Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Notes for Thursday, March 9
Kierkegaard, Marx. Read to p. 266.
Soren Kierkegaard ("Keark-a-gore;"1813-1855; died aged 42)
A Danish preacher, an anti-philosopher, putative father of existentialism.
Opposed Hegel's philosophy. His main opposition: Hegel's rejection and revision of Aristotelian logic, viz. the principles of:
1. Identity. A = A
2. Contradiction.Not (A and not A)
3. The excluded middle. Either A or not A
Hegel's logic, in which everything also contains its opposite (which is what spurs on, through opposition, the dialectic movement of history) was viewed by Kierkegaard as a denial of the necessity of making choices, a suppression of the either/or that is, in the latter's estimation, an indispensable moment in our moral life. Another way of putting it is to say that K. denied the possibility of the synthesis. He also denied the Hegelian collapsing of epistemology and ontology. "The rational is the real and the real is the rational."
Kierkegaard sees a dichotomy between the inescapable abstraction of language, on one hand, and the unthinkable and inexpressible existence on the other. What is new, here, is the use of the term existence to designate the human way of being. What "is" for me is not matter, but whatever "matters." Existence is concrete, thought abstract. Existence is human life, the concrete individual life. Life is passion, decision and action. What is a decision? Is it really like weighing something? On some occasions I apply a set of criteria to make a decision in an objective way, and sometimes this is appropriate. But sometimes this is inappropriate or impossible. Sometimes the application of criteria and "decision science" is a way of avoiding making a decision. Action requires decisions, but life thrusts situations upon us in such a way that we never have sufficient data, we don't have time; then we must "decide" in the existential sense. There are "existential" decisions that we are called upon to make not only without a firm basis, but as if suspended over an abyss. We decide, and our decision is us. Or we do not decide, and our indecision is us. At such times we are in the domain of commitment and faith.
Faith implies a domain of the uncertain. This seems paradoxical, since faith is often understood as the opposite of uncertainty. If we look more closely, we see that (in Kierkegaard's words) doubt is the shadow of faith.
In Fear and Trembling, K. examines the story of Abraham, who is asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. Kierkegaard actually gives several interpretations, but concludes that there is a leap of faith that goes beyond the ethical. Is there a spiritual level beyond the ethical? He is stopped at the last minute by an angel, and a lamb is sacrificed instead. Introduction of the category of the absurd.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
The Hegelian Left, or "young Hegelians." Feuerbach's critique of Christianity. The alienation of ideals into another world, to the detriment of this one. Marx becomes a materialist. The world is not just to be understood, but changed. Don't revise the vision of the holy family, but reform the real family, and the holy or heavenly one (religion, the opium of the masses) will wither away of its own accord.
Homo faber, not homo sapiens. The concept of alienated labor. Critique of capitalism. Materialism not via physics, but via economics. Material foundations (natural resources, means of production and distribution), legal and political superstructures, upon which rest art, religion, morality, poetry and philosophy. False-consciousness, ideologies. But "he who pays the piper calls the tune," or in Marxist language: "The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class." The haves against the have nots, class struggle. The bourgeoisie against the proletariat or working class. The internal contradictions of capitalism would (in a Hegelian dialectic movement) result in imperialistic wars, inflation, unemployment, and eventually lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat, which would in turn wither away when no longer needed.
Historically, the dictatorship did not wither away (in the Soviet Union). There was a certain optimism in the founder's thinking. Private property and the division of labor would disappear. Marx was particularly the early Marx) a humanist, and to some degree an idealist. Did he seriously misunderstand human nature, or a visionary who wanted to hasten the realization of an ideal in a perpetual future? One of apparent contradictions within his doctrine was that the downfall of capitalism was inevitable, and yet it was the moral duty of his followers to bring it about.
Soren Kierkegaard ("Keark-a-gore;"1813-1855; died aged 42)
A Danish preacher, an anti-philosopher, putative father of existentialism.
Opposed Hegel's philosophy. His main opposition: Hegel's rejection and revision of Aristotelian logic, viz. the principles of:
1. Identity. A = A
2. Contradiction.Not (A and not A)
3. The excluded middle. Either A or not A
Hegel's logic, in which everything also contains its opposite (which is what spurs on, through opposition, the dialectic movement of history) was viewed by Kierkegaard as a denial of the necessity of making choices, a suppression of the either/or that is, in the latter's estimation, an indispensable moment in our moral life. Another way of putting it is to say that K. denied the possibility of the synthesis. He also denied the Hegelian collapsing of epistemology and ontology. "The rational is the real and the real is the rational."
Kierkegaard sees a dichotomy between the inescapable abstraction of language, on one hand, and the unthinkable and inexpressible existence on the other. What is new, here, is the use of the term existence to designate the human way of being. What "is" for me is not matter, but whatever "matters." Existence is concrete, thought abstract. Existence is human life, the concrete individual life. Life is passion, decision and action. What is a decision? Is it really like weighing something? On some occasions I apply a set of criteria to make a decision in an objective way, and sometimes this is appropriate. But sometimes this is inappropriate or impossible. Sometimes the application of criteria and "decision science" is a way of avoiding making a decision. Action requires decisions, but life thrusts situations upon us in such a way that we never have sufficient data, we don't have time; then we must "decide" in the existential sense. There are "existential" decisions that we are called upon to make not only without a firm basis, but as if suspended over an abyss. We decide, and our decision is us. Or we do not decide, and our indecision is us. At such times we are in the domain of commitment and faith.
Faith implies a domain of the uncertain. This seems paradoxical, since faith is often understood as the opposite of uncertainty. If we look more closely, we see that (in Kierkegaard's words) doubt is the shadow of faith.
In Fear and Trembling, K. examines the story of Abraham, who is asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. Kierkegaard actually gives several interpretations, but concludes that there is a leap of faith that goes beyond the ethical. Is there a spiritual level beyond the ethical? He is stopped at the last minute by an angel, and a lamb is sacrificed instead. Introduction of the category of the absurd.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
The Hegelian Left, or "young Hegelians." Feuerbach's critique of Christianity. The alienation of ideals into another world, to the detriment of this one. Marx becomes a materialist. The world is not just to be understood, but changed. Don't revise the vision of the holy family, but reform the real family, and the holy or heavenly one (religion, the opium of the masses) will wither away of its own accord.
Homo faber, not homo sapiens. The concept of alienated labor. Critique of capitalism. Materialism not via physics, but via economics. Material foundations (natural resources, means of production and distribution), legal and political superstructures, upon which rest art, religion, morality, poetry and philosophy. False-consciousness, ideologies. But "he who pays the piper calls the tune," or in Marxist language: "The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class." The haves against the have nots, class struggle. The bourgeoisie against the proletariat or working class. The internal contradictions of capitalism would (in a Hegelian dialectic movement) result in imperialistic wars, inflation, unemployment, and eventually lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat, which would in turn wither away when no longer needed.
Historically, the dictatorship did not wither away (in the Soviet Union). There was a certain optimism in the founder's thinking. Private property and the division of labor would disappear. Marx was particularly the early Marx) a humanist, and to some degree an idealist. Did he seriously misunderstand human nature, or a visionary who wanted to hasten the realization of an ideal in a perpetual future? One of apparent contradictions within his doctrine was that the downfall of capitalism was inevitable, and yet it was the moral duty of his followers to bring it about.
# posted by Michael @ 4:38 PM 
