinished. I suppose too that I could go through the motions of seeking checkmate and not really seek checkmate -- engage in a duplicity or hypocrisy -- but insofar as I am going through the motions of chess as a form of life, I am going through the motions of seeking checkmate. Regardless whether I am given the imperative physiologically or I give the imperative to myself, it is a given imperative none the less. Once I have chosen to play chess, I am obliged to seek checkmate. In either case, freedom from the given intentionality predicates a future state, a not-yet, and to be free from predicates a future state of being in which one is no-longer beset with the given intentionality. As an aside, speaking of the temporal frame implicit within the basic structure, we might think of it as eschatological. Insofar as intentionality brings me into being and does so recurrently, again and again I grow hungry, and I must free myself from my subjectivity to its imperative recurrently, again and again I must go in seek of food, one can better appreciate the eastern eschatological imperative to free oneself from the cycle of birth and death or the more western imperative to free oneself from the trials and tribulations of this existence for a predicated future state of being once and for all free from subjectivity to intentionality.
Beyond that, neither are we perfectly free to act instrumentally. The first and perhaps most significant limitation is utility. While in some respects, I might be free to eat sawdust, eating sawdust will exacerbate, not free me from my subjectivity to my hunger, and in this sense, utility has a sort of prima facia primacy as a first level consideration in choosing how to act. This is not to suggest that the utility of the act is somehow self-evident or obvious. If we imagine our hunting-gathering ancestors traipsing into new territory, coming upon an unfamiliar berry, it might suggest itself as food, but we might also imagine some hesitation, some trepidation among those who first raise it to their lips. Not all things that suggest themselves as food turn out to be good for food. For the moment, I don't want to make too much or too little of utility, and I am clearly considering it from an individual perspective where the proof is in the pudding so to speak -- whether or not it frees me from my subjectivity to the given intentionality. As an aside, however, utility, this differentiation between those acts good for (over against all those not good for) the satisfaction of a given intentionality, also implies a primitive sort of semanticity. If we consider hunger, for example, we come into being within a world already divided between those things which have utility as food (and many others things that do not have utility as food). The dividing line between food (and all that is not-food) may not be immediately obvious, but the dividing line is there, is discoverable, and the objects of the world fall into place on one side or the other of the line. I am suggesting, in other words, that intentionality brings me into being, but it is being already meaningful.
The second limitation is capability. If utility relates to intentionality, whether or not a particular act satisfies my intentionality, capability relates to instrumentality, the range of acts available to me. Here again, given my physiology, eating sawdust might not have much utility as food for me, but I do have the capacity to eat sawdust. I could choose to eat sawdust, even though it would not have much utility, in ways that I simply cannot choose to flap my arms and fly, even though flying might have considerable utility on a number of occasions. If we enlarge the discussion a bit, placing it in a more modern political economy, the distinction between utility and capacity takes on a greater significance. For example, there are acts that might have perfect utility in the alleviation of an appetite -- e.g. stopping by a restaurant, ordering up some food, and eating it. In some theoretical sense, I also have the human capacity to do so. There is nothing in my make up as a human being that prevents me from ordering up food in a restaurant in the way that my physiology prevents flight without considerable mechanical help. I can read the menu, speak clearly enough to get my preferences across to the wait staff, and in this sense, I have the given capacity to order up food and I am perfectly free to do so, supposing I have the money. Because I am a bit impecunious at the moment, however, I lack what might be called the contingent capacity. I am not free to engage in an act that otherwise would have considerable utility in freeing me from my hunger. Here again, for the moment, I don't want to make too much or too little of capacity, and I am clearly considering it from an individual perspective where the proof remains in the pudding -- whether or not I have at my disposal the means to free myself from subjectivity to the given intentionality.
All of which brings us to the third limitation, contingency. If intentionality brings us into being, it brings us into being here and now, into a contingency that is not of my choosing. This, of course, is the existential conundrum. We come into being as one who grows hungry, but what one can do and how one can do it are limited within the here and now. I am not wholly free to act as I might want to act. One can easily enough imagine being born into a famine where that which might have utility to alleviate my hunger is simply not available, or where I lack the capacity to engage in those means available to others and resort to other means -- e.g. rummaging through the dumpsters behind the restaurant. As much as I might want to be the person in the restaurant, not behind the restaurant, I cannot choose to be other than who I am, such as I am, where I am, when I am. There is much to say about contingency, and most post-structuralist philosophy is an examination of contingency -- what it means, so to speak, to be present in a world already meaningful, where the "already" points to being before and beyond my being, and my intentionality is felt, if I may pun a bit, a hole in what is whole -- a lack that must be filled -- a not-yet that must be fulfilled. I am free to, but not perfectly free to, fulfill myself from within a given contingency, and there is of course a great injustice, a great inequity in contingency, one that will be repaired in the end times.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Instrumentality
Brings One into Being
Given an intentionality, there must be some instrumental way, some instrumental means to move one from the state of "not-yet" to the state of satisfaction. I have used the rather pretentious phrase, "the instrumental act brings one into being," to describe what I believe to be a point of convergence (if not the point of convergence) for ontology and epistemology, and the point of convergence is in "instrumentality." If we revert to our hunger game for a moment, it should be clear enough that, considered from a purely utilitarian frame, some things in the world will count as food, other things will not, and hunger will drive a creature to seek out those things that count as food and ingest it. The former, I might add, takes place within a realm of freedom, the latter is rather mechanistic, but it is important to note for the moment that the intentionality creates a dualistic categorization of the world, a differentiation between those things that are food (and all that is not). An amoeba swimming in a droplet and a human being in a wider world are not fundamentally different in this respect. Both "categorize" their world into food (and all that is not food) and there must be some level of "awareness" of the differentiations within their world. I would not, of course, be so bold as to suggest that the "awareness" is of the same nature or the same quality -- indeed what counts as food will be wholly different for the two creatures -- I am simply suggesting that intentionality brings it and us into interaction with the world, such as it is, and it does so instrumentally.
There are a number of things I can and should point out here, and I should begin with the observation that instrumental acts are, to a certain extent, arbitrary, but it is an arbitrariness bounded by contingency and utility. If I am hungry, there are any number of instrumental acts that I can use to satisfy my hunger, any one of which might be sufficient unto the cause. As I pointed out earlier, if I am hungry enough, and if circumstances are dire enough, I could even go so far as to scrounge for insects. Fortunately, circumstances are not so dire, and I can open the refrigerator and scrounge there for something that might take away my appetite. Just how I go about satisfying my hunger, the instrumental acts I actually engage, are the result of many things, not least contingency (what is available for me to do). I am in the world here and now, and I interact with a world here and now, in the early twenty first century, in the United States, in a mid-sized city replete with grocery outlets, to which food is brought through a wide distribution net from as far away as Mexico and from which I can purchase from an equally array of potential foods. The notion "I can purchase" -- as opposed to say, "I can grow" -- evinces a whole range of preliminary activities within institutions that provide "a living," the money that was needed to purchase the tomatoes, the mozzarella, and the basil that are waiting in the refrigerator to become the salad which in turn will satisfy my hunger. To suggest that a given intentionality, my hunger, brings me into being is at once a statement trivial and profound. I am hungry here and now, and I am free to engage in any number of instrumental acts, any efforts I might make to free myself from the subjectivity of my hunger must take place within the contingency of here and now.
On the side of utility, given an intentionality, some things do (and other things do not) contribute to its satisfaction. If I am hungry, I do not go to the garage and rummage through my tool box for something to eat, but go to the kitchen and rummage through the refrigerator. In some ways this seems too obvious to mention, and perhaps it is, but often the obvious is overlooked. Here I want to make a couple of ancillary points. The utility of any instrumental act (or the actual instrumentality of any instrumental act) is bounded by contingency, the historical "here and nowness" of its performance. I have already elaborated on contingency, and don't really need to do so again, but I need to point out something that is equally obvious but often overlooked -- the performance of an act is adaptive, both in the micro scale adaptations of and to the world such as it is here and now (including the adaptations of my individual physical being in the world, my "going" to the refrigerator) and in the macro scale adaptations of and to the world such as it is here and now (including the adaptations of the institutional contingency, the facts of a refrigerator, the electric power to run a refrigerator, the distribution networks necessary to fill the refrigerator, and so on). I am, so to speak, subject to the subjectivity of a given intentionality -- I am hungry -- and the "I am" that is hungry, the "self" that is hungry, makes use of the world such as it is here and now to free itself from its subjectivity. The "self" that is hungry at once adapts to the world in which it finds itself to free itself from its hunger, and in doing so the performance of the act, changes the world, however slightly. If I eat the tomatoes and mozzarella, it is no longer there to be eaten. The instrumentality of an instrumental act is both bound by contingency and, in the performance, changes contingency.
A Bit of Summative Elaboration
If I might elaborate a bit here, there are several claims implicit to what I'm saying. The first set is materialist. I have a physical being such as it is, and because my physical being is such as it is, I have intentionality. We can describe, for example, the physical mechanisms that make me grow hungry, and that might be useful knowledge, but the "makes me" in "makes me grow hungry" implies that my physical being exercises a certain autocracy over the "me," the subjective self, an autocracy that I express in the phrase "I am subject to the subjectivity of a given intentionality." The "makes me" in "makes me grow hungry" also implies that the autocracy, being subject to the subjectivity of a given intentionality, is undesirable, is being bound to one degree or another in a form of suffering. It is an imperative to no longer be subject to the subjectivity of the given intentionality, or an imperative to free myself from its suffering. To free myself from the subjectivity of the given intentionality, I must be free to act, but my freedom is bound up within contingency and utility. I am here and now, but I am "not yet" free from my subjectivity, and I must act within and on the world such as it is, and my act must be efficacious if I am to free myself. The imperative, or so I want to say, "brings me into being," brings the "me'ness" of the "me" into being as the subject that must act, and is also intended to suggest that it brings me as a subject into awareness of and engagement with the world such as it is. The given intentionality shapes "me" as and within a "form of life."
The second set is institutional. To extend the argument a bit, it is possible to imagine a single individual fraught with intentionality -- the science fiction scenario, where the protagonist wakes from an apocalyptic event, alone in the universe, a singularity. The physical trappings of institutional life remain -- the abandoned cityscape -- but it is rendered uncanny by the absence of others. We do not, of course, live in a world absent others, but it is possible to imagine being in the world alone in part because we are in the world alone. I do not have the immediate access to others intentionality in quite the way that I have immediate access to my own intentionality. I do not "feel" others suffering in quite the way the way that I "feel" my own suffering, indeed, for the most part, I do not feel it at all. This has a number of implications. At some fundamental level, of course, I can behave as though I were truly a singularity, and that all others around me were simply automatons of one sort or another, that all others around me were part of the world within which and with which I must satisfy any given intentionality. There is, in this, a reduction of the other to a mere instrumentality, the value of which, to "me," is merely their instrumentality to a given intentionality, their utility. I am suggesting, of course, that is precisely how we behave in the world -- to an extent. To do so wholly, to reduce the other to mere utility, is pathological, though it goes without saying that we all know those who see others principally in their instrumental value. It might be indicative of a creeping pathology that much recent apocalyptic fiction, where protagonist inhabits a world almost, but not quite bereft of others, cannibalism has become a central trope. In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, the protagonist must navigate a world where most value him, not as human beings, but for his utility as meat stock.
It perhaps goes without saying that the protagonist would prefer to be valued otherwise, and part of the horror of reading The Road lies in the disconnect between our own recognition of the protagonist for his humanity within a world where he has been reduced to a potential meal. It is one thing for "me" in my singularity to reduce others to their instrumental value, but quite something else for others to reduce "me" to a mere instrumental value. I am suggesting, of course, that the "me'ness" of the "me" comes into being relative to a given intentionality, and one such intentionality that brings the "me'ness" of the "me" into being is the need for "recognition" as full human being. I should point out that my need for recognition does not place a special or metaphysical demand on others -- they may still view me solely as an automaton -- but the instrumental means available to me, and the efficacy of those instrumental means, does imply and depend upon what might be called an semiotic epistemology of others. If I see someone eating, for example, I make the assumption that their behavior is governed by the same intentionality that my behavior is governed by when I eat, and the ravenousness of their eating signals the urgency of the intentionality. I know the other, not because I can feel their hunger, but because I can, so to speak, read their acts as signifiers to a signified intentionality, one that I share. There are, of course, any number of things wrong with the assumption. When I see a spider eating a trapped fly, though we recognize the governing intentionality of "hunger," there is little reason to assume that the spider with all its differences of physiology "feels" hunger in the way that I feel hunger. That argument extends upward and outward to suggest that unless another is "me" precisely, and of course no one is "me" precisely, they cannot know with certainty how "I" feel when brought into being by "my" governing intentionality, so I am left with my singularity and my impossible need for recognition -- one of the great discoveries of adolescence.
Having said that, however, the reconciliation of my singularity and my need for recognition implies not a social contract as such (there is no particular time at which people sit down and decide upon these matters) but a social semiotic where my instrumental acts signify a signified intentionality. I should point out as well that there is nothing particularly "intentional" about this, nor is it contingent upon "language" per se. I eat, not because I wish to signify a signified intentionality, but because I am beset to one degree or another with hunger and eating is instrumental to the satisfaction of that intentionality. My actions, so to speak, nevertheless signify a signified intentionality, and insofar as I am also beset with the need for recognition, and that need demands of my instrumental acts that they be comprehensible to others, there is a corresponding instrumental demand that my acts conform to the apparent expectations of others -- to choose from among the available instrumental acts those acts that will signify the signified intentionality. This implies a two-fold contingency -- a physical contingency that determines the available acts, and from within the physical contingency a social contingency that limits the available acts. The latter is not necessarily "rule" bound, though the limitations might well be described as "rules," perhaps even prescribed and enforced as "rules" (one can think here of dietary restrictions -- more on that later) but it is worth noting that, under duress, the "rules" break down and the instrumental acts nevertheless signify a signified intentionality.
Given an intentionality, there must be some instrumental way, some instrumental means to move one from the state of "not-yet" to the state of satisfaction. I have used the rather pretentious phrase, "the instrumental act brings one into being," to describe what I believe to be a point of convergence (if not the point of convergence) for ontology and epistemology, and the point of convergence is in "instrumentality." If we revert to our hunger game for a moment, it should be clear enough that, considered from a purely utilitarian frame, some things in the world will count as food, other things will not, and hunger will drive a creature to seek out those things that count as food and ingest it. The former, I might add, takes place within a realm of freedom, the latter is rather mechanistic, but it is important to note for the moment that the intentionality creates a dualistic categorization of the world, a differentiation between those things that are food (and all that is not). An amoeba swimming in a droplet and a human being in a wider world are not fundamentally different in this respect. Both "categorize" their world into food (and all that is not food) and there must be some level of "awareness" of the differentiations within their world. I would not, of course, be so bold as to suggest that the "awareness" is of the same nature or the same quality -- indeed what counts as food will be wholly different for the two creatures -- I am simply suggesting that intentionality brings it and us into interaction with the world, such as it is, and it does so instrumentally.
There are a number of things I can and should point out here, and I should begin with the observation that instrumental acts are, to a certain extent, arbitrary, but it is an arbitrariness bounded by contingency and utility. If I am hungry, there are any number of instrumental acts that I can use to satisfy my hunger, any one of which might be sufficient unto the cause. As I pointed out earlier, if I am hungry enough, and if circumstances are dire enough, I could even go so far as to scrounge for insects. Fortunately, circumstances are not so dire, and I can open the refrigerator and scrounge there for something that might take away my appetite. Just how I go about satisfying my hunger, the instrumental acts I actually engage, are the result of many things, not least contingency (what is available for me to do). I am in the world here and now, and I interact with a world here and now, in the early twenty first century, in the United States, in a mid-sized city replete with grocery outlets, to which food is brought through a wide distribution net from as far away as Mexico and from which I can purchase from an equally array of potential foods. The notion "I can purchase" -- as opposed to say, "I can grow" -- evinces a whole range of preliminary activities within institutions that provide "a living," the money that was needed to purchase the tomatoes, the mozzarella, and the basil that are waiting in the refrigerator to become the salad which in turn will satisfy my hunger. To suggest that a given intentionality, my hunger, brings me into being is at once a statement trivial and profound. I am hungry here and now, and I am free to engage in any number of instrumental acts, any efforts I might make to free myself from the subjectivity of my hunger must take place within the contingency of here and now.
On the side of utility, given an intentionality, some things do (and other things do not) contribute to its satisfaction. If I am hungry, I do not go to the garage and rummage through my tool box for something to eat, but go to the kitchen and rummage through the refrigerator. In some ways this seems too obvious to mention, and perhaps it is, but often the obvious is overlooked. Here I want to make a couple of ancillary points. The utility of any instrumental act (or the actual instrumentality of any instrumental act) is bounded by contingency, the historical "here and nowness" of its performance. I have already elaborated on contingency, and don't really need to do so again, but I need to point out something that is equally obvious but often overlooked -- the performance of an act is adaptive, both in the micro scale adaptations of and to the world such as it is here and now (including the adaptations of my individual physical being in the world, my "going" to the refrigerator) and in the macro scale adaptations of and to the world such as it is here and now (including the adaptations of the institutional contingency, the facts of a refrigerator, the electric power to run a refrigerator, the distribution networks necessary to fill the refrigerator, and so on). I am, so to speak, subject to the subjectivity of a given intentionality -- I am hungry -- and the "I am" that is hungry, the "self" that is hungry, makes use of the world such as it is here and now to free itself from its subjectivity. The "self" that is hungry at once adapts to the world in which it finds itself to free itself from its hunger, and in doing so the performance of the act, changes the world, however slightly. If I eat the tomatoes and mozzarella, it is no longer there to be eaten. The instrumentality of an instrumental act is both bound by contingency and, in the performance, changes contingency.
A Bit of Summative Elaboration
If I might elaborate a bit here, there are several claims implicit to what I'm saying. The first set is materialist. I have a physical being such as it is, and because my physical being is such as it is, I have intentionality. We can describe, for example, the physical mechanisms that make me grow hungry, and that might be useful knowledge, but the "makes me" in "makes me grow hungry" implies that my physical being exercises a certain autocracy over the "me," the subjective self, an autocracy that I express in the phrase "I am subject to the subjectivity of a given intentionality." The "makes me" in "makes me grow hungry" also implies that the autocracy, being subject to the subjectivity of a given intentionality, is undesirable, is being bound to one degree or another in a form of suffering. It is an imperative to no longer be subject to the subjectivity of the given intentionality, or an imperative to free myself from its suffering. To free myself from the subjectivity of the given intentionality, I must be free to act, but my freedom is bound up within contingency and utility. I am here and now, but I am "not yet" free from my subjectivity, and I must act within and on the world such as it is, and my act must be efficacious if I am to free myself. The imperative, or so I want to say, "brings me into being," brings the "me'ness" of the "me" into being as the subject that must act, and is also intended to suggest that it brings me as a subject into awareness of and engagement with the world such as it is. The given intentionality shapes "me" as and within a "form of life."
The second set is institutional. To extend the argument a bit, it is possible to imagine a single individual fraught with intentionality -- the science fiction scenario, where the protagonist wakes from an apocalyptic event, alone in the universe, a singularity. The physical trappings of institutional life remain -- the abandoned cityscape -- but it is rendered uncanny by the absence of others. We do not, of course, live in a world absent others, but it is possible to imagine being in the world alone in part because we are in the world alone. I do not have the immediate access to others intentionality in quite the way that I have immediate access to my own intentionality. I do not "feel" others suffering in quite the way the way that I "feel" my own suffering, indeed, for the most part, I do not feel it at all. This has a number of implications. At some fundamental level, of course, I can behave as though I were truly a singularity, and that all others around me were simply automatons of one sort or another, that all others around me were part of the world within which and with which I must satisfy any given intentionality. There is, in this, a reduction of the other to a mere instrumentality, the value of which, to "me," is merely their instrumentality to a given intentionality, their utility. I am suggesting, of course, that is precisely how we behave in the world -- to an extent. To do so wholly, to reduce the other to mere utility, is pathological, though it goes without saying that we all know those who see others principally in their instrumental value. It might be indicative of a creeping pathology that much recent apocalyptic fiction, where protagonist inhabits a world almost, but not quite bereft of others, cannibalism has become a central trope. In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, the protagonist must navigate a world where most value him, not as human beings, but for his utility as meat stock.
It perhaps goes without saying that the protagonist would prefer to be valued otherwise, and part of the horror of reading The Road lies in the disconnect between our own recognition of the protagonist for his humanity within a world where he has been reduced to a potential meal. It is one thing for "me" in my singularity to reduce others to their instrumental value, but quite something else for others to reduce "me" to a mere instrumental value. I am suggesting, of course, that the "me'ness" of the "me" comes into being relative to a given intentionality, and one such intentionality that brings the "me'ness" of the "me" into being is the need for "recognition" as full human being. I should point out that my need for recognition does not place a special or metaphysical demand on others -- they may still view me solely as an automaton -- but the instrumental means available to me, and the efficacy of those instrumental means, does imply and depend upon what might be called an semiotic epistemology of others. If I see someone eating, for example, I make the assumption that their behavior is governed by the same intentionality that my behavior is governed by when I eat, and the ravenousness of their eating signals the urgency of the intentionality. I know the other, not because I can feel their hunger, but because I can, so to speak, read their acts as signifiers to a signified intentionality, one that I share. There are, of course, any number of things wrong with the assumption. When I see a spider eating a trapped fly, though we recognize the governing intentionality of "hunger," there is little reason to assume that the spider with all its differences of physiology "feels" hunger in the way that I feel hunger. That argument extends upward and outward to suggest that unless another is "me" precisely, and of course no one is "me" precisely, they cannot know with certainty how "I" feel when brought into being by "my" governing intentionality, so I am left with my singularity and my impossible need for recognition -- one of the great discoveries of adolescence.
Having said that, however, the reconciliation of my singularity and my need for recognition implies not a social contract as such (there is no particular time at which people sit down and decide upon these matters) but a social semiotic where my instrumental acts signify a signified intentionality. I should point out as well that there is nothing particularly "intentional" about this, nor is it contingent upon "language" per se. I eat, not because I wish to signify a signified intentionality, but because I am beset to one degree or another with hunger and eating is instrumental to the satisfaction of that intentionality. My actions, so to speak, nevertheless signify a signified intentionality, and insofar as I am also beset with the need for recognition, and that need demands of my instrumental acts that they be comprehensible to others, there is a corresponding instrumental demand that my acts conform to the apparent expectations of others -- to choose from among the available instrumental acts those acts that will signify the signified intentionality. This implies a two-fold contingency -- a physical contingency that determines the available acts, and from within the physical contingency a social contingency that limits the available acts. The latter is not necessarily "rule" bound, though the limitations might well be described as "rules," perhaps even prescribed and enforced as "rules" (one can think here of dietary restrictions -- more on that later) but it is worth noting that, under duress, the "rules" break down and the instrumental acts nevertheless signify a signified intentionality.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Back to the Top -- Intentionality
Artificial Intelligence
Let me begin with an apology for a certain amount of terminological awkwardness. I have settled on the term "intentionality" and have been pondering the notion of a "governing intentionality" for most of my (largely wasted) adult life. There are a number of near synonyms that I could have chosen -- mission, purpose, end -- but each comes freighted with its own connotations, most of which I want to avoid for reasons that will become apparent.
Rather than provide a formal definition of intentionality, let me just say that I first began pondering intentionality in the context of artificial intelligence. The anecdote I use stems from the mid-eighties when I was in graduate school, specifically when I was in a computational linguistics course. I took on, as a class project, the programming of a computer to produce sentences, and then, just to take it to the next level, gave it a vocabulary and syntax so the cumulative sentences would resemble a poem by the poet John Ashbery. It all sounds much more impressive than it was, but the poems that the machine produced were close enough to being poems that they were able to fool some of my fellow graduate students in the English department -- that is to say, some took them to be poems by a person -- which is to say they passed the infamous "Turing test." In order to read a poem as a poem, one must ascribe authorial intent to the text. One must assume, in other words, that the author intended those particular words and that he meant something by them. Those who were fooled by the poems did just that and some had quite ingenious "readings" that ascribed intent and meaning well beyond anything the computer had in mind.
I bring this forward to talk about the disconnects, the first of which is the disconnect between the intentionality governing production of the poem and the intentionality ascribed to the poem itself. At one remove, I created a computer program. While I was quite proud of the body of the program, it did what most would consider a simple and useless task. It chugged from an initial state, a sort of "go-signal," to a final state, "a printed poem." The program "knew" that it had achieved its final state when it had fulfilled certain criteria specified in advance in the body of the program. I have strong doubts that the computer had "intention," in the way that we would normally think of "intention" as a state of mind, but I cannot be sure. I had no doubt, however, that the computer had "intentionality," that it worked through more or less random iterations until it satisfied the criteria of the final state and a produced what was recognizably a poem. In a certain social context, where there were writers and readers of poems, the readers struggled through the "surrealist" combinations until they too had satisfied the criteria and had produced what might be called a "reading." To use Wittgenstein's term, both the computer and the reader engaged in separate, but connected "language games." The outcome of neither game was entirely predictable, at least not to me, but the game itself and the outcome of the game, the satisfaction of the criteria, was recognizable.
The Hunger Game
Let me put this same discussion in another context, one that most would recognize as wholly physiological -- hunger. Most would consider hunger and the need to satisfy hunger a basic need, not only for humans, but for most living things. For those who are reading this, it sits right down there at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and it occupies a good deal of our time and effort throughout any given day. I don't want to make too much or too little of this, but most of us would consider hunger mechanistic -- that is to say, it is built into the mechanism of our physiology. We feel hungry, and when we feel hungry, we go about the business of getting something to eat, something that will satisfy our hunger. To use the language of the previous section, our bodies chugged from an initial state, a sort of "go-signal" of hunger, to a final state, a "satisfied hunger." Here, however, I have no doubts whatsoever that I was aware of my hunger, that I had "intention" to satisfy my hunger, and that I took certain actions that I knew would suffice to do so -- I went to refrigerator in search of left overs that I could heat up in the microwave, found them, and ate them. I went through the motions of what most would recognize as a "hunger game," and if my actions were being watched, some hidden spy camera in the light fixtures, my actions would signal (or to use a more loaded term, would signify) my "intention" to get something to eat. Likewise, though, I have no doubt that I had "intentionality" -- that the physiological "go signal" of my hunger was prior to my "intention" to get something to eat and that the instrumental acts associated with getting something to eat were governed by that physiological state. The final state of "a satisfied hunger" is itself a given -- that is to say, I did not choose to be hungry, and while I could choose to resist the impulse or attempt to ignore the stomach pangs, it is there nevertheless -- but the final state of a satisfied hunger does not determine the acts sufficient to its satisfaction. One can imagine many ways of going about "getting something to eat." Instead of opening the refrigerator, I could have grabbed the car keys and popped on down to Burger King. Nevertheless, implicit to my physiological being are certain criteria that the instrumental acts must meet in order to bring about "a satisfied hunger" -- certain acts do (and many more potential acts do not) contribute to the final state of a satisfied hunger.
There are a couple of things I want to point out here. First, the whole business of intentionality, as I am describing it above, can be rather uncanny once we recognize it for what it is. Consider, for example, the sci-fi staple, the almost human android. I am imagining the Star Trek character of Data, but I could be speaking of the more sophisticated android like creatures that populated Battlestar Gallactica. Imagine, in other words, that everyone around you is simply a machine, cleverly designed by an advanced alien race to replicate the actions of human beings in every possible way conceivable. Unlike you, they have no "inner life." They do not have "states of mind," but in the limited case here, only the intermittent "go-signal" that sets in motion a "hunger game," which they play to completion, and then go about other "games." Ultimately, it's not terribly difficult to imagine, in part because we suspect that we are indeed machines at some level, and in part because we do not have the sort of direct access to the inner lives of others that we have to our own. We must "surmise" it from actions that we recognize as instrumental to certain intentionalites. Even if we don't recognize the substance, placing it in the mouth, masticating it, swallowing it, all signal someone who is attempting to reach the final state of a satisfied hunger. We must "surmise," as an interpretive act, that the "eater" felt hungry and has the intention of satisfying that hunger. I will return to this point later, but it is important to keep it in the back of one's mind because it has moral and ethical implications. In certain respects, by asking you to imagine a world in which others are simply machines (and by implication, sub-human) I have also asked you to inhabit the world of a socio-path, one who fails to "surmise" the inner lives of others.
Second, as a sort of first noble truth, I am suggesting that intentionality is suffering. We have labeled it differently -- hunger as need, hunger as desire, et cetera -- but at fundament hunger is a state of discomfiture. Having said that, "suffering" overstates the case, "discomfiture" understates the case, but it serves to make another point. I strongly suspect that I have not felt hunger in quite the way that others around the globe have felt hunger. I am more to the "discomfiture" end of the spectrum than the "suffering" end of the spectrum, and the instrumental acts sufficient to its satisfaction are more readily available to me, in wider variety than for many others. We might split a hair and suggest that others play the "hunger game" while I play something more akin to an "appetite game," and such distinctions may prove to be important, but for the moment I simply want to make the point that the game comes as an a priori and a governing imperative. I must do something, and insofar as it must satisfy certain criteria or conditions set out within my physiology, I must eat. I must, in other words, free myself from hunger, and I am more or less free to engage in instrumental acts pursuant to that end. I say "more or less free" because clearly some things can be eaten, other things cannot, and among those things that "can" be eaten from a purely utilitarian perspective, we may choose not to eat. While I have no particular objections to eating insects, and I recognize that they could be a source of protein, I choose not to do so, in part because my hunger is more "discomfiture" than "suffering," in part because it is simply not what "we" do. If my wife were to observe me scrounging the back yard for bugs to eat, she might "surmise" that I was hungry, but she might also "surmise" that I had gone off he deep end.
The Chess Game
Let me put this initial discussion of intentionality into one last context. Current novels and movies aside, most do not think of hunger as a game -- not, for example, in the way we think of chess as a game. Here again, let me point out the basic structure of what I'm describing as intentionality. In any chess game, there is an initial state of affairs in the arrangement of the pieces on the board, a go signal when one of the two players moves the first pawn, a number of intervening moves each of which is intended to achieve a final state of checkmate. There are, of course, profound differences between the hunger game and the chess game. The one is for the most part biologically constructed, the other is a social construct from top to bottom. I use the term "socially construct" rather guardedly, but purposefully on a couple of levels.
At one level, there is the game itself. While the game has an existence outside and before any particular player, and in that sense is a given, but the game itself is wholly constituted within and by its "rules." This would seem to have rather profound implications for the governing imperative. Because the hunger game is implicit to our biological being, we do not choose either the initiating state or the final state, and because it is implicit to our biological being, because it comes from within our very being, so to speak, it would seem to carry a different weight than the governing imperative of chess. We suffer under a failure to satisfy our hunger in ways that we do not suffer under a similar failure to achieve checkmate, and somehow this difference must be taken into account. Perhaps so, and they are very different games, but for the moment, I am merely suggesting a structural similarity. Because the chess game has been defined within our social environment, we do not choose either the initiating state or the final state, and in that sense the chess game, no less than the hunger game, presents us with an a priori and a governing imperative. Once I have chosen to enter into the game, I must achieve checkmate. I must, in other words, free myself from the "not-yet" (as in "not-yet-checkmate") and I am more or less free to engage in acts pursuant to that end. Here again, I say "more or less" because some acts are efficacious to that end, other acts are not, and among those acts that might potentially be efficacious (if only I could move my knight just a bit differently I would have him) are those that are prohibited under the rules of the engagement.
At another level, there is the competition between the players. I could have chosen solitaire as my example, and avoided this discussion for the moment, but the chess game allows me to make a number of additional preliminary points. If we imagine a chess game in progress, the two players are sitting slumped over the board, and one makes a move. Both players are now attempting to reach a state of checkmate, both have entered into a state of "not-yet-checkmate" and the white player's move has now set the context for the black player's move. He makes a move, and his move sets the context for the white player's next move, and so on. I am suggesting that there is an evolving contingency within which each of the subsequent moves take place. The white player is free to make his moves, the black player is free to make her moves, but each move changes the contingency within which the next move takes place -- changes, that is, the potential efficacy of any individual move. The while player may have had a strategy, but the black player's move just threw it out the window, and a move that is possible -- that is permitted under the rules -- no longer has pragmatic efficacy. The black player is, in effect, still free to make the move, but insofar as the white player's last move precludes its effectiveness, insofar as it no longer contributes to his freedom from "not-yet checkmate," one might say there is a difference between a theoretical freedom to act and a pragmatic freedom to act. I am simply making the common sense observation that the imperative remains the same, but what is possible is not always practical, and it is good to keep the distinction in mind.
The Institutional
Ok, at one level there is the game itself, and it is socially constituted within the mutually understood rules of the game, and then there is the playing of the game. Some will recognize this as de Saussure's structuralist distinction between the synchronic and the diachronic -- between the grammar of a language and the actual production of contingent utterances within that language -- between the rules of chess and the actual production of a contingent game within those rules -- and so on. I am less interested in the temporal argument per se (though clearly, intentionality, as I have described it, exists within the temporal frame of a "now" fraught with the "not-yet") somewhat more interested in what might be called the "institutional" argument. It is the admittedly structuralist distinction between an institution, which we generally understand to have a synchronic existence and the individuals who participate within the institution, which we generally understand to have a contingent diachronic existence. In general parlance, we hear this referred to as "being part of something larger than ourselves," and I am suggesting that the a priori and governing imperative -- that intentionality -- brings into being an institution.
The choice of language is not altogether gratuitous. Within political and moral philosophy, it is rather commonplace to imagine points of origin, so I will engage a version of that particular thought experiment and allow the uncanny to peek through momentarily again. Imagine, if you will, that technology has progressed to the point that we can replicate exactly existing human beings, with one exception -- they have no memory, no contingent experience, prior to the moment of being "activated." Imagine further that a group of human beings have been placed on a deserted island, which we will call Eden to capture its paradisiacal nature. At the moment of their activation, they have he inherent biologically constituted imperatives, but no others, nothing that would resemble a "socially constituted imperative." They are merely an aggregate of "individuals," in what might be called a "state of nature," and I will refer to this aggregate as the "polis" for lack of a better term. It is clear enough that the polis lacks a collective purpose, and whether the polis devolves into a Hobbesian war of all on all, or evolves into a utilitarian commune, depends upon any number of contingent factors, but is also clear enough that those in the polis will create institutions which do have a collective purpose. If one imagines a Hobbesian war of all on all, it will not be long before one has something that resembles a police force. If one imagines a utilitarian commune, it will not be long before one has something that resembles a redistributive economy, moving goods (e.g. food) from those with a surfeit to those in need. The institution as such may have an historical point of origin, but once created, once given an a priori and governing intentionality, the institution takes on a life of its own -- to use Wittgenstein's phrase, it becomes a "form of life."
I am also suggesting that some of the same distinctions pertain as we speak. The individual, as an individual, is brought into being by intentionality. He or she or it must engage instrumentally with the world to satisfy what has been given as an intentionality. I am, as it were, subject to the subjectivity of my given imperatives, you are subject to the subjectivity of your imperatives, et cetera. We can look at the city of New York or Los Angeles and see nothing but an aggregate of individuals, each engaged instrumentally with the world to satisfy their individual imperatives. The institution, as an institution, is brought into being by intentionality. It must engage instrumentally with the world to satisfy what has been given as an intentionality. We can look at the City of New York or Los Angeles and see a polis proper, with institutions, each engaged instrumentally with the world to satisfy their individual imperatives. Insofar as individuals participate within institutions, within socially constituted intentionalities, I am subject to the subjectivity of those institutions within which I participate, you are subject to the subjectivity of those institutions within which you participate, et cetera. Here again my language is not gratuitous. I use the phrase "brought into being" and "subject to the subjectivity" rather deliberately, and I return to them in my next set of posts, but let me close out this post with an observation. Just as I don't know if my poem writing computer program had an intention to write poems, a consciousness or a subjectivity within the wiring of the machine, I do not know if an institution has an intention to satisfy its intentionality, a consciousness or subjectivity that transcends the consciousness or subjectivity of the individuals that participate within it.
Let me begin with an apology for a certain amount of terminological awkwardness. I have settled on the term "intentionality" and have been pondering the notion of a "governing intentionality" for most of my (largely wasted) adult life. There are a number of near synonyms that I could have chosen -- mission, purpose, end -- but each comes freighted with its own connotations, most of which I want to avoid for reasons that will become apparent.
Rather than provide a formal definition of intentionality, let me just say that I first began pondering intentionality in the context of artificial intelligence. The anecdote I use stems from the mid-eighties when I was in graduate school, specifically when I was in a computational linguistics course. I took on, as a class project, the programming of a computer to produce sentences, and then, just to take it to the next level, gave it a vocabulary and syntax so the cumulative sentences would resemble a poem by the poet John Ashbery. It all sounds much more impressive than it was, but the poems that the machine produced were close enough to being poems that they were able to fool some of my fellow graduate students in the English department -- that is to say, some took them to be poems by a person -- which is to say they passed the infamous "Turing test." In order to read a poem as a poem, one must ascribe authorial intent to the text. One must assume, in other words, that the author intended those particular words and that he meant something by them. Those who were fooled by the poems did just that and some had quite ingenious "readings" that ascribed intent and meaning well beyond anything the computer had in mind.
I bring this forward to talk about the disconnects, the first of which is the disconnect between the intentionality governing production of the poem and the intentionality ascribed to the poem itself. At one remove, I created a computer program. While I was quite proud of the body of the program, it did what most would consider a simple and useless task. It chugged from an initial state, a sort of "go-signal," to a final state, "a printed poem." The program "knew" that it had achieved its final state when it had fulfilled certain criteria specified in advance in the body of the program. I have strong doubts that the computer had "intention," in the way that we would normally think of "intention" as a state of mind, but I cannot be sure. I had no doubt, however, that the computer had "intentionality," that it worked through more or less random iterations until it satisfied the criteria of the final state and a produced what was recognizably a poem. In a certain social context, where there were writers and readers of poems, the readers struggled through the "surrealist" combinations until they too had satisfied the criteria and had produced what might be called a "reading." To use Wittgenstein's term, both the computer and the reader engaged in separate, but connected "language games." The outcome of neither game was entirely predictable, at least not to me, but the game itself and the outcome of the game, the satisfaction of the criteria, was recognizable.
The Hunger Game
Let me put this same discussion in another context, one that most would recognize as wholly physiological -- hunger. Most would consider hunger and the need to satisfy hunger a basic need, not only for humans, but for most living things. For those who are reading this, it sits right down there at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and it occupies a good deal of our time and effort throughout any given day. I don't want to make too much or too little of this, but most of us would consider hunger mechanistic -- that is to say, it is built into the mechanism of our physiology. We feel hungry, and when we feel hungry, we go about the business of getting something to eat, something that will satisfy our hunger. To use the language of the previous section, our bodies chugged from an initial state, a sort of "go-signal" of hunger, to a final state, a "satisfied hunger." Here, however, I have no doubts whatsoever that I was aware of my hunger, that I had "intention" to satisfy my hunger, and that I took certain actions that I knew would suffice to do so -- I went to refrigerator in search of left overs that I could heat up in the microwave, found them, and ate them. I went through the motions of what most would recognize as a "hunger game," and if my actions were being watched, some hidden spy camera in the light fixtures, my actions would signal (or to use a more loaded term, would signify) my "intention" to get something to eat. Likewise, though, I have no doubt that I had "intentionality" -- that the physiological "go signal" of my hunger was prior to my "intention" to get something to eat and that the instrumental acts associated with getting something to eat were governed by that physiological state. The final state of "a satisfied hunger" is itself a given -- that is to say, I did not choose to be hungry, and while I could choose to resist the impulse or attempt to ignore the stomach pangs, it is there nevertheless -- but the final state of a satisfied hunger does not determine the acts sufficient to its satisfaction. One can imagine many ways of going about "getting something to eat." Instead of opening the refrigerator, I could have grabbed the car keys and popped on down to Burger King. Nevertheless, implicit to my physiological being are certain criteria that the instrumental acts must meet in order to bring about "a satisfied hunger" -- certain acts do (and many more potential acts do not) contribute to the final state of a satisfied hunger.
There are a couple of things I want to point out here. First, the whole business of intentionality, as I am describing it above, can be rather uncanny once we recognize it for what it is. Consider, for example, the sci-fi staple, the almost human android. I am imagining the Star Trek character of Data, but I could be speaking of the more sophisticated android like creatures that populated Battlestar Gallactica. Imagine, in other words, that everyone around you is simply a machine, cleverly designed by an advanced alien race to replicate the actions of human beings in every possible way conceivable. Unlike you, they have no "inner life." They do not have "states of mind," but in the limited case here, only the intermittent "go-signal" that sets in motion a "hunger game," which they play to completion, and then go about other "games." Ultimately, it's not terribly difficult to imagine, in part because we suspect that we are indeed machines at some level, and in part because we do not have the sort of direct access to the inner lives of others that we have to our own. We must "surmise" it from actions that we recognize as instrumental to certain intentionalites. Even if we don't recognize the substance, placing it in the mouth, masticating it, swallowing it, all signal someone who is attempting to reach the final state of a satisfied hunger. We must "surmise," as an interpretive act, that the "eater" felt hungry and has the intention of satisfying that hunger. I will return to this point later, but it is important to keep it in the back of one's mind because it has moral and ethical implications. In certain respects, by asking you to imagine a world in which others are simply machines (and by implication, sub-human) I have also asked you to inhabit the world of a socio-path, one who fails to "surmise" the inner lives of others.
Second, as a sort of first noble truth, I am suggesting that intentionality is suffering. We have labeled it differently -- hunger as need, hunger as desire, et cetera -- but at fundament hunger is a state of discomfiture. Having said that, "suffering" overstates the case, "discomfiture" understates the case, but it serves to make another point. I strongly suspect that I have not felt hunger in quite the way that others around the globe have felt hunger. I am more to the "discomfiture" end of the spectrum than the "suffering" end of the spectrum, and the instrumental acts sufficient to its satisfaction are more readily available to me, in wider variety than for many others. We might split a hair and suggest that others play the "hunger game" while I play something more akin to an "appetite game," and such distinctions may prove to be important, but for the moment I simply want to make the point that the game comes as an a priori and a governing imperative. I must do something, and insofar as it must satisfy certain criteria or conditions set out within my physiology, I must eat. I must, in other words, free myself from hunger, and I am more or less free to engage in instrumental acts pursuant to that end. I say "more or less free" because clearly some things can be eaten, other things cannot, and among those things that "can" be eaten from a purely utilitarian perspective, we may choose not to eat. While I have no particular objections to eating insects, and I recognize that they could be a source of protein, I choose not to do so, in part because my hunger is more "discomfiture" than "suffering," in part because it is simply not what "we" do. If my wife were to observe me scrounging the back yard for bugs to eat, she might "surmise" that I was hungry, but she might also "surmise" that I had gone off he deep end.
The Chess Game
Let me put this initial discussion of intentionality into one last context. Current novels and movies aside, most do not think of hunger as a game -- not, for example, in the way we think of chess as a game. Here again, let me point out the basic structure of what I'm describing as intentionality. In any chess game, there is an initial state of affairs in the arrangement of the pieces on the board, a go signal when one of the two players moves the first pawn, a number of intervening moves each of which is intended to achieve a final state of checkmate. There are, of course, profound differences between the hunger game and the chess game. The one is for the most part biologically constructed, the other is a social construct from top to bottom. I use the term "socially construct" rather guardedly, but purposefully on a couple of levels.
At one level, there is the game itself. While the game has an existence outside and before any particular player, and in that sense is a given, but the game itself is wholly constituted within and by its "rules." This would seem to have rather profound implications for the governing imperative. Because the hunger game is implicit to our biological being, we do not choose either the initiating state or the final state, and because it is implicit to our biological being, because it comes from within our very being, so to speak, it would seem to carry a different weight than the governing imperative of chess. We suffer under a failure to satisfy our hunger in ways that we do not suffer under a similar failure to achieve checkmate, and somehow this difference must be taken into account. Perhaps so, and they are very different games, but for the moment, I am merely suggesting a structural similarity. Because the chess game has been defined within our social environment, we do not choose either the initiating state or the final state, and in that sense the chess game, no less than the hunger game, presents us with an a priori and a governing imperative. Once I have chosen to enter into the game, I must achieve checkmate. I must, in other words, free myself from the "not-yet" (as in "not-yet-checkmate") and I am more or less free to engage in acts pursuant to that end. Here again, I say "more or less" because some acts are efficacious to that end, other acts are not, and among those acts that might potentially be efficacious (if only I could move my knight just a bit differently I would have him) are those that are prohibited under the rules of the engagement.
At another level, there is the competition between the players. I could have chosen solitaire as my example, and avoided this discussion for the moment, but the chess game allows me to make a number of additional preliminary points. If we imagine a chess game in progress, the two players are sitting slumped over the board, and one makes a move. Both players are now attempting to reach a state of checkmate, both have entered into a state of "not-yet-checkmate" and the white player's move has now set the context for the black player's move. He makes a move, and his move sets the context for the white player's next move, and so on. I am suggesting that there is an evolving contingency within which each of the subsequent moves take place. The white player is free to make his moves, the black player is free to make her moves, but each move changes the contingency within which the next move takes place -- changes, that is, the potential efficacy of any individual move. The while player may have had a strategy, but the black player's move just threw it out the window, and a move that is possible -- that is permitted under the rules -- no longer has pragmatic efficacy. The black player is, in effect, still free to make the move, but insofar as the white player's last move precludes its effectiveness, insofar as it no longer contributes to his freedom from "not-yet checkmate," one might say there is a difference between a theoretical freedom to act and a pragmatic freedom to act. I am simply making the common sense observation that the imperative remains the same, but what is possible is not always practical, and it is good to keep the distinction in mind.
The Institutional
Ok, at one level there is the game itself, and it is socially constituted within the mutually understood rules of the game, and then there is the playing of the game. Some will recognize this as de Saussure's structuralist distinction between the synchronic and the diachronic -- between the grammar of a language and the actual production of contingent utterances within that language -- between the rules of chess and the actual production of a contingent game within those rules -- and so on. I am less interested in the temporal argument per se (though clearly, intentionality, as I have described it, exists within the temporal frame of a "now" fraught with the "not-yet") somewhat more interested in what might be called the "institutional" argument. It is the admittedly structuralist distinction between an institution, which we generally understand to have a synchronic existence and the individuals who participate within the institution, which we generally understand to have a contingent diachronic existence. In general parlance, we hear this referred to as "being part of something larger than ourselves," and I am suggesting that the a priori and governing imperative -- that intentionality -- brings into being an institution.
The choice of language is not altogether gratuitous. Within political and moral philosophy, it is rather commonplace to imagine points of origin, so I will engage a version of that particular thought experiment and allow the uncanny to peek through momentarily again. Imagine, if you will, that technology has progressed to the point that we can replicate exactly existing human beings, with one exception -- they have no memory, no contingent experience, prior to the moment of being "activated." Imagine further that a group of human beings have been placed on a deserted island, which we will call Eden to capture its paradisiacal nature. At the moment of their activation, they have he inherent biologically constituted imperatives, but no others, nothing that would resemble a "socially constituted imperative." They are merely an aggregate of "individuals," in what might be called a "state of nature," and I will refer to this aggregate as the "polis" for lack of a better term. It is clear enough that the polis lacks a collective purpose, and whether the polis devolves into a Hobbesian war of all on all, or evolves into a utilitarian commune, depends upon any number of contingent factors, but is also clear enough that those in the polis will create institutions which do have a collective purpose. If one imagines a Hobbesian war of all on all, it will not be long before one has something that resembles a police force. If one imagines a utilitarian commune, it will not be long before one has something that resembles a redistributive economy, moving goods (e.g. food) from those with a surfeit to those in need. The institution as such may have an historical point of origin, but once created, once given an a priori and governing intentionality, the institution takes on a life of its own -- to use Wittgenstein's phrase, it becomes a "form of life."
I am also suggesting that some of the same distinctions pertain as we speak. The individual, as an individual, is brought into being by intentionality. He or she or it must engage instrumentally with the world to satisfy what has been given as an intentionality. I am, as it were, subject to the subjectivity of my given imperatives, you are subject to the subjectivity of your imperatives, et cetera. We can look at the city of New York or Los Angeles and see nothing but an aggregate of individuals, each engaged instrumentally with the world to satisfy their individual imperatives. The institution, as an institution, is brought into being by intentionality. It must engage instrumentally with the world to satisfy what has been given as an intentionality. We can look at the City of New York or Los Angeles and see a polis proper, with institutions, each engaged instrumentally with the world to satisfy their individual imperatives. Insofar as individuals participate within institutions, within socially constituted intentionalities, I am subject to the subjectivity of those institutions within which I participate, you are subject to the subjectivity of those institutions within which you participate, et cetera. Here again my language is not gratuitous. I use the phrase "brought into being" and "subject to the subjectivity" rather deliberately, and I return to them in my next set of posts, but let me close out this post with an observation. Just as I don't know if my poem writing computer program had an intention to write poems, a consciousness or a subjectivity within the wiring of the machine, I do not know if an institution has an intention to satisfy its intentionality, a consciousness or subjectivity that transcends the consciousness or subjectivity of the individuals that participate within it.
Monday, September 10, 2012
The Democratic State
To make clear what is at stake here, let me first distinguish between a "polis" and an "institution." The polis I want to define as any recognizable aggregate of people, for the most part geographic. A major city stands as a polis. The difference between a polis and an institution, analytically, can be revealed by asking the question what is the governing intentionality of each. I want to say neither Salt Lake City nor New York City have a governing intentionality, but they do have institutions -- city government, the police, the metropolitan opera, and the like -- and it is relatively easy to articulate a governing intentionality (a mission and purpose) for each. It was, I think, the great genius of the framers to recognize this distinction implicitly, and upend what is traditional by placing the polis over the institution.
Both the theocratic and ideological states want to give governing intentionality to the polis -- that is to say, turn the polis into an institution. Winthrop, for example, wanted the Plymouth settlement to be a city on the hill, a shining example of the Puritan faith, and as such provided governing imperatives for each and all. Lenin, for example, wanted the Soviet state to be the harbinger of the world wide communist revolution, and as such provided governing imperatives for each and all. It is, of course, somewhat more complex, but whether one credits the will of god or the will of history, in both cases, the state must then be free to act on behalf of the governing intentionality, reducing individuals to instruments to that end.
The democratic state substitutes the will of the people for the will of God (a substitution that particularly galls the conservative evangelical for whom the will of God, as revealed, can not be supplanted). It might be argued that the will of the people is no more no less a contingent, historically determined fiction than the will of God, and I will argue as much insofar as the will of the people is revealed through institutions no less than the will of God. Consider, for example, the "vote," such as it is. Given opposing courses of action, the vote reveals the will of the people, and often winners and losers, a majority and minority opinion, the latter of which might be called the opposing faction because, as I suggested to a colleague, losers are typically neither gracious in defeat nor persuaded by the vote itself. Consider also, for example, the notion of the market place, such as it is. Given opposing courses of action, the market place reveals the will of the people, and often winners and losers, the invidious comparisons of pecuniary emulation, to invoke Veblen. Relative to the individual, the so-called "invisible hand" of the marketplace substitutes for the invisible hand of God and bestows grace on the winners, penury on the losers, and as such carries not only utilitarian significance, but also moral significance as well. The successful are the virtuous, a paradigm upheld more in the supposition than in the examination of fact (e.g. that "hard work" and a sort of native "cleverness" are the virtues most in demand, and that anyone in possession of these virtues can rise to the top). So long as there are institutions to keep the peace on the streets (e.g. the police) and so long as there are governing norms (e.g. the constitution, which substitutes for the sacred text, and the first amendment right to speech) the state can subsist, as a polis, without a governing intentionality.
There is the broad outline, and what is most called for (I believe) is a post-democratic state that is not regressive the to the barbarian or the theocratic, but difficult to imagine. As with any substitution, and the will of the people for the will of God (or history), there are consequences, not least what might be called the "primacy of rhetoric." This carries the full freight of the platonic distinction between dialectic (aimed at truth) and rhetoric (aimed at persuasion). Within the polis, moral efficacy rises, not with the dialectical apprehension of truth, but in what most can be persuaded to believe. Here again, this is particularly galling to those who would believe that there is truth, that it is apprehensible to human beings, and that truth should govern, not a transient social majority. This plays out on two fronts, the one being religion, the other being science, both of which ostensibly aim at truth once and for all. Consider, for example, the following from the correspondence section of the newspaper:
"I find it curious that Latter-Day Saints who are Democrats sincerely feel they are taking the high road on social issues, when actually the opposite is true. What these misinformed Mormon Democrats fail to realize is that we are obligated as individuals to help the needy through voluntary donation of our time and resources, but it should never be done through the forced process of involuntary, confiscatory taxation! There is a huge difference between those two philosophies. One way is very good; the other way is evil through and through. This is apparently not understood by those well-meaning members. If they stopped to think about it, they would realize that it was Satan's plan to force us all to be good (Democratic strategy) but Christ taught us to do good of our own free choice (Republican plan) If everyone understood this simple correct principle, there would be no more liberals." SL Tribune, Sep 10, 2012.
There are any number of difficulties with Mr. James C. Green's argument, so many that it would take a chapter to address them all. I bring it forward to point out that his fundamental position is theocratic, not democratic (though one suspects he would feel he is both). Within the polis, the majority can be persuaded to create an institution whose governing intentionality it is, so to speak, to provide alms to those in need. Within the polis, the majority can be persuaded to levy a tax to fund the institution whose governing intentionality it is to provide alms to those in need, and do so on privately held good Christian principles. Ostensibly, within the polis, those who disagree, as apparently Mr. Green would disagree, can likewise exercise rhetoric to persuade a majority to disband the welfare institution in favor of private giving. Given the opportunity, one suspects Mr. Green, not unlike the mullahs of the middle east, would impose the "simple correct principle," regardless of the majority opinion, in part because, to his mind, the majority opinion is so obviously false. Truth should prevail over mere opinion.
PS the barbarian state and the imperial state I see as roughly synonymous, insofar as the history of imperialism is the history of the survival instinct writ large, but more on that later as well.
Both the theocratic and ideological states want to give governing intentionality to the polis -- that is to say, turn the polis into an institution. Winthrop, for example, wanted the Plymouth settlement to be a city on the hill, a shining example of the Puritan faith, and as such provided governing imperatives for each and all. Lenin, for example, wanted the Soviet state to be the harbinger of the world wide communist revolution, and as such provided governing imperatives for each and all. It is, of course, somewhat more complex, but whether one credits the will of god or the will of history, in both cases, the state must then be free to act on behalf of the governing intentionality, reducing individuals to instruments to that end.
The democratic state substitutes the will of the people for the will of God (a substitution that particularly galls the conservative evangelical for whom the will of God, as revealed, can not be supplanted). It might be argued that the will of the people is no more no less a contingent, historically determined fiction than the will of God, and I will argue as much insofar as the will of the people is revealed through institutions no less than the will of God. Consider, for example, the "vote," such as it is. Given opposing courses of action, the vote reveals the will of the people, and often winners and losers, a majority and minority opinion, the latter of which might be called the opposing faction because, as I suggested to a colleague, losers are typically neither gracious in defeat nor persuaded by the vote itself. Consider also, for example, the notion of the market place, such as it is. Given opposing courses of action, the market place reveals the will of the people, and often winners and losers, the invidious comparisons of pecuniary emulation, to invoke Veblen. Relative to the individual, the so-called "invisible hand" of the marketplace substitutes for the invisible hand of God and bestows grace on the winners, penury on the losers, and as such carries not only utilitarian significance, but also moral significance as well. The successful are the virtuous, a paradigm upheld more in the supposition than in the examination of fact (e.g. that "hard work" and a sort of native "cleverness" are the virtues most in demand, and that anyone in possession of these virtues can rise to the top). So long as there are institutions to keep the peace on the streets (e.g. the police) and so long as there are governing norms (e.g. the constitution, which substitutes for the sacred text, and the first amendment right to speech) the state can subsist, as a polis, without a governing intentionality.
There is the broad outline, and what is most called for (I believe) is a post-democratic state that is not regressive the to the barbarian or the theocratic, but difficult to imagine. As with any substitution, and the will of the people for the will of God (or history), there are consequences, not least what might be called the "primacy of rhetoric." This carries the full freight of the platonic distinction between dialectic (aimed at truth) and rhetoric (aimed at persuasion). Within the polis, moral efficacy rises, not with the dialectical apprehension of truth, but in what most can be persuaded to believe. Here again, this is particularly galling to those who would believe that there is truth, that it is apprehensible to human beings, and that truth should govern, not a transient social majority. This plays out on two fronts, the one being religion, the other being science, both of which ostensibly aim at truth once and for all. Consider, for example, the following from the correspondence section of the newspaper:
"I find it curious that Latter-Day Saints who are Democrats sincerely feel they are taking the high road on social issues, when actually the opposite is true. What these misinformed Mormon Democrats fail to realize is that we are obligated as individuals to help the needy through voluntary donation of our time and resources, but it should never be done through the forced process of involuntary, confiscatory taxation! There is a huge difference between those two philosophies. One way is very good; the other way is evil through and through. This is apparently not understood by those well-meaning members. If they stopped to think about it, they would realize that it was Satan's plan to force us all to be good (Democratic strategy) but Christ taught us to do good of our own free choice (Republican plan) If everyone understood this simple correct principle, there would be no more liberals." SL Tribune, Sep 10, 2012.
There are any number of difficulties with Mr. James C. Green's argument, so many that it would take a chapter to address them all. I bring it forward to point out that his fundamental position is theocratic, not democratic (though one suspects he would feel he is both). Within the polis, the majority can be persuaded to create an institution whose governing intentionality it is, so to speak, to provide alms to those in need. Within the polis, the majority can be persuaded to levy a tax to fund the institution whose governing intentionality it is to provide alms to those in need, and do so on privately held good Christian principles. Ostensibly, within the polis, those who disagree, as apparently Mr. Green would disagree, can likewise exercise rhetoric to persuade a majority to disband the welfare institution in favor of private giving. Given the opportunity, one suspects Mr. Green, not unlike the mullahs of the middle east, would impose the "simple correct principle," regardless of the majority opinion, in part because, to his mind, the majority opinion is so obviously false. Truth should prevail over mere opinion.
PS the barbarian state and the imperial state I see as roughly synonymous, insofar as the history of imperialism is the history of the survival instinct writ large, but more on that later as well.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
The Four Contextualizations
The four contexts or forms of life are the barbarian, the theocentric, the ideocentric, and the democratic state. I think, definitionally, what is meant by each is relatively clear, but I should point out first of all that there are no clear types. While I would say, generally speaking, the four supersede each other historically, the theocentric form of life is an imposition from within and on the barbarian form of life, the ideocenric is an imposition from within and on the theocentric form of life, but it is a theocentrism that has not shaken free entirely of the barbarian, and so on.
The barbarian state is analytically, if not historically, prior to the others. It emerges from within and represents what might be meant by a more or less Hobbesian state of nature resulting in a sovereign. It is predicated on the absolute freedom which leads to the war of all on all postulated by Hobbes. The virtues most in demand are the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness, or as Veblen put it, the virtues of Achilles and Ulysses. There is a rudimentary market, but it is essentially a barter economy, where the excess goods of one are distributed to others in exchange for their excess goods of another -- likewise the acquired skills of one are distributed to others in exchange for the acquired skills of another. The moral virtue most in demand is reciprocity, fairness, though it is a reciprocity always subject to invidious distortion by individual disparities of strength and cleverness. The state, such as it is, exists through the appropriation of tribute, in part because it has the acquired strength to appropriate tribute, in part as an exchange for protection from yet others who might appropriate tribute. An individual, the sovereign as it were, personifies the state, not abstractly as a trope, but concretely in his person. His rule and rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate from his character and his virtues, his strength and his cleverness, and it demands two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty. The governing intentionality of the state, as such, is survival. For the sovereign, survival in the role as sovereign. For those subject to his subjectivity, survival within the appropriations of the sovereign under his protection from the violent appropriations of others.
The theocentric state emerges from within and is a superimposition on the barbarian state. I do not want to dispute the existence of divinity. It seems clear enough to me that divinity exists, if only in the mind of humankind, and if only as an evolutionary quirk, yet nevertheless tangibly enough to motivate the creation of the most superb temples and paintings and poetry. It also seems clear enough to me that humankind invents gods and goddesses, a mythos, to articulate these intimations of the divine. There is a very long history of religious apprehension, in both senses of the word apprehension, and I will take this history as sufficient proof that divinity exists, and that the institutional articulations of that divinity are the creation of men and women over time. Having said that, the theocentric state emerges from within the context of the barbarian state. The emergence of monotheistic religion posits a God that is, at once, a reflection of the sovereign, but one that transcends the sovereign. The transcendent god served first, principally, as a justification for and a means of rebellion against the caprice of the sovereign and the moral decay of the state. The (re)emergence of evangelical Christianity and Islam serve as a case in point, but in the nature of such rebellions, if successful, the rebels must rule, but they do so not simply on the usurpations of might, but a might that has been sanctified by God. The transcendent God served subsequently, principally, as a justification for the exercise of state power, but it is a state power that (ostensibly) freely limits its freedom to act in fealty to the moral imperatives of the transcendent sovereign God. The Machiavellian prince revealed sufficiently the inherent duplicity, insofar as the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness are the virtues which most sustain power, and the state must continue to appropriate tribute, but the sovereign himself must in turn pay tribute to the transcendent God. His rule and his rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate not only from his character and his virtues, but from the transcendent God, and it demands again two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty to him as the representative of the transcendent God.
Ideology emerges from within theology, and literacy plays a role not only in the institutionalization of religion around the sacred text and its explication. Religion, as it were, posits an intentionality once and for all and set out the instrumental means of attain to the satisfaction of that intentionality. This intentionality is at once individual and historical -- individual insofar as it predicates the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire (e.g. the kingdom of heaven, the pure land) if and only if one demonstrates fealty to the religion by freely accepting limitations on one's freedom (e.g. thou shalt not kill) -- historical insofar as it predicates an end time (e.g. the kingdom of heaven on earth) which is the fulfillment of God's plan for mankind. The latter is often hastened by the former. Regardless, religion, in positing an intentionality once and for all, and by setting out the instrumental means of attaining to the satisfaction of that intentionality once and for all, superimposes another moral virtue -- purity and sanctity -- on in-group loyalty. Consider, for example, dietary restrictions. They have no instrumental value, per say, to basic biologically driven intentionality (the suffering of hunger or the desire for food). They are, largely, arbitrary impositions on a pure utility, and have, as it were, a role as signifier to a signified fealty to a particular religion, to a particular form of purity and sanctity. They are also signifiers of an in-group loyalty, being one of us, and consequently not simply religious disobedience, but also social disobedience and the pretext for the exercise of state power, an exercise sanctified by God and exercised through the sovereign against those who would impose a false god from without, and those who would subvert the true god from within. The exercise of power is still the exercise of coercive power, but it is the "principled" exercise of power.
Here again, I should perhaps emphasize that the locution "from within" is intended to suggest an interdependency, and another principle which perhaps might be called "substitution." Ideology emerges from within theology when one term is substituted for another. In the great twentieth century ideology of communism, both engaged in what might be called a substitution of terms. Communism predicated the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire within the communist state proper. The underlying religious structure remained the same, with the substitution of terms. I am suggesting, of course, that the ideological state, is simply a recasting of the theocratic state under secular terms, and both the theocratic state.
The barbarian state is analytically, if not historically, prior to the others. It emerges from within and represents what might be meant by a more or less Hobbesian state of nature resulting in a sovereign. It is predicated on the absolute freedom which leads to the war of all on all postulated by Hobbes. The virtues most in demand are the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness, or as Veblen put it, the virtues of Achilles and Ulysses. There is a rudimentary market, but it is essentially a barter economy, where the excess goods of one are distributed to others in exchange for their excess goods of another -- likewise the acquired skills of one are distributed to others in exchange for the acquired skills of another. The moral virtue most in demand is reciprocity, fairness, though it is a reciprocity always subject to invidious distortion by individual disparities of strength and cleverness. The state, such as it is, exists through the appropriation of tribute, in part because it has the acquired strength to appropriate tribute, in part as an exchange for protection from yet others who might appropriate tribute. An individual, the sovereign as it were, personifies the state, not abstractly as a trope, but concretely in his person. His rule and rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate from his character and his virtues, his strength and his cleverness, and it demands two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty. The governing intentionality of the state, as such, is survival. For the sovereign, survival in the role as sovereign. For those subject to his subjectivity, survival within the appropriations of the sovereign under his protection from the violent appropriations of others.
The theocentric state emerges from within and is a superimposition on the barbarian state. I do not want to dispute the existence of divinity. It seems clear enough to me that divinity exists, if only in the mind of humankind, and if only as an evolutionary quirk, yet nevertheless tangibly enough to motivate the creation of the most superb temples and paintings and poetry. It also seems clear enough to me that humankind invents gods and goddesses, a mythos, to articulate these intimations of the divine. There is a very long history of religious apprehension, in both senses of the word apprehension, and I will take this history as sufficient proof that divinity exists, and that the institutional articulations of that divinity are the creation of men and women over time. Having said that, the theocentric state emerges from within the context of the barbarian state. The emergence of monotheistic religion posits a God that is, at once, a reflection of the sovereign, but one that transcends the sovereign. The transcendent god served first, principally, as a justification for and a means of rebellion against the caprice of the sovereign and the moral decay of the state. The (re)emergence of evangelical Christianity and Islam serve as a case in point, but in the nature of such rebellions, if successful, the rebels must rule, but they do so not simply on the usurpations of might, but a might that has been sanctified by God. The transcendent God served subsequently, principally, as a justification for the exercise of state power, but it is a state power that (ostensibly) freely limits its freedom to act in fealty to the moral imperatives of the transcendent sovereign God. The Machiavellian prince revealed sufficiently the inherent duplicity, insofar as the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness are the virtues which most sustain power, and the state must continue to appropriate tribute, but the sovereign himself must in turn pay tribute to the transcendent God. His rule and his rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate not only from his character and his virtues, but from the transcendent God, and it demands again two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty to him as the representative of the transcendent God.
Ideology emerges from within theology, and literacy plays a role not only in the institutionalization of religion around the sacred text and its explication. Religion, as it were, posits an intentionality once and for all and set out the instrumental means of attain to the satisfaction of that intentionality. This intentionality is at once individual and historical -- individual insofar as it predicates the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire (e.g. the kingdom of heaven, the pure land) if and only if one demonstrates fealty to the religion by freely accepting limitations on one's freedom (e.g. thou shalt not kill) -- historical insofar as it predicates an end time (e.g. the kingdom of heaven on earth) which is the fulfillment of God's plan for mankind. The latter is often hastened by the former. Regardless, religion, in positing an intentionality once and for all, and by setting out the instrumental means of attaining to the satisfaction of that intentionality once and for all, superimposes another moral virtue -- purity and sanctity -- on in-group loyalty. Consider, for example, dietary restrictions. They have no instrumental value, per say, to basic biologically driven intentionality (the suffering of hunger or the desire for food). They are, largely, arbitrary impositions on a pure utility, and have, as it were, a role as signifier to a signified fealty to a particular religion, to a particular form of purity and sanctity. They are also signifiers of an in-group loyalty, being one of us, and consequently not simply religious disobedience, but also social disobedience and the pretext for the exercise of state power, an exercise sanctified by God and exercised through the sovereign against those who would impose a false god from without, and those who would subvert the true god from within. The exercise of power is still the exercise of coercive power, but it is the "principled" exercise of power.
Here again, I should perhaps emphasize that the locution "from within" is intended to suggest an interdependency, and another principle which perhaps might be called "substitution." Ideology emerges from within theology when one term is substituted for another. In the great twentieth century ideology of communism, both engaged in what might be called a substitution of terms. Communism predicated the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire within the communist state proper. The underlying religious structure remained the same, with the substitution of terms. I am suggesting, of course, that the ideological state, is simply a recasting of the theocratic state under secular terms, and both the theocratic state.
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