Dienstag, 10. Januar 2017
Mittwoch, 4. Januar 2017
Habermas - Introduction
Intro: Understanding Habermas
General Quote:
A central goal of Habermas, the turn away from the philosophies of consciousness:
General Quote:
" Written by 'the greatest philosopher alive', as many would put it, this volume will be particularly rewarding for specialists in Semantics and Pragmatics in the field of Linguistics and Philosophy of language, but also for those interested in less 'advertised' aspects of the philosophies of Kant, Hegel, and Juergen Habermas himself, among others." (Magda Dumitru, The University at Buffalo, SUNY)The quote is superficial and exaggerating. My students would receive a lower grade for this.
"The volume is a translation of the 1999 edition of "Wahrheit und Rechtfertigung" -- except for chapters 2 and 5, which have been replaced. "Comment: Imprecise.
A central goal of Habermas, the turn away from the philosophies of consciousness:
"The appropriation of hermeneutics and linguistic analysis convinced me then [in the 1960s] that critical social theory had to break free from the conceptual apparatus of the philosophy of consciousness flowing from Kant and Hegel. (LSS, p. xiii; italics mine)" (according to Lafont in The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy)Problems with Habermas position:
"a global critique of reason, one that radicalizes the detranscendentalization inherent in the linguistic turn to the point of advocating an absolute contextualism. The insurmountability of worldviews inherent in natural languages turns any universalist position into a mere illusion, the illusion of achieving a "God's eye point of view" (as Putnam puts it). It would seem as if the linugistic turn as such lends support to a contextualist position." (Lafont 121)
Samstag, 24. Dezember 2016
Peirce - Introduction
Peirce discovered the idea of the practical:
"A certain maxim of Logic which I have called Pragmatism has recommended itself to me for diverse reasons and on sundry considerations. Having taken it as my guide for most of my thought, I find that as the years of my knowledge of it lengthen, my sense of the importance of it presses upon me more and more. If it is only true, it is certainly a wonderfully efficient instrument. It is not to philosophy only that it is applicable. I have found it of signal service in every branch of science that I have studied. My want of skill in practical affairs does not prevent me from perceiving the advantage of being well imbued with pragmatism in the conduct of life." Lecture I : Pragmatism : The Normative Sciences, CP 5.14
The applicability of a thought in every branch seems to make it valuable.
An old argument about logic.Few persons care to study logic, because everybody conceives himself to be proficient enough in the art of reasoning already.
"But I observe that this satisfaction is limited to one's own ratiocination and does not extend to that of other men."
"We come to the full possession of our power of drawing inferences the last of all our faculties, for it is not so much a natural gift as a long and difficult art." "Illustrations of the Logic of Scence" First Paper — The Fixation of Belief", in Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 12 (November 1877)
Peirce Summary of his Symbolism in the Encyclopedia: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/#BasSigStr
History
Micro-relational
approaches are promoted. With a warm heart we stand and use war-metaphors to express or opinions. We fight for some rights.
The built leverage might, however, not be enough for changing situations in rural areas, for changing the angry white man, for informing the under-informed and uninterested, or the falsely informed truthers. It does not change conservative Latinos who embrace their family or honest workers who only want a job that pays more than average. It does not change social structures of distribution. All or minimal ideas do not reach the sphere of self-realizing ideas.
Some warm glow feelings come back to us who tell a story of globalized, universal rights. Protection of minorities, however, is not up to some people standing up in buses fighting against the obvious idiots, but it is about forged and instituted concepts. As much as there are no causes from a sociological perspective, there are almost no micro-activities that induce change in that regards.
Maybe people should rather become active in NGO's and work on discourse abilities to find a new idea of how to unite people in meritocracies?
I held the position that there is nothing happening in philosophy right now. After 9/11 we are in a period of transition and transformation at best. The Marxist stories are told, the libertarian story is told and some communitarians decided to teach their ideas in Canada. Maybe it is the best choice to go to countries that are good in telling new stories and seeking for new ways of life.
There is no change by gentrifying our areas. There is no change by me staying here, staying connected with some friends. Moreover, standing up for those in need, as much as we should do it, does not change those in need. Minorities are very well trained in racism and hatred, they just don't have the majority to express it. I am clear on leaving and seeking something else.
Our critique of the system is absorbed in a new form of anti-establishment government, a government that claims to be against the government as much as we are against it.
The built leverage might, however, not be enough for changing situations in rural areas, for changing the angry white man, for informing the under-informed and uninterested, or the falsely informed truthers. It does not change conservative Latinos who embrace their family or honest workers who only want a job that pays more than average. It does not change social structures of distribution. All or minimal ideas do not reach the sphere of self-realizing ideas.
Some warm glow feelings come back to us who tell a story of globalized, universal rights. Protection of minorities, however, is not up to some people standing up in buses fighting against the obvious idiots, but it is about forged and instituted concepts. As much as there are no causes from a sociological perspective, there are almost no micro-activities that induce change in that regards.
Maybe people should rather become active in NGO's and work on discourse abilities to find a new idea of how to unite people in meritocracies?
I held the position that there is nothing happening in philosophy right now. After 9/11 we are in a period of transition and transformation at best. The Marxist stories are told, the libertarian story is told and some communitarians decided to teach their ideas in Canada. Maybe it is the best choice to go to countries that are good in telling new stories and seeking for new ways of life.
There is no change by gentrifying our areas. There is no change by me staying here, staying connected with some friends. Moreover, standing up for those in need, as much as we should do it, does not change those in need. Minorities are very well trained in racism and hatred, they just don't have the majority to express it. I am clear on leaving and seeking something else.
Our critique of the system is absorbed in a new form of anti-establishment government, a government that claims to be against the government as much as we are against it.
Dienstag, 22. November 2016
Sloterdijk - You Must Change Your Life - Planet of the Practicing - Last Hunger Art - Kafka's Hunger Artist
Sloterdijk - You Must Change Your Life - Planet of the Practicing - Last Hunger Art - Kafka's Hunger Artist
§1
What is the truth of Homo Sapiens?
What is the transformation of Unthan about? What are they escaping from?
§2
What is the transition from ascetics to acrobatics? For Sloterdijk it is a de-spiritualization and a condition for being human.
§3
Kafka exemplifies this without the heroic tone
§4
The acrobats make danger to their profession. This is their new God.
§5
The dawn of the acrobats - a rope on the ground - the discovery of the ordinary. We do not know anymore what makes us acrobats
§6
As the world above disappears there, it is unclear what fastens the rope. The world above is replaced by strength
§7
There are less super-homos, nobody walks the tight rope anymore - Christianity is at best "floorgymnastics"
§8
What are strengthening and what are weakening forms of training
§9
Three works "A Report to an Academy" (1917), "First Sorrow" (1922), "A Hunger Artist" (1923)
§10
An Ape in our world, but the question is: Why do humans create zoos and circuses? What are they supposed to learn there about themselves?
§11
The way out for the ape is freedom
§12
Learning the handshake, the only way to integrate into humanity.
§13
Next step is to learn how to narcotize himself.
§14
A trapez-artist who needs higher and higher thrill
§15
"Nothing less than the impossible is satisfactory." Transcendence becomes the impossible
§16
Artists have to enter the sphere of impossibility.
§17
Artists get remote from life. It is part of art.
§18
Suspicion to the hunger artist, sitting in a cage and refusing to perform the normal course of life.
§19
The 40 day restriction was not appreciated by the artist, because he wanted to outperform himself. His collapse in the end was a collapse because of frustration.
§20
Setting records that go unnoticed.
§21
Artistic confession that he could not find the food he liked
§22
fasting - "how one can beat nature at its own game." (Sloterdijk 2013:70)
§23
triumph over the "always passively and involuntarily experienced", replacing profane hunger with a sacred interest
§24
an "aversion that works for him and which he only needs to exaggerate"(Sloterdijk 2013:71), it is the denial of collaboration at all
§25
the above is now "an aversive tension from within",
"What was once the most spiritual of all asceticisms is now, in truth, no more than 'an impediment on the way to the menagerie'." (Sloterdijk 2013:72)
§26
Transition to Stalin who used Hunger against people
§27
Hunger as political protest: Simone Weil
§1
What is the truth of Homo Sapiens?
What is the transformation of Unthan about? What are they escaping from?
§2
What is the transition from ascetics to acrobatics? For Sloterdijk it is a de-spiritualization and a condition for being human.
§3
Kafka exemplifies this without the heroic tone
§4
The acrobats make danger to their profession. This is their new God.
§5
The dawn of the acrobats - a rope on the ground - the discovery of the ordinary. We do not know anymore what makes us acrobats
§6
As the world above disappears there, it is unclear what fastens the rope. The world above is replaced by strength
§7
There are less super-homos, nobody walks the tight rope anymore - Christianity is at best "floorgymnastics"
§8
What are strengthening and what are weakening forms of training
§9
Three works "A Report to an Academy" (1917), "First Sorrow" (1922), "A Hunger Artist" (1923)
§10
An Ape in our world, but the question is: Why do humans create zoos and circuses? What are they supposed to learn there about themselves?
§11
The way out for the ape is freedom
§12
Learning the handshake, the only way to integrate into humanity.
§13
Next step is to learn how to narcotize himself.
§14
A trapez-artist who needs higher and higher thrill
§15
"Nothing less than the impossible is satisfactory." Transcendence becomes the impossible
§16
Artists have to enter the sphere of impossibility.
§17
Artists get remote from life. It is part of art.
§18
Suspicion to the hunger artist, sitting in a cage and refusing to perform the normal course of life.
§19
The 40 day restriction was not appreciated by the artist, because he wanted to outperform himself. His collapse in the end was a collapse because of frustration.
§20
Setting records that go unnoticed.
§21
Artistic confession that he could not find the food he liked
§22
fasting - "how one can beat nature at its own game." (Sloterdijk 2013:70)
§23
triumph over the "always passively and involuntarily experienced", replacing profane hunger with a sacred interest
§24
an "aversion that works for him and which he only needs to exaggerate"(Sloterdijk 2013:71), it is the denial of collaboration at all
§25
the above is now "an aversive tension from within",
"What was once the most spiritual of all asceticisms is now, in truth, no more than 'an impediment on the way to the menagerie'." (Sloterdijk 2013:72)
§26
Transition to Stalin who used Hunger against people
§27
Hunger as political protest: Simone Weil
Souerce Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit - Reason - B: The actualization of rational selfconsciousness by way of itself
file:///C:/Users/schul/Downloads/Phenomenology%20translation%20English%20German%20(1).pdf
The split between the knower and its object is deeper than we usually expect. The supposedly mind-independent real cannot be accessed. It is only by a certain inference that we assume an objective world. Yet there is something that we assume to be objective, but obviously we do not grasp it as an immediate in the form of our senses, perception, nor in objective laws. Somehow on this path consciousness discovers itself as the way it structures reality. The task is then to grasp itself.
It is important to note here that this is not an Idealism in the sense that we are phantasizing. We have to acknowledge a certain objective force that is independent from us, but it is hard to identify this kind of force. Hegel's idea is that the real has to be grasped in the way of how consciousness works.
The problem then is, however, that consciousness if it tries to grasp itself cannot grasp itself in its original unit, but only grasps itself as an object.
This problem unloads itself in the master-slaves-dialectic. In the reason chapter, we find now the consequences of this pursuit of itself. For this reason Hegel writes:
"Self-consciousness found the thing as itself and itself as a thing; i.e., it is for self- consciousness that it is in itself objective actuality." (Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit §347)
The split between the knower and its object is deeper than we usually expect. The supposedly mind-independent real cannot be accessed. It is only by a certain inference that we assume an objective world. Yet there is something that we assume to be objective, but obviously we do not grasp it as an immediate in the form of our senses, perception, nor in objective laws. Somehow on this path consciousness discovers itself as the way it structures reality. The task is then to grasp itself.
It is important to note here that this is not an Idealism in the sense that we are phantasizing. We have to acknowledge a certain objective force that is independent from us, but it is hard to identify this kind of force. Hegel's idea is that the real has to be grasped in the way of how consciousness works.
The problem then is, however, that consciousness if it tries to grasp itself cannot grasp itself in its original unit, but only grasps itself as an object.
This problem unloads itself in the master-slaves-dialectic. In the reason chapter, we find now the consequences of this pursuit of itself. For this reason Hegel writes:
"Self-consciousness found the thing as itself and itself as a thing; i.e., it is for self- consciousness that it is in itself objective actuality." (Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit §347)
Sonntag, 6. November 2016
Sloterdijk: You Must Change Your Life - The Planet of the Practising - Only Cripples Will Survive - Unthan's Lesson
§1
"That life can involve the need to move forwards in spite of obstacles is one of the basic experiences shared by the group of people whom, with a carefree clarity, one formerly called 'cripples', before younger and supposedly more humane, understanding and respectful spirits of the age renamed them the handicapped, those with special needs, the problem children, and finally simply 'human beings'"
Uses the term Cripples, because a "oversensitive" discourse would cover and hide the source of its meaning.
Humans "must move forward because they are obstructed by something" (Sloterdijk 2013:40)
§2
Carl Hermann Unthan, born without arms in East Prussia in 1848 -1929 discovers that he can play violin with his feet
§3
"element of acrobatic improbability" leads him to a tour around Europe. Even Liszt congratulates him, but was his congratulation sincere?
§4 (evaluation of Unthan's writing), §5 (A list of events) §6 "life-philosophical performance" - all life is embedded in an overall virtuosity
Allowing the cripple 'enough light and air in his development' rather means giving him a chance to participate in normality
"He interprets his disability as a school for the will." (Sloterdijk 2013:44)
"I do not feel lacking in any way compared to a fully able person [ ... J I have never found anyone with whom, taking all conditions into account, I would have wanted to exchange places. I have certainly struggled, even more with myself than with my surroundings, but I would not give up those exquisite pleasures of the soul, which came about precisely through the struggles caused by my armlessness, for anything in the world. 2"
to participate in the normal is what frees
§10 Freedom as a misinterpretation.
1. The subject makes something from what it was made of
2. The "gaze of the other" (Sloterdijk 2013:45) "produces the impulse of freedom", "assert oneself against the confining power coming from the foreign eye" (Sloterdijk 2013:45)
3. "the temptation of insincerity [...] to play the role of a thing among things" (Sloterdijk 2013:45)
§11
The original existentialism is a reaction to the limits of the body. French Existentialism is an existentialism of the political oppression and thus an existentialism of resistance
§12
His life-challenge is normality
§13
Thus the difference between life and art disappears
§14
The truer people in circus
§15
Grant them freedom to become normal
"For him, normality is to become the reward for abnormality. In order to be at peace with himself, he must therefore develop a form of life in which his pathological oddity is transformed into the precondition for a successful assimilation. Hence the 'armless fiddler', as Unthan was known on American stages, could under no circumstances perform as a mere cripple, as was the custom in the European circus and even more in the freakshows across the Atlantic. He had to present himself as the victor over his disability and beat the gawking industry at its own game"
This brings us to a new development in our account of the phenomenon of practising. By investigating the forms of life among the disabled, a class of practising persons comes into view among the inhabitants of the ascetic star where more particular motives gain the upper hand. They do not follow their asceticisms for God's sake - or if they do, like Ignatius of Loyola, who was crippled by cannon fire, it is because Christ impresses them as a model for the neutralization of their defect. (47)
For them, leading a practising life is a response to the stimulus that lies in the concrete disability; it provides the incentive of inhibition that sometimes provokes an artiste's answer. As Unthan notes, one must grant the handicapped 'freedom' in the form of 'light and air' in their development, until the blow suffered has been overridden by self-will and integrated into a life project. Thus, through the phenomenon of inhibited and handicapped life, General Ascetology now faces its trial by fire. (48)
§16
1930's Hans Würtz "Zerbrecht die Krücken"
§17
How does it fit into the Nazi-time?
§18
§19
Anarchism: The religion of the people without: without the state, without the church, etc., a religion against auxilary constructions. Against the crutches of the state.
§20
Moments of overcompensation
§21
§22
It is all the reemergence of the problem of practice
§23
reactions exceed the stimulus" (Sloterdijk 2013:52)
§24
so overcompensation makes success, are people not "sufficiently disabled" (Sloterdijk 2013:52)
§25
§26
under the Nazi regime all copies were banned
§27
Würtz was accused and convicted.
§28
But also Würtz had spokesman-syndrom (the Priest of Nietzsche)
§29
My trainer is the one who wants me to want - he embodies the voice that can say to me: "You must change your life!"
§30
§31
§32
"While Stiner's uniqueness remained trapped within neurosis, as Würtz regretfully points out, constructive work with the handicapped should aim 'to free the problematic cripple to become a person of character" (Sloterdijk 2013:56)
§33
The first emergence of the trainer, directing the will to survive [in a sense the Nazi were an undirected energy]
§34
Also a counterpart: The athlet is raised as the spiritually empty counterpart of the saint [Ronaldo]
§35
female inborn crippled penislessness, are we, according to Freud, the Gods of Protheses? An inborn disadvantage? Do we have to lose more than our chains, are we relying on crutches?
§36
Older generations try to maintain old structures. Other systems have to prove their repeatibility first.
§37
§38
"if humans are cripples, without exception and in different ways, then each one of them, in their own particular way, has good reason to understand their existence as an incentive for corrective exercises." (Sloterdijk 2013:59)
§39
"diabled in terms of growth"
different abilities in terms of their format
vertically challenged people"
§40
What is the inner axis that makes us upright
Wherever humans appear, their crippledom has preceded them: this insight was the chorus of philosophical discussions on the human being in the previous century, regardless of whether, as in psychoanalysis, one speaks of humans as cripples of helplessness who can only hobble towards their goals;45 or, like Bolk and Gehlen, views them as neotenic cripples whose chronic immaturity can only be balanced out by rigid cultural capsules; or, like Plessner, as eccentric cripples chronically standing beside themselves and observing their lives; or, like Sartre and Blumenberg, as visibility cripples who must spend their lives coming to terms with the disadvantage of being seen.
The implications of these observations are as diverse as the diagnoses themselves. They have one thing in common, however: if humans are cripples, without exception and in different ways, then each one of them, in their own particular way, has good reason to understand their existence as an incentive for corrective exercises.
In short, people had to speak about the handicapped, the differently constituted, to stumble on a phrase that expresses the general constitution of beings under vertical tension. 'You must change your life!' means, as we saw in Rilke's torso poem: you must pay attention 59 PLANET OF THE PRACTISING mner yOU! It is not walking upright that it is rather the incipient awareness of the inner gradient that causes humans to do so. (59, 60)
"That life can involve the need to move forwards in spite of obstacles is one of the basic experiences shared by the group of people whom, with a carefree clarity, one formerly called 'cripples', before younger and supposedly more humane, understanding and respectful spirits of the age renamed them the handicapped, those with special needs, the problem children, and finally simply 'human beings'"
Uses the term Cripples, because a "oversensitive" discourse would cover and hide the source of its meaning.
Humans "must move forward because they are obstructed by something" (Sloterdijk 2013:40)
§2
Carl Hermann Unthan, born without arms in East Prussia in 1848 -1929 discovers that he can play violin with his feet
§3
"element of acrobatic improbability" leads him to a tour around Europe. Even Liszt congratulates him, but was his congratulation sincere?
§4 (evaluation of Unthan's writing), §5 (A list of events) §6 "life-philosophical performance" - all life is embedded in an overall virtuosity
Allowing the cripple 'enough light and air in his development' rather means giving him a chance to participate in normality
"He interprets his disability as a school for the will." (Sloterdijk 2013:44)
"I do not feel lacking in any way compared to a fully able person [ ... J I have never found anyone with whom, taking all conditions into account, I would have wanted to exchange places. I have certainly struggled, even more with myself than with my surroundings, but I would not give up those exquisite pleasures of the soul, which came about precisely through the struggles caused by my armlessness, for anything in the world. 2"
to participate in the normal is what frees
§10 Freedom as a misinterpretation.
1. The subject makes something from what it was made of
2. The "gaze of the other" (Sloterdijk 2013:45) "produces the impulse of freedom", "assert oneself against the confining power coming from the foreign eye" (Sloterdijk 2013:45)
3. "the temptation of insincerity [...] to play the role of a thing among things" (Sloterdijk 2013:45)
§11
The original existentialism is a reaction to the limits of the body. French Existentialism is an existentialism of the political oppression and thus an existentialism of resistance
§12
His life-challenge is normality
§13
Thus the difference between life and art disappears
§14
The truer people in circus
§15
Grant them freedom to become normal
"For him, normality is to become the reward for abnormality. In order to be at peace with himself, he must therefore develop a form of life in which his pathological oddity is transformed into the precondition for a successful assimilation. Hence the 'armless fiddler', as Unthan was known on American stages, could under no circumstances perform as a mere cripple, as was the custom in the European circus and even more in the freakshows across the Atlantic. He had to present himself as the victor over his disability and beat the gawking industry at its own game"
This brings us to a new development in our account of the phenomenon of practising. By investigating the forms of life among the disabled, a class of practising persons comes into view among the inhabitants of the ascetic star where more particular motives gain the upper hand. They do not follow their asceticisms for God's sake - or if they do, like Ignatius of Loyola, who was crippled by cannon fire, it is because Christ impresses them as a model for the neutralization of their defect. (47)
For them, leading a practising life is a response to the stimulus that lies in the concrete disability; it provides the incentive of inhibition that sometimes provokes an artiste's answer. As Unthan notes, one must grant the handicapped 'freedom' in the form of 'light and air' in their development, until the blow suffered has been overridden by self-will and integrated into a life project. Thus, through the phenomenon of inhibited and handicapped life, General Ascetology now faces its trial by fire. (48)
§16
1930's Hans Würtz "Zerbrecht die Krücken"
§17
How does it fit into the Nazi-time?
§18
§19
Anarchism: The religion of the people without: without the state, without the church, etc., a religion against auxilary constructions. Against the crutches of the state.
§20
Moments of overcompensation
§21
§22
It is all the reemergence of the problem of practice
§23
reactions exceed the stimulus" (Sloterdijk 2013:52)
§24
so overcompensation makes success, are people not "sufficiently disabled" (Sloterdijk 2013:52)
§25
§26
under the Nazi regime all copies were banned
§27
Würtz was accused and convicted.
§28
But also Würtz had spokesman-syndrom (the Priest of Nietzsche)
§29
My trainer is the one who wants me to want - he embodies the voice that can say to me: "You must change your life!"
§30
§31
§32
"While Stiner's uniqueness remained trapped within neurosis, as Würtz regretfully points out, constructive work with the handicapped should aim 'to free the problematic cripple to become a person of character" (Sloterdijk 2013:56)
§33
The first emergence of the trainer, directing the will to survive [in a sense the Nazi were an undirected energy]
§34
Also a counterpart: The athlet is raised as the spiritually empty counterpart of the saint [Ronaldo]
§35
female inborn crippled penislessness, are we, according to Freud, the Gods of Protheses? An inborn disadvantage? Do we have to lose more than our chains, are we relying on crutches?
§36
Older generations try to maintain old structures. Other systems have to prove their repeatibility first.
§37
§38
"if humans are cripples, without exception and in different ways, then each one of them, in their own particular way, has good reason to understand their existence as an incentive for corrective exercises." (Sloterdijk 2013:59)
§39
"diabled in terms of growth"
different abilities in terms of their format
vertically challenged people"
§40
What is the inner axis that makes us upright
Wherever humans appear, their crippledom has preceded them: this insight was the chorus of philosophical discussions on the human being in the previous century, regardless of whether, as in psychoanalysis, one speaks of humans as cripples of helplessness who can only hobble towards their goals;45 or, like Bolk and Gehlen, views them as neotenic cripples whose chronic immaturity can only be balanced out by rigid cultural capsules; or, like Plessner, as eccentric cripples chronically standing beside themselves and observing their lives; or, like Sartre and Blumenberg, as visibility cripples who must spend their lives coming to terms with the disadvantage of being seen.
The implications of these observations are as diverse as the diagnoses themselves. They have one thing in common, however: if humans are cripples, without exception and in different ways, then each one of them, in their own particular way, has good reason to understand their existence as an incentive for corrective exercises.
In short, people had to speak about the handicapped, the differently constituted, to stumble on a phrase that expresses the general constitution of beings under vertical tension. 'You must change your life!' means, as we saw in Rilke's torso poem: you must pay attention 59 PLANET OF THE PRACTISING mner yOU! It is not walking upright that it is rather the incipient awareness of the inner gradient that causes humans to do so. (59, 60)
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