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Moving away from a retrospective, introspective thought-path towards a prospective, future-oriented position: not what has happened and what impact it has on the machine, but what is possible and the impetus to enact it by willing——
These notes help to outline a prospective philosophy of choice, tracing some of its sources and values.
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The Socratic position: the unexamined life is not worth living.
The Socratic position: the supremacy of individual conscience.
The directive, to think——to cut through the thicket of reigning beliefs; to evaluate the evaluations, testing their content against the standard of individual conscience; to interrogate reigning presuppositions.
To look inside oneself and see all kinds of antecedent realities and histories and structures that play a role in shaping individual character; but not to rest in these; to see that they do not render us captive. We are agents and have the power of choice! ——
The conception of reason as powerful, as an active determining force, capable of rejecting conventional ideas and searching for new ones. ——
The gadfly executed by the democracy——a powerless man delivered to the powerful——yet his accusers, and the jury, and all the bystanders and even the mass of society itself seem weak —— pitiful ——in comparison to him. The Athenians were flighty and wavered from side to side; Socrates was unmoved and in perfect control.
From their common source in the conversations of Socrates, we may trace the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans; the humanist tradition; skeptical inquiry and the birth of science; the Enlightenment; Romanticism; and many more contemporary forms documenting what is believed, and practicing skeptical interrogation; all these asserting a concept of reason as active, powerful, commanding.
(2)
The Aristotelian position: “happiness is the full exercise of one’s powers in accord with excellence”——“happiness is activity of soul in accordance with virtue”——“happiness is virtuous activity of soul.”
Background of the argument: everything in the universe has a purpose, a function or end (telos). The end of a thing, that to which it strives and which, being fulfilled, completes it, is an expression of its “nature” or “essence”——also, for Aristotle, its highest calling. The end of an acorn is to thrive as an oak.
Aristotle held that the telos of a human being is to reason. What distinguishes human beings from inert things, plants, and other animals, is the ability to think: man is homo sapiens, the rational animal. Human beings thrive by the active exercise and cultivation of their defining characteristic, power or purpose or function or end. The thinking function is the human function——the proper human aim and excellence. The human life is the thinking life is the virtuous life ——is the fulfilling life——is the happy life.
Aristotle counts on a conception of reason as powerful, active, determining, not a passive recipient or blank mechanism.
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Epictetus: “the right use of appearances” is in our power; but nothing else.
Marcus Aurelius: “These are the properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, analyzes itself, and makes itself such as it chooses.”
In this conception, there is a great deal that a human being cannot do and much that he must suffer. But a man can command his thoughts.
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Socrates held that reason is “a ruling force” (Protagoras 352b). He appears to conceive of reason polemically, as opposing given beliefs or actions; when we begin to examine them, the things that men think or do may seem irrational and call for revision.
Aristotle held that “no process is set going by mere thought” but only by “thinking which aims at an end and is practical.” Practical aims are chosen; and choice is a kind of desire or reasoning with a view to an end; so that choice is either “desiderative reason or ratiocinative desire” (the provocation of desire guided by the deliberation in reasoning; also equally, the correction in desire to the dispassion of reason). Desiring reason or reasoning desire is a motive force and is always prospective——it is oriented towards the future——since “no one chooses to have sacked Troy; for no one deliberates about the past, but only about what is future and capable of being otherwise” (Nicomachean Ethics VI, II, 3).
This does not mean that no one thinks about the past or that no one is obsessed with it. But this is not deliberation —— (today we have the term 'perseveration')
Reason (or some other) is a human power or faculty, capable of elaboration or decline; in some cases men waste their power, whereas others somehow fulfill it; in some cases it appears that the character of society helps to explain why sometime fails (e.g. that they were enslaved) and typically in some cases a person is blamed for his actions (e.g. he was weak or selfish or corrupt). It is strange that we sometimes explain action, sometimes blame or praise it -- with a focus on society or on individual effort -- for Aristotle, what matters is the aim in view.
Thus Aristotle appears to depart from the Socratic project of general elenchus for all ideas (destructive cross-examination) -- he restricts critique more to the review of intentions -- what matters is what we are trying to do -- the aim, goal, telos
Epictetus appears to restrict the application of reason to one’s own case——to one’s own mind——and does not count reason as a ruling force or a power in the world; nor does he count on reason having this significance for the self or its projects; since there are many who “embrace philosophical opinions only in words” and cannot embody a conclusion in their lives. Even this poor thing left to us is rare.
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Kant held that Enlightenment is a kind of release——release from man’s self–incurred immaturity——a moment in history in which man finally summons the courage to use his own mind.
(6)
The Frankl position: the will to meaning; human beings have many potentialities, but which potentialities are actualized depends on human decisions, not on antecedent conditions.
Freud stressed the pleasure principle, Adler stressed the will to power, Rank stressed the death instinct; Frankl held that pleasure and power and death were ideas, i.e., products and constructions; he stressed the will to meaning.
The Frankl position: a focus on the psychology of resilience; noting the determinative impact of choices, decisions; not allowing the trauma to define one; instead taking responsibility and making choices.
The Frankl position: to be fully human is to take responsibility for creating the meaning of your existence.
Some terms in “logotherapy”——
Cognitive neuroses (existential frustration, i.e. frustration in the struggle to determine a concrete meaning in personal existence);
cognitive dynamics (concerning the potential meaning of existence still to be fulfilled; the problem of fulfilling a chosen meaning and all the confluences that obstruct and facilitate this fulfillment);
the existential vacuum (boredom and distress and boredom again——existential frustration in relation to compensatory strategies, e.g. the will to pleasure, power, death);
leaving it to the self to what, for what, or to whom he understands himself to be responsible; the main thing being -- to move outside the egocentric position and act.
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The existentialist position——
Existentialism is a radical voluntarism and implies that a person may choose his or her identity at any juncture in life.
The concept of nothingness, of being literally nothing, draws attention to the contrast between being a thinking being, a conscious being, and being any other kind of being——the difference between agents and mere things. A stone is what it is——it has this character. A human being sometimes sinks into passivity in order to evade the core problem of living; but the person who attempts to evade responsibility is responsible for undertaking this course. A stone does not make any decisions, yet a stonelike person has decided to be a stone.
A human being is nothing——not merely a thing——but instead a state, a condition, a process; and because a human being is nothing——not any definite thing——he can change and become something; yet ultimately a human being is nothing——not any fixed thing——but instead always changes.
The existentialist position: human beings have no character until they begin to build one through acting. There is no pre-existing human nature, no fundamental human quality or truth or soul. On the same ground, a human being has no fixed character at all, but is on-the-way, a process, a work in progress and not a completion.
Heidegger: “the essence of human reality lies in its existence.” Sartre: “existence precedes essence.” Ortega y Gasset: “to live is to decide what we are going to be.”
Heidegger says that the burden of having to act and form a character for oneself is not “chosen” but is “thrown” onto the individual human being.
Familiar accounts of human nature stress the import of the past (of events that have already transpired) in the determination of human character; existentialist accounts stress the import of the future (the problem of formulating plans for oneself and carrying them out). Heidegger emphasizes that human beings define themselves in the projects they undertake. Human reality is projective reality. Thus one among his definitions of Dasein or human reality or human being is “thrown projection.” Sartre expresses this idea in the form of a paradox: human reality must carry “the burden of freedom” and human reality is “condemned to be free.”
Rejection of determinism —— the claim that the crucial factor in human affairs is choice.
Existentialism conceives human reality as a problem for itself, a question to itself, as consciousness of consciousness. Heidegger: “existence is that kind of being which is an issue for itself.” Existence is a problem for itself and is always in search of its own meaning. (One aspect of the problem is whether in-itself overwhelms the for-itself.)
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To accept any belief uncritically, by yielding to an impulse or authority, appears to represent a surrender of reason.
Not surrendering but applying reason, mind proposes to purge itself of mere opinion and blind trust.
The Enlightenment conception of reason as a force or power or capacity counts upon an unlimited reach. Kant: “reason depends on this freedom for its every existence” (Critique of Pure Reason, B 766).
The principle of free inquiry subjects every doctrine to critical examination and possible rejection. Free inquiry seeks to replace mere belief with strict knowledge and so to quiet the stirrings of doubt. Yet the principle of free inquiry is itself believed. The thinker cannot stop short but must examine critically this critical principle itself.
On the strength of this reasoning, new generations of thinkers have discovered hidden recesses of presumption, even in the concept of reason; which goes to the further development of a radical philosophy of choice -- confirmation bias, heuristics, rules of thumb, stereotypes -- turning the thinking machine to the 'off' position
Some themes in the critique of doubt are: the logical equivalence of belief and doubt; the ‘fiduciary content’ of doubt; uncovering the basis of assertion in ungrounded assumptions; presumptive, pre-structuring, pre-conceptual, pre-formative aspects of belief -- believing before we believe; the historic, contingent, parochial ‘situation’ of the believer -- all the forces that work together to make a 'believer' --; the determinative power of family, tradition and culture; ontological relativity, incommensurability, the inscrutability of reference -- questions about standards; conceptual pragmatism -- most recently, some ideas about the neurology of truth
Some thinkers cast doubt on reason itself, arguing that there is no special faculty of reasoning; the thinking process is a given, and use of the term reason should be adverbial——e.g., ‘He argued reasonably.’
(But surely) I cannot avoid the burden of having to define myself by my choices via any recourse to neutrality; it is not clear what anything like 'neutrality' would mean in a case like this. (Our choices are embarrassing -- ? It is hard to parade them around. This is comic since everyone can see them just by looking.)
The pretense of applying a mathematical, mechanical and universal logic here is a futile way out -- trying to obviate the need of making a choice —— this is vain.
The upshot of the critique of doubt is to remove the determination of belief from any sphere of strict necessity and return it back to its home in individual responsibility.
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Humor
The significance of humor is that it can signal that a person’s devotion to his ideal is not that of a fanatic but is accompanied by a sense of reality or maturity or proportion.
You admit that you have beliefs; and you show some sense of the precariousness of having them.
Humor as wisdom: the emotional acceptance impermanence and limitation; of the transience of existence.
Socrates: the object of humor is really oneself; and the touchstone is the relation between one’s own idealism and the ability one has to look at this idealism with a due sense of proportion.
Freud: You come into your beliefs by way of enormous ambitions and grandiose designs; the humor is, that what you held as an narcissistic demand (at first, and in an extreme form) is now held as a realistic goal (after much experience, and with some humility).
Psychologically: developing a sense of humor about one’s beliefs signifies a good deal of reality testing. Narcissistic cathexes are tamed, neutralized, rationalized, so that they follow an aim-inhibited course; the machinery of the ego, its narcissism, its power fantasies and grandiose fantasies, its exhibitionism, pretended omnipotence, idealized parental images and magical perfections are restructured within a reality-based ego; they are integrated into the ego’s realistic goals.
You assemble materials for a sky-shattering tower. But the tower falls under its own weight. From its shattered fragments you build a little hut in the woods (Thoreau).
The funny thing is that you have to be your own basis——that is, you have a basis (you are not nothing, even if, sometimes, you would like to be); your basis is not god (you thought you were god, and you may sometime still want to be); but instead of all this -- just you, merely you, fallible you, you have to be your own basis.
(10)
The term ‘choice’
Trace the word back to its ultimate Indo-European root: geus-. This has the sense: to taste, to test, to choose.
Oldest form, eus-, becoming geus- in centum languages (Italian, Celtic, Germanic, Greek).
Old English cosan, cesan, to choose, from Germanic keusan; choice, from Germanic, akin to Gothic kausjan, to test, taste.
Zero-grade form gus-. Compare Valkyrie, from Old Norse Valkyrja, “chooser of the slain,” Valkyrie (valr, the slain), from Germanic kuz-.
Suffixed zero-grade form gus-tu-, gusto; ragout, from Latin gustus, to taste, to try something out.
Suffixed zero-grade form gus-to-, whence further suffixed form *gus-t-, e.g. gustation; degust, disgust, from Latin gustre, to taste.
Choice: to taste, to test, to select, to try something out, to prepare for a reaction like disgust (revulsion, repugnance, aversion, pain), or a sense of gusto (enjoyment, pleasure, passion, zest).
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The significance of this reasoning is not that Socrates held it, or the slave Epictetus, or the Emperor Marcus Annius Verus, or Viktor Frankl, who was also Auschwitz prisoner no. 119104. Perhaps these thinkers help to establish its lineage. Its real significance lies in the power it offers to anyone who holds it in consideration and applies it in the instant case.
