tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68667528128956832302024-03-18T04:04:02.308+01:00OrienteringsforsøkGathering philosophical ingredients from around the globe and carefully contemplating them in chilly conditions at 78,13° N, this site is now <i>Probably the Northernmost Philosophy Blog in the World</i>.vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.comBlogger240125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-73960781842279571592016-01-20T15:28:00.001+01:002016-01-21T09:05:29.973+01:00Wittgenstein: A Wonderful Life<span style="text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: start;">Some of you may know it already; but it </span>was new to me when I stumbled across it this morning--a 1989 BBC documentary about Wittgenstein's life, featuring, albeit briefly, Norman Malcolm. Not very exciting in terms of philosophical content, it does offer nice pictures from Wittgenstein's various homes.</span><br />
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vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-58585404038530138442016-01-07T16:10:00.001+01:002016-01-07T16:10:23.694+01:00Ready or not.<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet">In the 1970s and 80s, Benjamin Libet, an American brain scientist, conducted a series of famous experiments</a>. Instructed to carry out small, simple motor activities, such as pressing a button or flexing a finger, participants were placed in front of a clock with electrodes affixed to their scalps. During the experiment, the participants were asked to note the position of the arm of a clock when he or she was first aware of the urge to act. The experiments revealed an increase of electrical brain activity preceding the conscious decision to move by several hundred milliseconds. This subliminal brain activity was dubbed<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>«readiness potential». While Libet himself has wavered somewhat in his interpretations of these findings, others unhesitatingly think this discovery has huge ramifications for our self-understanding. If volitional acts are initiated before we become aware of them, then we must be deluded when thinking our conscious<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>«decisions»<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>have any causal effect on what we do!</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It may seem impossible to conclude otherwise. If electrical goings-on in our brans make our decisions, then in a sense we don't. But here one must not forget what a conclusion is in this context. The conclusion that we are not free is </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">not a scientific discovery, but rather an </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">interpretation</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> of (or </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">implications drawn from) certain scientific </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">discoveries. Interpretation is a way of framing data, involving, at least tacitly, arguments based on some underlying assumptions. That human beings are mere neurological robots, therefore, is not an empirical fact, but rather the implications drawn from one possible interpretation of these facts. Am I then suggesting that this interpretation must be wrong? No. I only suggest that it is not obviously correct either. In other words, I am asking us to consider the possibility of reading Libet's data differently. How to read scientific discoveries, of course, cannot itself be a scientific question--at least not merely. This calls for philosophising.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Let us start by investigating why this gloomy conclusion may at first seem unavoidable.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Instinctively one might be alarmed to learn of the readiness potential. <i>How unsettling that our brains decide for us! </i>But as Wittgenstein once remarked, we often are struck by the wrong aspects of things: the important features escape our attention because of their familiarity (<i>PI</i> §129). Perhaps, then, the conclusion that subliminal brain activity diminishes the role of consciousness in human action seems so compelling only because we overlook something which is always before our eyes?</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For example: There must be electrical goings-on in the brain all the time. Acknowledging this obvious fact should make some of the initial surprise ebb away. Electrical brain activity prior to conscious decisions is exactly what one should expect to find! After all, <i>no</i> brain activity is synonymous with brain death. Ok. But Libet did not merely record electrical humming in the brain—that, clearly, would be unstartling. What his experiments revealed was a <i>significant increase</i> of electrons firing some milliseconds prior to a conscious urge to act. Surely this warrants paying special attention to it, or am I denying that something imortant happens here? Well, not exactly. But if we take a closer look at one of Libet's graphs, will we not see the line going up and down all the time? And if that is the case, why single out <i>this</i> particular peak as particularly significant—rather than, say, regarding it as just another elevated stage in a normal pattern of fluctuations? Doesn't this peak seem rather randomly chosen? (<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0021612">Subsequent experiments</a> have, in line with this logic, identified readiness potentials several seconds prior to any conscious urge to act.)</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My intention with that rhetorical question is not to deny that a case can be made for «the compelling» conclusion, merely to emphasize that the case must indeed be <i>made</i>. One cannot simply take Libet’s assumptions for granted. Once his reading of the graph is seen for what it is, namely a <i>reading</i>, and the assumptions built into that reading are made explicit, then, my point is, we are positioned to see that other readings must be possible too.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">But let us, for argument’s sake, grant Libet his reading of the graph's ultimate peak. Let us assume, then, that «readiness potential» was an established fact. Would this render conscious decisions causally ineffective in volitional human action?</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Before stampeding towards that conclusion, one thing we should notice is how anemic are the concepts of action and decision with which Libet operates. A severely limited understanding of these human capacities is buit into his research design, making it unclear how much of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">human action actually is illuminated by </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Libet's research. Purposeless finger flexing and random button pushing are (at best) special instances of human action--if indeed «bodily movements» is not a better term for them than «human action». However we categorize it, the behaviour of Libet's subjects is quite unlike much of what we otherwise think of as human action. Furthermore, Libet’s experiments were purposely designed so as to make the timing of the movement irrelevant. The participants were to have no reason for preferring sooner over later. Some human actions may very well be like that—at least they were in Libet's artificial settings—but more often than not do we care about what to do and when to do it. To make a long story short: It will take a considerable amount of philosophical work on Libet’s part to make this convincing as a paradigmatic picture of human behaviour. (Which is needed for the implicit general rejection of conscious decisions to be plausible.)</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">And what does it mean to say that an action is «initiated»? Being clear on that point is of course crucial when reflecting on the implications of Libet's findings. The readiness potential is conceived as a brain activity initiating human action at a particular moment in time. But does it make sense (and if so, what sens does it make) to think of all volitional actions as subliminally initiated some milliseconds before they occur?</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Sometimes we say that it took us time to make up our minds on what to do, suggesting a picture of a long inrun before a sudden take-off. A typical case would be the child who hesitates for a long time before suddenly ripping off a band-aid. Now, it seems plausible that certain happenings in the motor center of the brain—i.e. a «readiness potential»—can explain the sudden motion. But could it not also be argued that these electrical goings-on only mark the final stage of the initiation process? That the initiation of the initiation, as it were, began when the child first formed the intention to rip the band-aid off? Consider also planned actions. How much light does the readiness potential shed in such cases? Take, for example, someone who finally asks for his girlfriend’s hand in marriage. A lot of preparation has led up to this moment: For months he has deliberated on how best to approach it; he has considered different options for time and place—<i>should he propose at midsummer and out at sea, or rather wait until her birthday when her favorite flowers blossom?</i>; he has rehearsed the question (the exact formulation of which he has actually written down on a piece of paper in his pocket); he has booked a hotel suite; bought a ring, and today he has picked up a lovely bouquet of roses. If someone were to explain the time and manner in which he proposed in terms of electrical signals firing in his brain, then there are reasons—not empirical reasons perhaps, but certainly philosophical ones—for being sceptical about their approach. Of course this man would never have performed as he did but for electrical firings in his brain—but, this surely is a very <i>thin</i> explanation, and miles away from what we under all but very limited circumstances would consider an answer to the question of what prompted him to propose when and how he did.</span></div>
vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-86668286534969101812015-12-29T12:48:00.000+01:002015-12-29T12:48:36.171+01:00Holiday Surprise.Last night I was informed by the organizers that my post had won <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/12/the-winners-of-the-3qd-philosophy-prize-2015.html">3QD's Top Quark Prize for 2015</a>. What a surprise!<br />
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Happy New Year everyone!vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-8977262970678941222015-12-07T21:54:00.000+01:002015-12-09T11:17:07.558+01:00Slow corruption.<div class="MsoBodyText">
<i>Regular readers of this blog will recognize this text. <a href="http://orienteringsforsok.blogspot.no/2014/11/pa-skraplanet.html">A version</a> of it was posted last year. Rewritten and translated, I now re-post it in the hope that it might qualify as a contender in <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/11/john-collins-to-judge-6th-annual-3qd-philosophy-prize.html">3quarksdaily's philosophy competition</a>. (This may be my <a href="http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2015/12/6th-annual-3quarks-daily-philosophy-blogging-prize.html">last chance</a> of fame and fortune.)</i><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">When a woman last year confessed that she would not know what to do if her fetus were diagnosed with Down’s syndrome, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/21/richard-dawkins-immoral-not-to-abort-a-downs-syndrome-foetus">Richard Dawkins promptly replied</a>: "Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice." Reactions came from all corners of cyberspace, and Dawkins was later forced to explain himself. Tweeting his opinion had probably been unwise; a medium that allows a little more space for reasoning would have been a better choice. His <i>mea culpa</i> went no further than that. He admitted that he should have expressed himself differently; <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11047072/Richard-Dawkins-immoral-to-allow-Downs-syndrome-babies-to-be-born.html">but as for the opinion expressed, he saw no faults with that</a>: "Apparently I'm a horrid monster for recommending what actually happens to the great majority of Down Syndrome foetuses. They are aborted." I believe, however, that this distinction between the form and the content of his message is less clear-cut than Dawkins believes. People reacted against the tone of his "recommendation" because of the attitude it expressed (toward the "content").<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Dawkins is right; the majority of these pregnancies are in fact terminated. In Norway this happens in 80-90% of the cases. But that was not his point, nor was he merely expressing agreement with the majority; Dawkins claimed that there could be no serious doubt about what is the right thing to do in such a situation. In this respect Dawkins agrees with the most militant anti-abortionist. This black-and-white picture is unhelpful in a number of ways. First, as with anti-abortionist slogans, his "recommendation" is likely to appeal only to those already share his view. Blind certainty, whether it be political slogans from the militant right or moralizing tweets from a grey-haired male professor, is hardly the sort advice a pregnant woman in a moral dilemma needs.</span> In fact, there is a danger that she will experience this as undue pressure from on-high (an allegation Dawkins tried, though not convincingly, to wriggle away from since he had portrayed her “dilemma” as being a choice between morality and immorality). Finally, we may fear what discussions, such as the one initiated by Richard Dawkins, might do to our moral sensitivity. If Down’s syndrome becomes a topic of public debate, what does this say about—and what might it do to—our view of human beings with this syndrome? Might we be heading for a society where deselecting such fetuses increasingly will appear unproblematic?</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It is particularly these latter questions I will discuss here. The discussion flared up in Norway when Aksel Braanen Sterri, a young social scientist, published an essay in </span><span lang="DA">a prominent weekly outlet </span><span lang="EN-US">with the deliberately provoking title "<a href="http://morgenbladet.no/ideer/2014/et_forsvar_for_sorteringssamfunnet#.VFk55b6a8y4">A Vindication of the Sorting Society</a>". His argument relied partly on the observation "…that all parents want their children to be born as healthy as possible and to have all the opportunities other children have." At least <i>good</i> parents do. If prospective parents expressed wishes of children with Down’s or other syndromes, we would question their motives. But it is problematic to model our thinking in this context too closely on the healthy/sick distinction. "What would be so terrible with a society without Down’s syndrome," Braanen Sterri asked, addressing everyone worried about a possible sorting society. "Every medical progress means the danger of </span><span lang="SV">eradicat</span><span lang="EN-US">ing a disease that some identify with." But who sheds tears over the eradication of </span><span lang="IT">polio </span><span lang="EN-US">and tuberculosis today? Why assume it will be different with Down’s syndrome?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Well, because Down’s syndrome <i>is</i> different, according to </span><span lang="DA"><a href="http://morgenbladet.no/debatt/2014/er_det_fremdeles_greit_a_utrydde_en_minoritet_i_norge#.VGX9jPnF-E4">Marte Wexelsen Goksø</a></span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://morgenbladet.no/debatt/2014/er_det_fremdeles_greit_a_utrydde_en_minoritet_i_norge#.VGX9jPnF-E4">yr</a>. "You cannot get rid of this condition without killing the person. That's the difference. I am myself a woman with Down’s syndrome. I am not sick; I have an extra chromosome in my cells." You don’t recover from having Down’s syndrome; there are no cures for it. This fact alone, of course, does not distinguish Down’s syndrome from a disease—there are, after all, many diseases still without a cure—but it does make a difference that we cannot because of this fact describe Wexelsen Goksøyr as having an incurable condition. To say that she is "incurably affected" by Down’s syndrome sounds just as awkward as to say that she as a woman is "incurably affected" by femininity—a choice of words suitable only if one’s aim is to make a joke on her </span><span lang="DA">expense. Refusing to view </span><span lang="EN-US">Down’s syndrome as a disease, </span><span lang="DA">Wexelsen Goksø</span><span lang="EN-US">yr prefers to describe her kind as a special type of </span><span lang="PT">human</span><span lang="EN-US"> beings. Put differently: Braanen Sterri’s question shall not be answered, but rather reformulated. The question is not what would be so terrible with a society without Down’s syndrome, but rather what would be so terrible with a society without <i>people</i> with Down’s syndrome.</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">To be honest, I would prefer to stop here. I don't fancy addressing this topic. This confession probably </span>will <span lang="EN-US">offend some. There are those who believe an intellectual should be ready to discuss anything. True, open-mindedness is an intellectual virtue; but it must not be so open that one's brain might fall out. A moral community is partly defined by what is <i>not</i></span><span lang="IT"> discuss</span><span lang="EN-US">ed. In Norway, for example, we no longer deliberate on the pros and cons of forced sterilization of Gypsies. But such values are not set in stone. <a href="http://www.klassekampen.no/article/20141112/ARTICLE/141119986">Ali Esbati</a>, a well-known journalist and politician, recently </span>announced that he "is fleeing" to Sweden because of the tone in the political debate in Norway. A significant difference between the two countries, he writes, "is the way in which immigrants are described in the media and in the public debate." Since 2008, it has become commonplace to talk about the immigration <i>problem</i> in Norway, and as Esbati explains: "Constantly seeing oneself described in problem-terms does make a difference." Discussing the pros and cons of having people with Down’s syndrome among us will possibly have a similarly corrupting effect on our culture. And the pro-arguments are no better in this respect than the cons--both contribute to establish this as a legitimate question. That is why I would prefer giving the issue the silent treatment; but I am afraid it is too late for that. Turning my back on it for fear of disgracing myself and degrading those concerned would hardly accomplish anything at all. The topic has already contaminated our public debate--or in less moralizing terms: The chances that an appeal to decency will succeed in silencing the debate are slim since our sense of decency is already adapting to this debate. The questions are out there, discussed in all seriousness by decent people in the columns of distinguished newspapers.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I have sympathies with </span><span lang="DA">Wexelsen Goksø</span><span lang="EN-US">yr’s stragegy of rephrasing the question; refusing to discuss it in medical terms, but rather insisting on this being a question about people. Asking what would be so terrible with a society without a certain type of human beings (as opposed to a society liberated from a certain syndrome), does at least strip the possible future we are asked to consider of some of its immediate appeal. But how are we to proceed from this reformed question? Very often the debate gets side-tracked on the issue quality of life. Both Braanen Sterri and Dawkins claim that “healthy” people in general live better lives than most people with Down’s syndrome do, and welcome full-scale fetus selection because it allegedly will improve society’s overall life quality if all fetuses with Down’s were replaced by “healthy” ones. The opposition denies that removing people with Down’s will have that effect. People with Down’s syndrome, according to Wexelsen Goksøyr, often lead happy and fulfilling lives. Why is this a side-track? Because, behind this disagreement lies the uniting assumption that happiness is the central issue here. But if we assumed that people with Down’s on average were less happy than others, would this settle the matter? Of course not. The true problem here is not finding the most efficient way to aggregate happiness—whatever, if anything, that means—but finding ways to express our vision of human dignity and to understand which society serves that vision best. I sympathize with those who answer the reformed question by appealing to human diversity. If certain types of people—children with Down’s syndrome, left-handed people or people who love skiing—no longer were among us, we would live in a less diverse society. "It takes their kind to make all kinds," as the saying goes. A good society, on this vision, is a society which lets a thousand flowers bloom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Wexelsen Goks</span><span lang="DA">ø</span><span lang="EN-US">yr does appeal to the core values of the tolerant and inclusive society in her protests, and she does so with an existential force which commands us to listen. "I belong to a minority group in Norway," she writes, and one must be quite tone-deaf not to notice her existential horror at the prospect of "it [becoming] a state project to eradicate [this group], to sort them out." Currently Norwegian legislators are contemplating to introduce ultrasound screenings during the 12th</span><span lang="NL"> week</span><span lang="EN-US"> of pregnancy as a standard, so describing reality this way is not entirely unfair. (But here it is easy to err. Wexelsen Goks</span><span lang="DA">ø</span><span lang="EN-US">yr lets herself be carried away by her own horror when she draws parallels between this screening program and previous cases of ethnic cleansing. "To wipe out these troublesome people [the</span> Gypsies<span lang="EN-US">], to sort them out, children were taken from their parents and put in orphanages. Women were forcibly sterilized, some put in asylums and some lobotomized." If this were the methods by which Braanen Sterri's Down’s-free society were to be accomplished, then his </span><span lang="PT">apologia </span><span lang="EN-US">would hardly even provoke (let alone be printed in a reputable weekly). Such practices will not be reintroduced into Norwegian policy anytime soon. And yet, people with Down’s syndrome </span>understandably feel personally threatened by these proposals.)</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Obviously, as Richard Dawkins stressed, there is a difference between suggesting that a fetus ought to be aborted and saying of a child that it ought never to have been born. The latter would be downright vile. Dawkins' point was this. Systematically deselecting <i>new</i> people with Down's syndrome shouldn't concern those already among us. We should be allowed to discuss this possibility without offending anyone. M</span><span lang="EN-US">y concern, though, is that this distinction might not be as sharp as Dawkins imagines. Is it possible for someone to contemplate a screening program where the consequence (if not objective) is that these children are no longer born without showing a degrading attitude towards such children? Maybe; but I don't see how. It is not simply a matter of chosing words. L</span>imiting each tweet to 140 characters, Twitter is designed for snappy messages. Other media allow more caveats and careful reasoning. This may soften your message; but the unpleasant implications of your message are not so easily escaped. This is what Dawkins and Braanen Sterri don't sufficiently appreciate; that they are caught by the dynamics of the discourse in which they engage. While championing systematic deselection of "unhealthy" fetuses, they deny sending any message to the "unhealthy" individuals among us today. Through fancy distinctions, Dawkins attempts to wriggle away f<span lang="EN-US">rom Wexelsen Goks</span><span lang="DA">ø</span><span lang="EN-US">yr’s accusation. But this--I imagine she would reply--only results in, well, <i>wriggling</i>: "Oh, my dear no. Of course I don’t mean to suggest that <i>you</i> are unwanted. What I say is merely that when discussing these matters, we must remain open to the possibility that the best solution, when all is said and done, may be that people like you are phased out.”</span></div>
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vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-16208703757948341842015-11-03T14:37:00.000+01:002015-11-03T14:37:22.438+01:00Ateisme på barnerommet.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ja, jeg er stadig i live, og nei, denne bloggen er heller ikke erklært død. Den ligger bare på sotteseng. Jeg innser at det å beklage laber bloggaktivitet er i ferd med å bli en slags vane, skjønt ikke noe jeg gjør særlig hyppig. Siste og eneste post av året kom i mars--og siden juni i fjor har jeg kun produsert fem poster! Jeg har til hensikt å trappe opp, men er redd jeg vil forbli nokså opptatt frem til jul. Kanskje jeg skal gjøre dette til et nyttårsforsett når vi kommer så langt? I påvente av noe bedre, serverer jeg i dag en familiær anekdote.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Min yngste datter er glad i sang. Særlig er hun begeistret for Thorbjørn Egners sanger. Forleden dag gikk hun imidlertid, til min forbauselse, omkring og nynnet på en velkjent kristen barnesang, den om <a href="https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hvem_har_skapt_alle_blomstene">hvem som har skapt alle blomstene, fuglene og stjernene</a>. Hun kan ha lært sangen på barnesang i Longyearbyen kirke, hvor hun hadde et par sporadiske opptredener for omlag et år siden. Men i så fall har hun hukommelse som en elefant. Sannsynligvis har hun hørt den på nytt i det siste, skjønt jeg aner ikke hvor. Uansett: fremføringen var helt etter boken. Hun gikk og sang for seg selv, og visste ikke at foreldrene lyttet. Vår tilstedeværelse ble avslørt først da vi brøt ut i spontan latter over siste vers. For etter de velkjente versene om at Gud i himmelen har skapt blomstene, fuglene, stjernene og deg og meg, kom en egenkomponert (tør jeg si subversiv?) avslutning som ville ha moret selv Richard Dawkins:</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hvem har skapt Gud i himmelen, himmelen, himmelen<br />Hvem har skapt Gud i himmelen, jo [det er] deg og meg.</span></i></blockquote>
vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-2164700112881415972015-03-12T19:39:00.003+01:002015-03-12T19:49:43.164+01:00Personalised medicine anyone?Recently I moved to Trondheim. (It was with a heavy heart I left Svalbard, a decision made even more difficult by the fact that my family didn't. But when they join me in June I assume we will all settle in fine.) Since new year I have been part of a research group called <a href="http://www.ntnu.edu/reset">RESET</a> (Research Group on the Ethos of Technology). To be more specific, my work is concerned with the moral and scientific ambiguities within what is called Personalised Medicine. Hopefully, in three years time, I can on the basis of this work call myself Doctor of Philosophy. Being entirely new to this field (not philosophy but philosophy of medicine), familiarising myself with it has been quite time consuming. This is the main reason for my being so inactive on Blogger the past few months.<br />
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"Personal" is a buzzword in today's society. Amazon as well as Youtube offers personalised recommondations. The more personalised a service is, the better -- or so the cultural trend seems to imply. What then is more natural than hoping for a more personalised healthcare? This is what I hope to investigate. One challenge is separating hope from hype. Consider some key slogans: <i>Away with the one-size-fits-all approach to medicine! </i><i>The right treatment to the right person at the right time! </i>Barack Obama touched both in a <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-president-obama-proposes-precision-medicine-to-end-one-size-fits-all-735875">recent speech</a>. What but <i>Amen</i> can one say to this? Disagreement seems impossible. But that is my problem too. If no alternative position is available (who, after all, thinks impersonal ill-treatment is the future?), I struggle to see what one hopes to achieve with this rhetoric. Nor is it obvious to me what is novel about it either. I mean, the rhetoric itself is clearly a recent invention; but what else is new? Obama seems to imply that medicine is about to be radically changed. But hasn't clinical medicine always been about treating individuals? The fact that no two people are identical and may react differently to the same drug has been known ever since <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocrates">Hippocrates</a>. True, part of the vision is that genome sequencing will play a prominent role in future healthcare -- and this has become technologically possible only in recent years. Still, it is not clear to me why this should be thought of as representing a paradigm shift in medicine rather than as a refinement of existing scientific practices (nor for that matter, why it is best thought of as "personalising" medicine).<br />
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To be continued...vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-16364281258161368762014-11-17T22:00:00.004+01:002014-11-17T22:00:52.988+01:00På skråplanet.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Da en kvinne tidligere i år skrev at hun ikke visste hva hun ville gjort dersom hennes foster fikk påvist Downs syndrom, svarte <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/21/richard-dawkins-immoral-not-to-abort-a-downs-syndrome-foetus">Richard Dawkins</a> kort og kontant: "Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice." Siden ble han nødt til å forsvare seg. Ja, valget av Twitter som medium for ytringene hadde vært uheldig. Formatet tillater ikke resonnementer. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/11047072/Richard-Dawkins-immoral-to-allow-Downs-syndrome-babies-to-be-born.html">Men selv om formen var problematisk, var <i>innholdet</i> ikke det</a>: "Apparently I'm a horrid monster for recommending what actually happens to the great majority of Down Syndrome foetuses. They are aborted." Men dette skillet mellom form og innhold er langt mer teoretisk enn hva Dawkins tror. Man kan reagere på tonen i "anbefalingen" fordi denne antyder en urovekkende holdning (til "innholdet").</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Det stemmer at flertallet av slike graviditeter faktisk blir terminert. I Norge skjer dette i mellom 80 og 90% av tilfellene. Dawkins støtter ikke bare flertallet, men hevder at dette utvilsomt er den rette avgjørelsen: Her er det ingenting å tenke på. Blir det påvist Downs syndrom, så ta abort og prøv igjen. Det er flere grunner til å reagere på denne lettvinte nonsjelansen. Sjansen for at dette oppleves som utilbørlig press er overhengende (en anklage Dawkins forsøkte å sno seg unna, uten særlig hell </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ettersom han hadde beskrevet situasjonen som et valg mellom moral og umoral). Videre vil denne "anbefalingen" kanskje falle i god jord kun hos de som allerede oppfatter dette som en uproblematisk løsning. Hvis du befinner deg i en moralsk knipe på grunn av en graviditet, er teoretisk skråsikkerhet fra en gråhåret mannlig professor knapt hva du trenger. Til slutt er det mange som frykter hva slike holdninger vil gjøre med oss og vårt moralske gangsyn dersom de får spre seg. Er vi på vei mot et samfunn der slike avgjørelser ikke lenger oppleves som problematiske? Og hva forteller dette om vårt syn på våre medmennesker med Downs syndrom?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Denne siste diskusjonen blusset opp i Norge også da Aksel Braanen Sterri publiserte et essay i Morgenbladet med den bevisst provoserende tittelen "<a href="http://morgenbladet.no/ideer/2014/et_forsvar_for_sorteringssamfunnet#.VFk55b6a8y4">Et forsvar for sorteringssamfunnet</a>". Argumentasjonen støtter seg til dels på en nokså tilforlatelig observasjon: "Det er knapt en overdrivelse å si at alle foreldre ønsker for sitt barn at det skal bli født så friskt som mulig og ha alle de muligheter andre barn har." Dette ønsket er nok styrende for vår tenkning omkring Downs syndrom, i det minste på den måten at dersom vordende foreldre uttrykte ønsker om barn med dette syndromet, ville mange -- også mange abortmotstandere -- stille spørsmål ved deres beveggrunner. Likefullt tror jeg distinksjonen mellom syk og frisk ikke <i>bør</i> styre tenkningen i for sterk grad. "Hvorfor er det så ille om vi får et samfunn uten Downs syndrom," spør Sterri. Spørsmålet retter seg til alle de som bekymrer seg for sorteringssamfunnet. "For hvert medisinsk utviklingstrinn står vi i fare for å utrydde en sykdom som noen identifiserer seg med." Ingen savner polio og tuberkulose, så hvorfor anta at Downs syndrom er annerledes?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fordi Downs syndrom <i>er</i> annerledes, svarer <a href="http://morgenbladet.no/debatt/2014/er_det_fremdeles_greit_a_utrydde_en_minoritet_i_norge#.VGX9jPnF-E4">Marte Wexelsen Goksøyr</a>. "Du får ikke utryddet denne tilstanden hos en person uten å ta livet av mennesket. Det er forskjellen. Jeg er selv en kvinne med Downs syndrom. Jeg er ikke syk, jeg har et ekstra kromosom i mine celler." Downs syndrom er ikke noe man kan bli "frisk" av. Det finnes ingen medisiner og heller ingen kur mot tilstanden -- og likevel kan man ikke si at Wexelsen Goksøyr er rammet av en uhelbredelig tilstand (les: sykdom). Å si at hun er "rammet" av Downs syndrom låter omtrent like corny som å si at hun som kvinne er "rammet" av femininitet -- en uttrykksmåte som kun er egnet dersom man ønsker å gjøre seg morsom på hennes bekostning. Wexelsen Goksøyr treffer betydelig bedre når hun avviser at Downs syndrom er en sykdom og heller beskriver personer med dette syndromet som en bestemt mennesketype. Braanen Sterris spørsmål fører oss med andre ord på villstrå. Spørsmålet burde ikke være hvorfor det er så ille om vi får et samfunn uten Downs syndrom, men hvorfor det ville være så ille om vi fikk et samfunn uten <i>mennesker</i> med Downs syndrom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Helst hadde jeg satt punktum her. Dette spørsmålet har jeg ingen lyst til å gi meg i kast med. En slik bekjennelse vil nok falle enkelte tungt for brystet. Noen mener vi i redelighetens navn må være rede til å diskutere alt. Men dét er å forveksle et høl i hue med et åpent sinn. Moralske fellesskap defineres blant annet av hva man <i>ikke</i> diskuterer. I Norge har vi for eksempel sluttet å diskutere fordeler og ulemper ved tvangssterilisering av sigøynere. Men slike grenser kan flyttes. <a href="http://klassekampen.no/article/20141112/ARTICLE/141119986">Ali Esbati kunngjorde nylig</a> at han "flykter" til Sverige på grunn av tonen i det politiske ordskiftet i Norge. En vesentlig forskjell mellom de to landene "er måten innvandrerbefolkningen blir beskrevet i mediene og i den offentlige debatten." Siden 2008 har det blitt A4 å snakke engasjert om innvandrings<i>problemet</i> i Norge, og som Esbati sier: "Det gjør en forskjell å hele tida se seg selv bli beskrevet i problem-termer." Å innlate seg på å diskutere verdien av det å ha mennesker med Downs syndrom blant oss vil bidra til en tilsvarende endring av offentligheten, fordi slike meningsutvekslinger -- både positive og negative vurderinger -- er med på å etablere dette som et rimelig spørsmål. Å ta diskusjonen er å anerkjenne temaet som diskutabelt. Men jeg er redd jeg er litt sent ute. Jeg har lyst til å svare at problemstillingen er <i>høl i hue</i>; at diskusjonen er nedverdigende overfor dem det gjelder og at vi tilsmusser oss selv ved å ta spørsmålet på alvor, men utretter neppe noe med det, ettersom disse spørsmålene allerede har fått forgifte det offentlig ordskiftet -- eller i litt mindre moralistiske termer: Sjansen for at en slik appell til folks anstendighet vil falle på stengrunn er stor ettersom vår moralske sensitivitet allerede er i forandring i den forstand at dette og beslektede spørsmål faktisk blir diskutert med stort alvor i landets avisspalter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">En strategi kan, slik Wexelsen Goksøyr anyder, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">være </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">å omformulere spørsmålet. Hun avviser å se dette som et (samfunns)medisinsk spørsmål: dette handler om mennesker. Å spørre hva som vil være så ille med et samfunn uten bestemte </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">mennesker</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> snarere enn hva som vil være så ille med å bli kvitt et bestemt syndrom, fjerner i alle fall noe av den umiddelbare appellen til fremtidsutsiktene. Men hvor man skal gå videre fra dette alternative spørsmålet, er imidlertid ikke opplagt. (Skal man tolke dette som et historisk-hypotetisk spørsmål? </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hvorfor det er så ille om vi får et samfunn uten...?</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, er i så fall et spørsmål om hva historiens dom vil bli: Hvis alle fostere med Downs syndrom systematisk velges bort slik at disse mennesker sakte men sikkert forsvinner, hva vil fremtiden mene? Vi kan naturligvis ikke utelukke mulighetene for en knusende dom. Problemet er bare at vi ikke kan utelukke noen andre muligheter heller. Wexelsen Goksøyrs nye spørsmål spiller også ballen rett i føttene på dem som ønsker å diskutere forstersortering i lys av begrepet livskvalitet. Både Braanen Sterri og Dawkins hevder at "friske" mennesker har bedre liv enn mennesker med Downs, og ønsker derfor sorteringssamfunnet velkommen med den begrunnelsen at samfunnets samlede livskvalitet ville øke dersom alle fostere med Downs ble byttet ut med "friske" individer. Nå er dette filosofisk svært lettvint argumentasjon. Dawkins tar for gitt at livskvalitet eller -lykke er noe som kan samles opp på denne måten, hvilket ikke er innlysende -- det er ikke engang klart hva dette </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">betyr</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, og langt mindre klart hvorfor en slik summering av lykke ha noen avgjørende betydning i denne sammenhengen. Men når Wexelsen Goksøyr og hennes meningsfeller innlater seg på denne diskusjonen, så står ikke deres argumenter særlig sterkere.) Selv har jeg sympatier for den som svarer med å gripe til </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">mangfoldsargumentet</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Hvis bestemte mennesketyper -- barn med Downs syndrom, kjevendte eller folk som liker å gå på ski -- ikke lenger finnes blant oss, har vi fått et mindre mangfoldig samfunn. "It takes their kind, to make all kinds," som det heter. Dette argumentet springer ut av en visjon om det gode samfunn som det samfunnet som lar de tusen små blomster blomstre.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Det er også til denne visjonen om et tolerant og inkluderende samfunn Wexelsen Goksøyr appellerer, og hun gjør det med et eksistensielt alvor vi plikter å lytte til. "Jeg tilhører en minoritetsgruppe i Norge," skriver hun, og man må være nærmest tonedøv for ikke å forstå hennes eksistensielle forferdelse ved tanken på at "det skulle være et ønsket statlig prosjekt å utrydde [denne gruppen], sortere dem bort". Nå som det diskuteres å innføre systematiske ultralydundersøkelser i 12 svangerskapsuke, er det ikke urimelig å beskrive virkeligheten på denne måten. Men her er det lett å trå feil. Wexelsen Goksøyr lar seg rive med av egen retorikk når hun trekker paralleller fra denne statlig sanksjonerte fostersorteringen til tidligere tilfeller av etnisk rensning mot for eksempel tatere. "For å få sortert dem bort, utslette disse <i>brysomme</i>, ble barn tatt fra foreldre med tvang og satt på barnehjem. Kvinner ble tvangssterilisert og noen endte på asyl og ble lobotomert." Hvis det var sånn strategien for et Downs-fritt samfunn så ut, ville Sterris forsvarsskrift knapt provosere engang (enn si komme på trykk i Morgenbladet). Det er ingen fare for gjeninnføring av slike praksiser.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Richard Dawkins har selvsagt rett i at det er stor forskjell på det å foreslå at et foster bør aborteres og det å si om et barn at det aldri burde ha blitt båret frem. Enhver som sa noe sånt ville med rette nedsables for sine usmakelige holdningers skyld. Men bekymringen min er at den moralsk-politiske diskusjonen for og imot innføringen av et screeningprosjekt der konsekvensen (om ikke målet) er at slike barn ikke lenger blir båret frem, allerede er et tegn på og en årsak til at usmakelige holdninger til denne gruppen tvinger seg frem i oss; at i lys av disse diskusjonene vil alle forsøk på å sno seg unna anklagen fra Wexelsen Goksøyr nettopp være <i>å sno seg</i>: "Nei, kjære deg, vi mener selvsagt ikke at <i>du</i> er uønsket, men vi må jo, når vi diskuterer denne saken, være åpne for at den beste løsningen, når alt kommer til alt, kanskje er at slike som du blir faset ut."</span>vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-33541157413016279452014-09-05T09:58:00.001+02:002014-09-05T12:22:42.527+02:00Philosophy in Science.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Lately we have seen many heated debates between philosophers and scientists about the relationship between science and philosophy, very often framed as the question what, if anything, philosophy has to offer science. Some prominent scientists take an extreme stance when declaring all philosophical questions as little more than “pointless delay in our progress,” to quote </span><a href="http://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-the-value-of-philosophy/"><span lang="EN-US">Neil deGrasse Tyson</span></a><span lang="EN-US">. Massimo Pigliucci does a good job unmasking the naïve philosophical (!) presumptions such views rest on. <a href="http://iai.tv/video/hawking-vs-philosophy">Other scientists</a> reject philosophy, believing philosophers to cook up pseudo-scientific alternatives to scientific methods. But this is clearly at odds with what most philosophers are actually doing, and a profound misconception of the relationship between philosophy and scientific methods. A while back Peter Hacker published <a href="http://iainews.iai.tv/articles/why-study-philosophy-auid-289">an essay</a> (on which I commented <a href="http://orienteringsforsok.blogspot.no/2014/05/why-study-philosophy.html">here</a>), where he addressed some of these issues. Far from offering competing explanations of natural phenomena, Hacker wrote, philosophy is rather:</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">…a technique for examining the results of specific sciences for their conceptual coherence, and for examining the explanatory methods of the different sciences – natural, social and human. The sciences are no more immune to conceptual confusion than is any other branch of human thought. <em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Scientists themselves are for the most part ill-equipped to deal with conceptual confusions</span></em><i>.</i></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Scientists, of course, don't deny the importance of conceptual clarity. We need to know what we mean by our words in order to speak rationally. However, some don't see what philosophy has to do with it. Some argue, </span><a href="http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs109-rebecca-newberger-goldstein-on-plato-at-the-googleplex.html"><span lang="EN-US">as Julia Galef did in an episode of Rationally Speaking</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, that scientists are quite capable to manage on their own:<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is an irritation on behalf of scientists or science enthusiasts, that philosophy is defending its relevance by defining as philosophy things that would have happened even without the discipline of philosophy; that there is a certain level of built-in and developed common sense and critical thinking that scientists would have even if they hadn't read any philosophers or come into contact with the field of philosophy, <i>and to say that philosophy therefore is relevant is unfair</i>.</span></span></blockquote>
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This irritation is understandable. Claiming that scientists are unequal to their tasks, or even that it is the task of philosophers to tell scientists what they can and cannot do, is unlikely to find much support in the scientific community (which hardly was Hacker's aim either). Of course, describing philosophy as a nuisance isn't exactly an invitation to a calm discussion either. My aim here is not to take sides. I am rather suggesting that if we all take one step back, we will perhaps see this trench war as misguided.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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</span></span> <span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Often the question is: What, if anything, can scientists gain from reading or listening to philosophers? Philosophers sometimes reply with a history lesson. A few hundred years ago all scientists <i>were</i> philosophers. So, until quite recently it would have been literally senseless to ask why scientists should bother with philosophers. And in recent years many great scientists have been philosophically inclined. During the twentieth century, some of the towering figures in physics and biology (Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg, and Ernst Mayr and Richard Lewontin, for example) were well-versed in the philosophical literature of the day and thought this crucial to their own research. Even today scientists from various fields collaborate with philosophers. Hence: If nothing else, it is at least not a universally shared opinion among scientists that talking to philosophers is a "pointless delay in [their] progress". But for argument’s sake, let us assume, contrary to the facts, that this was what most scientists thought. What then? What if scientists entirely quit reading and listening to philosophers? Some philosophers seem to believe that this would result in science becoming a vessel without its pilot, forever doomed to sail round in circles in confused and muddled thinking. That seems a wild assumption. What then about the opposite assumption? Say that science were unaffected by this radical division between "the two cultures". Would this support the conclusion that philosophy is indeed irrelevant to science, as Julia Galef suggested?<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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</span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's not simply a questionable inference. Not only does the conclusion not follow, the conclusion is </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">itself </span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">curiously incoherent. The reason, I think, is that Galef confuses two separate questions. Suggesting that philosophers are irrelevant to scientists is one thing. Suggesting that <i>philosophy</i> (i.e. philosophical thinking or philosophizing) is irrelevant is quite another. The first is a question of who should (or could) do the work. The second question is about what kind of work needs to be done. Galef may be right in assessing that scientists for the most part are capable of doing the conceptual and critical thinking their research requires even if they don’t read philosophical journals. This is an empirical question. But suggesting that </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">altered reading habits among scientists could possibly make philosophical reflection </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">irrelevant in science </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">doesn’t even make sense. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Galef does in fact take this very distinction for granted herself when she claims that scientists can solve these puzzles without any knowledge of the field of philosophy.)</span><br />
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</span></span> <span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Settling the largely empirical question (around which much of the debate revolves) regarding who's best equipped to deal with conceptual confusions seems to me both trivial and unimportant – so long as they who end up doing the philosophically needed work (whatever their profession might be) do so properly.</span><br />
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</span></span> <span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here I am of course doing exactly what Galef accuses philosophers of doing, namely defining as philosophy things that even people outside the field of philosophy are capable of doing (more or less successfully). But there is no need for irritation any more. Calling certain difficulties scientists inevitably are faced with in their daily work “philosophical difficulties” is not a strategy to lay claims on these difficulties on behalf of trained philosophers. The subtext is not: <i>Amateurs aside!</i> Such union disputes don’t interest me. </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If someone objects to my using the word "philosophy" here -- <i>why not stick with "critical thinking" if that is what you are talking about?</i> -- my answer is that "philosophy" allows for distinctions to be drawn: </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not all forms of </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">critical thinking or </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">conceptual self-reflection are philosophical. Criticizing concepts for being used in unfamiliar ways aren't, for instance. When that is said, though, I do concede that </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what word we use</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is relatively unimportant</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, as long as we are clear on what we are talking about. (As </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"philosophy" often denotes more than critical thinking too, I guess that that label might cause confusion too.)) </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My point is simply that all good and honest scientific research involves different modes of thinking, including (sometimes) what is commonly called philosophical reflection.</span>vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-62755393712083171822014-06-25T13:03:00.002+02:002014-06-25T13:03:10.507+02:00Bare en bit av fotballen.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sist Luis Suarez bet en motspiller ba han uforbeholdent om tilgivelse for sin </span><a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2013-04-22-suarez-sorry-for-my-inexcusable-behaviour"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">uforsvarlige oppførsel</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Denne gangen har pipen en annen låt. Nå svarer Suarez at dette er </span><a href="http://www.nrk.no/sport/fotball/suarez_-_-sant-som-skjer-1.11796700"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sånt som skjer på fotballbanen</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> -- en mildt sagt forunderlig uttalelse. På en måte har han selvsagt rett. Men hvem hadde trodd at slikt faktisk <em>kunne</em> skje bare for noen år siden -- før Suarez altså gjorde biting til et slags varemerke? Ok. Hendelsen er ikke helt unikt. Biting har forekommet tidligere også, både på fotballbanen og i </span><a href="http://www.itv.com/news/2013-04-22/famous-bites-in-sporting-history/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">andre idretter</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> -- og ikke minst: dette er tredje gang på like mange år at "Kannibalen av Anfield" setter tennene i en motspiller. Mener Suarez å si at ettersom biting -- mye takket være ham selv! -- faktisk forekommer i toppfotballen, så må man bare venne seg til det? Eller mener påstår han at biting tilhører kategorien uheldige ting man må regne med når voksne mannfolk sparker ball? "Dette er ting som skjer på banen. Det var bare oss to inne i feltet, og han løp inn i meg med skulderen sin. Det var slik øyet mitt ble seende slik ut," skal Suarez ha forklart til uruguayansk TV. Selv om verken spisse albuer, etterslenger eller kjefting på dommeren egentlig "hører hjemme" på fotballbanen, er det en hverdagslig sak at slikt skjer i kampens hete. Mener Suarez at han på samme selvfølgelige vis kunne ha fortsatt forklaringen: <em>Og jeg hogg tennene mine i Chiellini. Det var slik skulderen hans ble seende slik ut</em>?</span>vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-67518548610295008962014-06-22T16:14:00.002+02:002014-06-22T16:16:05.138+02:00Tigging og (annen) kriminalitet."Tigging er ikkje eit lovbrot i seg sjølv, men er knytt til andre problem," svarer Senterpartiets Jenny Klinge når Klassekampen 14. juni spør hva som gjør tigging til et lovbrudd. Senterpartiet har besluttet å støtte regjeringens forslag om et nasjonalt tiggeforbud. Klinge gir to grunner for denne beslutningen. En kriminalpolitisk begrunnelse, og en sosial- og fattigdomspolitisk. For det første: "Å forby tigging er eit verkemiddel for å forby andre typar kriminalitet." For det andre: "Ingen har nokon gong komme seg ut av fattigdom ved å tigge." Tvert imot mener Klinge at "tigging sementerer sosial naud". "Å la tigging vere tillate er ikkje ein måte å kjempe mot sisial naud på."<br />
<br />
La meg ta det første først. Påstanden om at tigging ikke er kriminelt i seg selv, men knyttet til kriminalitet på en slik måte at et tiggeforbud vil gjøre det lettere å forby andre typer kriminalitet, virker forvirret på flere måter. Språklig sett er det merkelig å si at man skal forby former for kriminalitet. Kriminalitet er ikke noe man kan forby eller ikke. Kriminalitet <i>er</i> forbudt; det er hva "kriminalitet" betyr. Vi innfører ikke nye forbud fordi vi oppdager nye former for kriminalitet, men fordi vi bestemmer at noe vi før tillot ikke lenger skal være tillatt. Hva som er kriminelt og ikke beror på det til enhver tid gjeldende lovverket. Dette er grunnen til at nye lover og regler aldri har tilbakevirkende kraft. Innføringen av sexkjøpsloven forbød således ikke en form for kriminalitet, men <em>gjorde</em> kjøp av sex kriminelt. I henhold til samme logikk kan Senterpartiet vanskelig innføre en lov mot tigging og samtidig mene at tigging ikke er et lovbrudd. Videre har Klinge selvsagt rett i at tigging kan knyttes til (annen) kriminalitet. Men hennes beskrivelse av denne tilknytningen er så generell og omtrentlig at den ikke forteller noe som helst, verken om tiggere eller kriminelle. Klær kan også knyttes til kriminalitet: Alle kriminelle går med klær. Kanskje vil noen avfeie dette som en usakelig innvending, fordi det ikke finnes noen <i>direkte</i> kobling mellom klesbruk og kriminalitet. Selvsagt ikke. Men mitt spørsmål er: Hvor klar er koblingen mellom tigging og kriminalitet? <em>Alle</em> tiggere er i alle fall ikke vinningskriminelle.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Klinge gjør rett i å koble tigging til sosial nød og fattigdom. Det sosialpolitiske målet er å tilby en annen løsning, slik at tiggingen forsvinner. Alternativet finnes egentlig allerede i dag:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ingen er i utgangspunktet tvinga til å tigge. Slik det er i dag, har vi eit sosialt sikringsnett som skal ta vare på alle. Samtidig er det klart at ein del har komme i ein situasjon der ting fortonar seg som håplaust. Særleg i tilfella knytt til psykiatri og rus. Tigging kan ikkje vere det ultimate sikringsnettet. Ein viktig del av avtalen [med regjeringen] er at han inkluderer målretta sosiale tiltak.</blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Det fremgår ikke av intervjuet hvilke tiltak dette skulle være, men mye av dette virker vel og bra, selv om jeg har vondt for å forstå nøyaktig hvordan en kriminalisering er ment å hjelpe dette prosjektet. Skal avtalen inkludere et påbud om å benytte seg av de målrettede tiltakene?<br />
<br />
Klinge er åpen med at en slik lovendring vil by på praktiske problemer. Det vil blant annet være utfordrende for politiet å håndheve loven. På den andre siden er hun overbevist om at endringen vil bety færre politiressurser brukt på menneskehandel og visse typer vinningsforbrytelser, ettersom slik kriminalitet ofte henger sammen med tigging. Av intervjuet kan man få inntrykk av at aksepten for tigging i det norske lovverket også har vært en stående invitasjon til kriminalitet. Klinge tenker her naturligvis på utenlandske tiggere som kommer til landet -- noen som følge av menneskehandel og noen med lysskye intensjoner i tillegg. Dersom det ble forbudt å sitte på gaten om dagen, ville denne nattaktiviteten også flyttes til andre land. Så langt kan jeg følge resonnementet. Imidlertid reiser dette nye spørsmål, som Klinge ikke konfronteres med av journalisten. Er det ikke en viss fare for en motsatt endring av kriminalstatistikken også -- at visse former for kriminalitet vil kunne blomstre opp som følge av et tiggeforbud? Et trivielt poeng er at forbudet gjør tigging ulovlig, hvilket utvider spekteret av mulige lovbrudd. Et dypere bekymring er at tigging og visse former for kriminalitet synes å være uttrykk for samme sosiale nød -- og at dette er den koblingen mange ser mellom tigging og kriminalitetsstatistikken. Skulle tigging tigging også bli ulovlig, vil kanskje mange nødstilte oppleve å stå overfor et valg mellom to former for kriminalitet for å brødfø seg. Gitt at tiggere må operere på åpen gate hvor giverne befinner seg, og således vil være et lett bytte for kriminalpolitiet, er det et spørsmål hva et slikt forbud vil bety for vinningskriminaliteten, for eksempel, som i sitt vesen alltid foregår i det skjulte....</div>
vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-20552282114599208272014-05-14T13:01:00.000+02:002014-05-14T13:01:44.757+02:00Ordinary critical intelligence.<div class="comment-content">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NO-BOK;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Are there any readers of this blog who don't also read</em> </span><a href="http://languagegoesonholiday.blogspot.no/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Language goes on holiday</span></a><em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">? Well, stop being in that category, and go check it out! In any case, this post is meant for you. I was thinking of writing a follow-up to my
</span></em><a href="http://orienteringsforsok.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-study-philosophy.html"><em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">previous entry</span></em></a><em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, but then gave away my good points</span></em></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NO-BOK;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://languagegoesonholiday.blogspot.no/2014/05/corrupting-youth.html"><em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">commenting over at Duncan Richter’s</span></em></a><em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Rather than rewriting my arguments, I decided simply to post a gently edited version of the comments here.</span></em></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NO-BOK;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NO-BOK;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">***</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Richard Taylor has written:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Students of philosophy learn very early -- usually first day of their course
-- that philosophy is the love of wisdom. This is often soon forgotten,
however, and there are even some men who earn their livelihood at philosophy
who have not simply forgotten it, but who seem positively to scorn the idea.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><div class="comment-content">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was, when writing that previous post, hoping to make use of this quote but in
the end deiced to drop it because I didn’t know what to do with it. I have
myself never heard anyone profess such disdain, but have attended lectures
where this wouldn’t have surprised me much. This attitude seems to me connected with the danger of dogmatism. One form of dogmatism which concerns Taylor is the
idea that philosophy really is (or should become) like the sciences. When Peter
Hacker presents philosophy as a set of techniques, this sounds too mechanical,
as you [D.R.] write, but doesn’t it also, and not incidentally, suggest a model
of philosophy rather too close to that of the sciences? (This is surprising
because Hacker too, both previously and again in this essay, has been fighting
this very model.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Academic philosophers sometimes feel a need to defend their subject, which is easily
understood given the worldwide trend of cut-backs in the ”unprofitable”
humanities departments. However, inflated rhetoric is hardly the best way to make
non-philosophers see things differently. As Miranda Fricker once remarked: "I think it
is a bit ludicrous when people defend philosophy on the grounds that it teaches
you how to think. That is extraordinarily insulting to other subjects!"
This is partly why I too react
against such claims. But I also think philosophers, with such claims and claims about the <em>expertise</em> a philosopher acquires, give the wrong impression of what philosophical thinking actually is.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="comment-content">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Historians of philosophy often regard the subject as to have been invented by the ancient Greeks. When one's objective is to trace the understanding of philosophy as a more or less academic discipline with theoretical ambitions back to its origin, this story seems about right. However, philosophy has other (and deeper, yet more mundane) roots too. I am inclined to see philosophizing as a natural feature of human language use. Questions like “What do you mean?” and “What are the grounds for that claim?” were after all not invented by Thales. Nor are they something we first encounter at university. Someone might question our words whenever we say anything. Thus can the most casual dinner table conversation suddenly transform into a discussion or a probing investigation into the structure of our consepts. (The tools needed to resolve such situations are not theories produced at philosophical institutes, but ever-present to all competent language users in the language we share.) Philosophy -- understood as the application of ordinary critical intelligence -- is as ancient and as evenly distributed as language itself -- though some do of course exercise their critical faculties more than others.</span></div>
<div class="comment-content">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In short, philosophers don't really do anything that non-philosophers can't
do, and they don't necessarily do it better, but they ought at least to do it
better than they themselves did it before they started studying and practicing
philosophy, and they ought to do it without some other mission. [D.R.]</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="comment-content">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agreed. Still, philosophers are often asked to sit on expert panels. In
Norway, Knut Erik Tranøy headed several committees on medical questions; Mary
Warnock has done the same in England. As far as I am able to judge, both have
done great jobs; but, frankly, I believe this is more thanks to who they were
and their personal characters than to their educational background. This issue
has been at the front of my mind lately because I currently am in the middle of
the process of applying for a position as a researcher in bioethics at my old
university. If I am qualified for this job, which I think I am, this is not
because I possess any philosophical (or ethical) expertise (whatever, if
anything, that is); but rather because I have an interest in that field, have
read a fair amount of the literature, both good and bad, and because I care
about finding out which is which.</span></div>
vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-22562003507817110282014-05-09T13:05:00.000+02:002014-05-09T13:14:06.638+02:00Why study philosophy?<a href="http://iainews.iai.tv/articles/why-study-philosophy-auid-289" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a recent essay</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, Peter Hacker gives many good answers; but as is often the case with advertisements, he over-sells his product. I will be focusing on this formulation:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Times;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">The study of philosophy cultivates a healthy scepticism about the moral opinions, political arguments and economic reasonings with which we are daily bombarded by ideologues, churchmen, politicians and economists. It teaches one to detect ‘higher forms of nonsense’, to identify humbug, to weed out hypocrisy, and to spot invalid reasoning. It curbs our taste for nonsense, and gives us a nose for it instead. It teaches us not to rush to affirm or deny assertions, but to raise questions about them.</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similar claims about the general usefulness of philosophy are endlessly repeated in </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">introductory texts. (For instance by Bertrand Russell in the raving last chapter of his </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Problems-Philosophy-Illustrated-Bertrand-Russell-ebook/dp/B00A7LNK04/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391720965&sr=8-1&keywords=Problems+of+Philosophy"><em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Problems of Philosophy</span></em></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">: "The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation</span>, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation of consent of his deliberate reason.") I must admit scepticism.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When Hacker writes that 'philosophy cultivates a healthy scepticism' and 'teaches one to detect higher forms of nonsense', he makes it sound as if taking philosophy classes were a method for developing fail-safe nonsense-alerts. Because philosophy means love of wisdom, and wisdom is never foolish or gullible, there is in that sense an intimate connection between "philosophy" and "critical thinking". Empirically speaking though the connection is less reliable. Great philosophers have been guilty of great stupidity. Heidegger famously was a Nazi. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I doubt that Wittgenstein shared Hacker's optimism; but when hearing one of his students unreflectingly repeating nationalistic slogans, Wittgenstein was infuriated, and his anger seems somehow to have been aggrevated by the fact that the person talking nonsens was a philosopher:
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[W]hat is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of life, if it does not make you more conscientious than any... journalist in the use of the <i>dangerous</i> phrases such people use for their own ends.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">Studying philosophy would be a waste of time if <em>all</em> it did was to enable one to talk about abstruse questions of logic. But there is no reason to think this is so. If anything, evidence seems to point in the direction of Hacker. Philosophers seem better equiped than most when it comes to general reasoning skills. Philosophy majors tend to do very well on certain tests. Some claim this is due to their education: <a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jbeebe2/WhyPhil.htm">"[P]hilosophy majors </a><a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jbeebe2/WhyPhil.htm">develop problem solving skills </a></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jbeebe2/WhyPhil.htm">at a level of abstraction" that cannot be achieved through most studies</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span">. But if we assume (which seems plausible to me) that philosophy mainly attracts students who already possess certain skills and interests, this cannot be the final word. It doesn't follow from this that </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">exercising one's philosophical muscles might turn out to have no effect on a person's ability to think (that would be as astonishing as if one's stamina could never be improved by physical excercise); but it does follow that even if philosophers demonstrate first rate reasoning skills, it is an open question to what extent these test results actually reflect the learning outcome of their studies.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
Continuing on a semi-empirical line. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most courses in philosophy, certainly most courses an undergraduate is likely to attend, are designed not to make the student better at reasoning in general, but to make him better at <em>philosophical</em> reasoning. A course in moral philosophy, say, is deemed successful not to the extent its students have become more sensitive and morally reflective persons (though this of course would not be negative), but, borrowing Wittgenstein's prase, to the extent the students have learned to talk with plausibility about abstruse questions in ethics. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with this. Philosophising is after all working with philosophical questions. As any academic field, philosophers have manufactured tools and techniques suited to these questions. Picking up on the jargon is the first step toward making contributions to the classroom discussions. And sometimes this will prove useful in other contexts too...</span><div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But reading philosophy and acquiring the analytic and argumentative tools on offer is, as demonstrated by </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Montanus"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Erasmus Montanus</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, not the same as becoming a clearheaded thinker. Mastering a philosophical style, may even -- if it is true that certain philosophies offer <span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nonsense-Postmodern-Intellectuals-Science-ebook/dp/B00GVRE638/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1391026553&sr=8-2&keywords=intellectual+impostures">nothing but fashionable nonsense</a> -- h</span>ave quite pernicious effects on one's judgement. Not even (mainstream) analytical philosophy is what Hacker has in mind when he hails philosophy as "a unique technique for tackling conceptual questions". Judging by his many heated debates with colleagues, mainly from the anglo-american tradition, it is reasonable to interpret the quote with which I began as deliberately echoing a sigh by his friend<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Action-Bede-Rundle-ebook/dp/B000SN4Q9U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389815253&sr=8-1&keywords=mind+in+action+rundle">Bede Rundle</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span">: </span><span class="Apple-style-span">"Whatever their limitations, earlier analytical philosophers had at least a nose for nonsense. Sadly, so many philosophers today have only a taste for it."</span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-family: Times; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">It is puzzling that Hacker, throughout this essay, keeps using "philosophy" as if it denoted one uniform activity ("<span style="line-height: 20px;">At a very general level, it [philosophy] is </span><i style="line-height: 20px;">a unique</i><span style="line-height: 20px;"> technique for tackling conceptual questions that occur to most thinking people" and "At a more specialised level, philosophy is <i>a technique</i> for examining the results of specific sciences for their conceptual coherence," </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">and so on</span>), when he clearly would agree with much of what I have written. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span">The reason, I suspect, is that </span><span class="Apple-style-span">Hacker, as Wittgenstein often did, uses </span><span class="Apple-style-span">"philosophy" to </span><span class="Apple-style-span">refer not to everything going by that name, but mainly to his own practice. In that case his claims seem on safer footing. </span>Hacker's texts are predominantly critical, and his ability to sniff out philosophical nonsense is (usually) impressive. Studying <i>his</i> philosophy -- or wittgensteinian philosophy generally -- and acquiring some of his tools and techniques will be good for any critical thinker.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span">But in the end, though, <em>which</em> philosophical texts one studies (or if they are <i>philosophical</i> texts at all) is less important for one's ability to think straight than <i>how</i> one studies them. Reading even the most conceptually self-conscious and critical writer won't make critical thinkers out of us unless we read him critically.</span></span></div>
</div>
vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-50271266360986572802014-04-30T22:58:00.001+02:002014-05-02T15:16:50.977+02:00No Future?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Though the story is set
in the final days <i>before</i> the world ends, </span><i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1959490/"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">Noah</span></span></a></i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <span lang="EN-US">opens like a typical post-apocalyptic film. Nature is
nothing but pebbles and rocks, and the human race in an equally sorry
condition. In their own eyes they still are images of the divine
creator; in reality the human interior is more like the
spitting image of the foul surroundings. Since the eviction from
Paradise, the children of Adam and Eve have turned into savages,
killing and looting. Only one tribe has preserved some purity. Noah
and his family live alone. Their goodness is expressed by their care
for the natural world. Seth, captivated by its beauty, plucks a solitary
flower for his father to see; and though he shares his son's wonder, Noah (with
a mien we clearly are supposed to interpret as expressing a
reverence for God's creation) explains how Seth now has killed the flower.
Their alienation from the rest of humanity is also marked by the fact
that they do not eat flesh. Noah's sons are stupefied when learning that
humans hunt animals for food.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjifMzh9vUetBCGBQRwA3QD0WWr032oq08PL8dv8BO4FbdN7zZSyzXXUKVQIn9X9-3qiLbhtEWyLVH61fDs8dl2UDoxmR9qVk2Bd1UChU6FBFHi_5qnSPaUYOSEtBSOIaGPMPcoA3a4kSc/s1600/russell-crowe-as-noah-014-noah-s-russell-crowe-says-that-banning-was-to-be-expected.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjifMzh9vUetBCGBQRwA3QD0WWr032oq08PL8dv8BO4FbdN7zZSyzXXUKVQIn9X9-3qiLbhtEWyLVH61fDs8dl2UDoxmR9qVk2Bd1UChU6FBFHi_5qnSPaUYOSEtBSOIaGPMPcoA3a4kSc/s1600/russell-crowe-as-noah-014-noah-s-russell-crowe-says-that-banning-was-to-be-expected.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Noah</span></em><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> contains long (in my mind <em>too</em>
long, and boring) action scenes. The dialogues are strikingly artificial. The
acting is often bad. At one level, this is a not very well-made survival
movie (as a guide to the biblical story, it is worse still). Nevertheless, I
found <em>Noah</em> interesting for its obvious concerns with
environmental issues. The barren landscape is more than a mere mirror
or a symbol of the moral landscape of the human soul. Nature's
deplorable state is due to human folly. Having
interpreted the command to "fill the earth and subdue it" as
a <em>carte blanche</em> for exploitation (a
clear misunderstanding, because God is obviously pissed-off by
it), the humans have transformed the once lush Garden of Eden into a
desert. When a now extinct animal is hunted and killed,
the thematic backdrop of the movie suggests to the viewer that this
is when and how this species went extinct.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When Noah starts preparing
for the flood to come while being ridiculed by his neighbours, this is
certainly true to the biblical story, but it is also an unambiguous
statement about similar attempts today to undermine the
environmental whistle-blowers. The movie leaves no one in doubt
about who's right and who's wrong: all scepticism is literally
drowned when the rain starts pouring down.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other questions raised are
left unanswered. Much of the drama revolves around Man's future
existence. On this issue, the Bible is quite clear. When God commands
Noah to "[bring] out every kind of living creature that is with you--the
birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground--so they
can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it,"
(Gen 8:17) Noah, reasonably, never suspects that the notion of
"living creature" might exclude human beings. In the biblical story,
humanity too is due for a fresh start. But in the movie God doesn't
speak so articulate. In fact, apart from a few miraculous incidents,
there are no hints of His presence at all. The messages Noah
receives all have the form of visions, and to Noah these
visions suggest that human beings have no place in God's future plans. Hence, Noah takes care
to collect two of every animal, but strictly forbids his own sons to
procreate. (Put in the words of some extreme environmentalists, he is convinced
that humanity is a cancer that must be cut out for nature to survive.)
This alienates him from his family. The ensuing conflict
reaches its climax when Seth's wife does become pregnant. Like a
crazed Abraham with the knife, Noah threatens to sacrifice his two
granddaughters on Nature's altar.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He doesn't of course (after
all, there are still humans around), because in the end his fanaticism is
softened by his love of children. It is natural to view this as a case of good
sense prevailing over madness. But in the movie this is not necessarily so. When
Noah, employing God of the Bible's words: "Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth," finally gives his blessings to the small family, this might indeed be interpreted as a
hopeful conclusion. Humanity cannot continue exploiting Nature as before
(a condition emphasised by Noah not repeating the whole
Bible passage, which continues "subdue [the earth]; and rule over the
fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that
moves on the earth"), but on the condition that Seth, his
wife and their children learn to change their ways, perhaps there is
reason for optimism? But the movie leaves room for an alternative
(and equally plausible) interpretation of this final scene. Everyone knows what
did in fact happen next. Not much did change, at least not for the better.
Hence, the environmental challenges facing us today. In this light,
Noah's conditional, but still fundamentally optimistic blessing of mankind
might strike one as comical -- if "comical" is not too
light-hearted a word to capture one’s reaction (some might, after all, think
history proves Noah made the wrong decision). This reading of the final scene is
supported by the fact that the rainbow (the token of God's promise never to
flood the earth again) is conspicuously missing.</span></span>vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-60742042385652655222014-04-20T20:40:00.000+02:002014-04-22T12:29:01.202+02:00Trolleyology.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Siste nummer av <a href="http://fritanke.no/filarkiv/pdf/ft_0114.pdf"><em>Fri tanke</em></a> omtaler boken <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason-Between/dp/1594202605/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395657140&sr=8-1&keywords=Moral+Tribes">Moral Tribes</a></em> av Joshua Greene. Greene som er direktør for Moral cognition Lab ved Harvard har konfrontert mennesker med et knippe velkjente filosofisk dilemma -- ulike versjoner av det såkalte trikkeproblemet -- og studert hva som skjer i hjernen deres og hvordan dette henger sammen med moralske beslutninger.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">En variant av dilemmaet er dette. En sporvogn raser ukontrollerbart i retning fem personer som ligger fastbundet på skinnene. Skrekkslagen ser du alt fra en bro over skinnegangen. Ved din side står også en overvektig mann (eventuelt en mann med diger ryggsekk) og ser på. Kroppen hans er det eneste som er stort og tungt nok til å stanse trikken. Du rekker ikke be ham hoppe, men har tid til å skubbe ham over kanten og ned på skinnene foran trikken. Spørsmålet er hva du ville gjort i en slik situasjon. Ville du unnlatt å gripe inn og latt stakkarene dø, eller hadde du ofret ett menneske for å redde fem?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Greenes forskning avslørte "at de som ikke ville dytte mannen ut i sporet var påvirket av de delene av hjernen som styrer følelsene. Mens de som valgte å redde flest mulig mennesker viste mer aktivitet i de delene av hjernen som koples til rasjonell tenkning." "Når vi styres av følelsene våre," kommenterer Greene, "tar vi avgjørelser som ikke nødvendigvis får det beste utfallet, rent konsekvensetisk," noe som i og for seg virker nokså tilforlatelig; men dermed er det ikke sagt, som Greene også antyder, at konsekvensetikken må være den fornuftigste måten å tenke på og at vi rasjonelt sett <i>bør</i> kaste mannen av broen. Greene opererer med en for enkel forståelse av forholdet mellom empiri og moral. <a href="http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1322989/1/008_Lucas_and_Sheeran__2006_.pdf">Psykologer har påvist koblinger mellom konsekvensetiske tilbøyeligheter og Aspergers syndrom</a>. Betyr det at autister må ha bedre moralsk gangsyn enn folk felst? Det kunne jo like så gjerne bety at det må være alvorlige mangler ved konsekvensetikken. Sannheten er naturligvis at det betyr verken-eller. Empirisk forskning kan ikke -- i alle fall ikke direkte -- besvare moralske spørsmål. Hvordan -- eller <i>hvorvidt</i> -- nevrokjemiske fakta om hjernen kan veilede oss i moralske spørsmål er i seg selv et moralsk spørsmål som ikke kan avgjøres ved ytterligere studier av hjernen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Et annet problem med Greenes resonnement, er det antagonistiske bildet av følelser og fornuft hans konklusjoner hviler på. Rent konsekvensetisk betraktet er trikkeproblemet lite annet enn et banalt regnestykke. Vi skal simpelthen velge mellom én og fem. Men hvis problemet var så enkel, hadde vi ikke opplevd noe problem i det hele tatt! Konflikten, mener Greene, skyldes at vi mennesker ikke er rene rasjonalister. Vi <i>tenker</i> at det må være bedre å redde fem liv enn ett, men samtidig <i>føler</i> vi at det er galt å dytte tjukkasen utfor kanten, forklarer Greene, som mener folk har en medfødt aversjon mot denne slags håndgripeligheter. Teorien er at de emosjonelle delene av hjernen utviklet seg den gangen mennesket levde i små samfunn, mens de analytiske hjerneområdene er langt yngre. Dét er grunnen til at vi vemmes ved tanken på fysisk vold, mens hypermoderne drapsteknologi, som bomber fra dronefly, som ofte har langt verre konsekvenser, ikke vekker de samme emosjonelle reaksjonene. Vitenskapelig sett virker dette nokså søkt (uten at jeg med det avviser alt sammen); men det er de filosofiske sidene jeg er mest skeptisk til.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Greene slår kategorisk fast at de kalkulerende delene av hjernen bør styre oss i moralsk dilemmaer: "We should push the fat man, despite our instinctive abhorrence of doing so." <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Would-You-Kill-Fat-Man-ebook/dp/B00F8MIJ0I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397641840&sr=8-1&keywords=would+you+push+the+fat+man">David Edmonds</a> som jeg har hentet dette sitatet fra, forteller ikke hvordan Greene kan være så sikker i sin sak; men det er tydelig hvilken filosofisk tradisjon han plasserer seg i. Det finnes en lang historie for mistro til følelser. Følelser har ofte blitt betraktet som ukontrollerbare affeksjoner som forstyrrer dømmekraften. I følelsenes vold -- når sinne, sorg, glede eller forelskelse rår -- gjør vi lett dumheter vi senere angrer. Sunn skepsis er det naturligvis ingenting feil med. Problemet med denne forståelsen av trikkedilemmaet er imidlertid at hvis det kun var instinktiv vemmelse -- eller såkalte <i>Yuk!</i>-reaksjoner -- som hindret oss i å gjøre det rasjonelle valget (som altså er å skubbe mannen over kanten), så burde noen enkle grep være nok til å løse problemet. Å lukke øynene og tenke på noe annet mens man skubbet, ville kunne få alle motforestillinger til å forsvinne. Eller hvis det er selve skubbingen (disse bestemte fysiske bevegelsene) man reagerer på, kunne løsningen være tilfeldig å "komme borti" mannen så han faller utfor. Trikkeproblemet ville i alle fall være løst den dagen noen lager en medisin mot slike følelser.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enkelte finner kanskje slikt overbevisende. Andre vil derimot mene det er noe galt med premissene her, og at moralske vanskeligheter overhodet løses med slike grep. Det faktum at vi trenger følelser for å se et moralsk problem betyr ikke at problemet kun er en følelse. Medisin som fjerner følelsene fjerner ikke nødvendigvis problemene, men gjør oss kanskje bare blinde for dem. Det finnes således filosofer med en helt annen tillit til følelsene. Blaise Pascal mente eksempelvis at "[h]jertet har sin egen forstand som forstanden ikke alltid forstår." Dette betyr ikke at "hjertet alltid vet best", for følelser kan åpenbart villede oss og få oss til å reagere upassende, og faren for å havne i grøften er der alltid; men argumentet er at følelser bare kan villede den som er åpen for å lytte til og reflektere overdem på måter som også kan veilede oss. Det er en grøftekant på motsatt side også. Overdreven målrasjonalitet og manglende emosjonell åpenhet er noe av det som preger visse typer psykopati.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Vil det være riktig av oss å la eget ubehag hindre oss i å redde fem liv?", spør konsekvensetikeren. Det problematiske synet på forholdet mellom følelser og fornuft er ikke eneste ankepunkt her. Konsekvensetikeren bryr seg utelukkende (eller nesten) om resultatene, og lite (eller ingenting) om hvordan resultatene kommer i stand. Dermed overser han også hensyn som for mange mennesker vil være sentrale for deres stillingstaken til et slikt dilemma; for eksempel hensynet til det som på engelsk kalles <i>agency</i>, eller hvem som utfører handlingen. Ansvar er et sentralt begrep i mye moralfilosofi og allminnelig tenkning omkring moral. Poenget er at enhver er ansvarlig for sine gjerninger, og ikke for andres. Om jeg skubber tjukkasen ned på sporet, innebærer det kanskje færre dødsfall, men resultatet er også at <i>jeg</i> har noe, nemlig et liv, å svare for. Griper jeg ikke inn, vil flere dø -- men er dét noe jeg kan lastes for? Den eneste skyldige er vel han som har bundtet stakkarene sammen på trikkesporet? Fordi ansvarsbegrepet blir uvesentlig på denne måten, oppfatter mange ren konsekvensetikk som en parodi på alvorlig etisk tenkning.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Denne kritikken kan drives ytterligere et stykke. Sett fra dette alternative perspektivet fortoner ikke Greenes selvsagte løsning seg bare som lite selvsagt eller parodisk, men muligens også umoralsk. Dersom det fantes en enkel og ufarlig måte å forhindre katastrofen på, ville nok mange kalle meg medskyldig dersom jeg ikke grep sjansen. Men Joshua Greene oppfatter meg som moralsk medskyldig dersom jeg vegrer meg for å bruke tjukkingen som bremsekloss også. Hvor mange som deler dette synet aner jeg ikke -- mye avhenger selvsagt av detaljene i situasjonen. (Flere vil nok gi Greene medhold om den tjukke mannen er Adolf Hitler enn om han er (en ikke lenger fastende) Mahatma Gandhi, for eksempel -- eller hvis det er han som har iscenesatt hele katastrofen.) Men for svært mange fortoner ikke dette seg engang som et mulig valg. Hvor mange ville ærlig talt komme på å vurdere å kaste mannen utfor broen? I manges øyne vil bare det å <i>betrakte</i> et menneske som en mulig bremsekloss være tegn på moralsk korrupsjon!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alt dette innebærer ikke at det er moralsk galimatias å tenke som følger: "Hvis jeg ikke gjør noe, vil resultatet bli langt verre". Det betyr bare tanken er langt fra så innlysende riktig som Greene gir inntrykk av. Bernard Williams drøfter et beslektet dilemma, hvor denne måten å se saken på kanskje er mindre søkt, fordi det i Williams' dilemma er mindre søkt (eller mindre avhengig av en bestemt moralsk grunnholdning) å beskrive situasjonen som et valg mellom to mulige løsninger. Jim ankommer en liten by i Sør-Amerika. På torget ser han tjue indianere linet opp mot en mur foran en gruppe bevæpnede menn. Kommandanten forklarer at fangene skal skytes for å statuere et eksempel om at myndighetene ikke tolererer opprør. Som tegn på godt vertskap tilbyr han imidlertid Jim å skyte en av indianerne i stedet. Går Jim med på dette, lover kommandanten å la de nitten andre gå; takker han nei, vil samtlige bli skutt i henhold til planen. Kommandanten har ved sitt tilbud satt Jim i en forferdelig knipe der uskyldige vil dø uansett hva han svarer. Og han kan ikke bare skyve problemet fra seg, for dermed har han i realiteten valgt en av to! Bernard Williams diktet opp historien for å kunne kritisere konsekvensetikerens tenkemåte. Likevel var også han tilbøyelig til å mene at Jim alt i alt <i>burde</i> ta imot pistolen. Innvendingen var altså ikke at konsekvensetikken trekker feil konklusjon, men at konklusjonen blir trukket på feil eller mangelfullt grunnlag.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Kanskje er det innlysende at simpel kalkulasjon ikke er tilstrekkelig. På den andre siden, hva som vil være et akseptablet resonnement i en slik situasjon, er ikke opplagt. Tiden er knapp, så det er i alle fall grenser for hvor langt og dypt Jim rekker å tenke. Men la oss for argumentet skyld si at ingen ser grunn til å beskylde Jim for å ha tatt lett på situasjonen når han til slutt griper pistolen med ordene: "Hvis jeg vegrer, blir resultatet langt verre!" Å gutere Jims avgjørelse kan ha flere funksjoner. Ved å si seg enig med Jim ønsker man kanskje å uttrykke støtte og sympati med Jim i den vanskelige situasjonen; kanskje man mener å si at man selv ville ha gjort samme vurdering i samme situasjon. Men hva kan det bety å hevde at dette er hva Jim <i>burde</i> gjøre? Sett for eksempel at Jim allerede i neste øyeblikk og for resten av livet fortviler: "Herregud, hva har jeg gjort!? Jeg har skutt og drept et uskyldig menneske!" Her er det i alle fall uklart hva man kan <i>oppnå</i> med å forsikre Jim om at han tross all sin anger gjorde riktig avgjørelse den gangen. Skylden er det jo <i>han</i> som må leve med. -- En personlig takk fra de nitten overlevende, kunne kanskje atter få ham til å se tingene i det lyset han gjorde til å begynne med....)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">La oss vende tilbake til trikkeproblemet og komplisere ting enda en smule. Spørsmålet stilles på en måte som naturlig får oss til å betrakte situasjonen i aktørens perspektiv: Hva ville du gjort i en slik situasjon? Moralfilosofi er ofte aktørsentrert; men aktøren er ikke den eneste som kan ha noe å si på hva en handling betyr. Hva om du ikke var den slanke aktøren, men tjukke tilskueren: Hvordan ville du da ha tenkt? Muligens hadde du sett det som din plikt å hoppe. Eksempler på slik selvoppofrelse finnes. Enkelte tenker i slike situasjoner: bedre én enn fem. Men har sidemannen din rett til å tenke at <i>du</i> bør hoppe? Han kunne kanskje overbevist deg dersom dere rakk å diskutere spørsmålet -- det hadde gjort saken mindre komplisert, eller komplisert på en annen måte (spørsmål om manipulasjon ville dukket opp) -- men her finnes det ikke tid til snakk. Har sidemannen rett til å ta besvare spørsmålet for deg eller til å tvinge deg?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Og hva med fem fastbundnes syn på saken? Hvis vi spurte, ville kanskje noen av dem mene at ja, det riktige alt tatt i betraktning ville være å kaste tjukkingen i døden for deres skyld. Men ville ikke en slik forsikring få alle moralske varselslamper til å blinke? Kanskje burde et lignende ubehag melde seg dersom de overlevende i ettertid takker oss for å ha reddet livene deres på denne måten? (Og hva sier dette om min antydning om at Jim skulle kunne finne trøst i slike takksigelser?) Enda mer interessant blir de overlevndes perspektiv dersom vi ikke, slik Greene og de fleste andre <i>trolleyologer</i> alltid tar for gitt, at det å overleve er et gode uansett hvordan. Det er en kjensgjerning at mennesker ofte opplever skam og eksistensielt ubehag ved selv å overleve katastrofer der andre stryker med. <i>Hvorfor meg!?</i> Sett nå at de fem på sporet har sett alt sammen. De så trikken komme stormende mot dem, og de så hvordan vi stanset den. I det vi frigjør dem fra repene som har holdt dem fangne, forblir tre liggende apatiske på sporet, en spretter opp og kaster seg om halsen på oss, mens den siste av fangene reiser seg opp i moralsk raseri, og med den nettopp nevnte eksistensielle fortvilelsen hudfletter han oss for hva vi har gjort: Hva er du for et menneske!? Jeg blir kvalm! Hvordan kan du innbille deg at du har gjort meg en tjeneste -- gjort noe godt for min skyld!? Jeg hadde mye heller dødd enn bli reddet på denne måten!? Ingen har bedt deg myrde for min skyld!! Og så videre. (Og hva om alle fem gjør det?) Joshua Greene har natuligvis sitt ferdige svar, men hvordan ville du svare for deg?</span>vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-5142044323878989072014-01-12T21:15:00.000+01:002014-01-12T21:15:54.968+01:00Om natten/Nachts<br />
Det blå i mine øyne har sluknet i denne natt,<br />
det røde gull i mitt hjerte. Å! så stille lyset brant.<br />
Din blå kappe omsluttet den synkende;<br />
din røde munn beseglet vennens formørkelse.<br />
<br />
<br />
Die Bläue meiner Augen ist erloschen in dieser Nacht,<br />
Das rote Gold meines Herzens. O! wie stille brannte das Licht.<br />
Dein blauer Mantel umfing den Sinkenden;<br />
Dein roter Mund besiegelte des Freundes Umnachtung.<br />
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(Georg Trakl)vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-85648291290591889872013-10-24T12:47:00.000+02:002013-10-26T10:49:18.556+02:00The Importance of Being Human."A capacity for feeling pleasure and pain is a <i>prerequisite for having interests,</i>" Peter Singer writes in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Animal-Liberation-Edition-Peter-Singer/dp/0712674446/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382273930&sr=8-1&keywords=Animal+Liberation">Animal Liberation</a></i> (I am translating back from the Norwegian edition, so the wording may not be accurate), and that, I think, is true. Unless you are using the word in a very peculiar way, ascribing interests to dead things sounds nonsensical. However, it doesn't follow, as Singer has it, that it therefore is just as nonsensical to treat non-conscious entities as moral objects. Singer never questions the assumption that whatever lacks interests, lacks moral status too. That is what I intend to do.<br />
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"What is it, exactly, that prevents me from putting that man's eyes out if I am allowed to do so and if it takes my fancy?," <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Simone-Weil-An-Anthology/dp/0141188197/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382273852&sr=8-1&keywords=simone+weil+anthology">Simone Weil</a> asks in her essay called "Human Personality". (I will return to her answer shortly, but in brief it is this: my respect for the whole <i>Human being</i>. She is not denying that the suffering I thereby avoid inflicting is my reason: Weil simply points out that I refuse to harm human beings because I care about human beings in the first place. (Compare: "Of course animals suffer too, but they are only animals after all!")) In order to challenge Singer, let us assume that the man in question has suffered serious head trauma, thus having his mental abilities reduced to those of vegetables. Does this imply that he <i>morally</i> is lowered to their level too? Singer, it seems, is forced by his theory to say so. Some readers might take comfort in the fact that at this point in the argument, the interests of other people are often introduced to the utilitarian equation. This man will have relatives, some will argue -- and they (his relatives) still have interests, among which we must assume an interest in not having their relative, whom they care about, treated as a mere vegetable. So, we would be wronging their interests by doing such a thing. But this argument doesn't help us very much, it simply pushes the question one step up. Why, after all, should <i>they</i> care? He himself literarily <i>cannot</i> care what happens to him anymore. What, then, is there left for them to care about? If the object of their concern (namely, their vegetating relative) has ceased to be of moral importance because he no longer has any interests, then it seems to follow that their "interest" in having him treated with care isn't a genuine interest either, but rather a confused reaction produced by sentimentality gone haywire -- and, then, the question is: Ought imagined interests carry this kind of moral weight? Rather than indulging these relatives in their confused thinking, the best thing to do, morally speaking, would perhaps be to make them see the truth and realise that this is really nothing to be concerned about? And what (to modify the example a little) would Singer say if the man in question had no relatives or acquaintances at all --? Or to put even more pressure on it: Say that his last living relative <i>begged</i> Singer to do it and offered him money for putting that man's eyes out, how could Singer (while remaining true to his theoretical toolkit) possibly not take the assignment?</div>
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Of course, by doing so he would cause massive public revulsion (should people hear about it). But having tied moral status so firmly to certain (mental) capacities, many modern moral philosophies have a hard time making sense of this. Why would our stomachs turn (as most people's stomachs certainly would) if we were approached with such an offer? Squeamishness is possibly a part of it. But if that were all, most of us should have little to no problem accepting the money if we could only close our eyes while doing it [or at least it implies that it would be quite all right for us if we, in order to be able to do such things, did our best to stymie our emotional objections]. Restricting moral philosophy to thinking in terms of capacities and corresponding interests, and the rational calculation with these, we see no (morally) significant difference between the dismembering of vegetative human beings and, say, the pealing of a carrot. If the aim is to help us understand our moral lives, then moral philosophy must be permeated by the rich moral language with which these lives are normally lived.<br />
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Insofar as having interests is dependent on certain capabilities, and these capabilities are dependent on having a functioning brain (which is what Singer claims), it follows that people in a permanent vegetative state no longer have interests that may be violated. But this is not, except for within a certain philosophical parlance, equivalent to saying that they are no longer morally significant. Experiences and interests, after all, do not exhaust our moral vocabulary. Who counts morally, and in what way, is not simply a question of what (mental) capabilities they possess. This theory simply is too, well, simple. (We do not measure things against one universal moral standard all the time. In fact, <i>that</i> would be (morally) wrong of us. Here's just one obvious example. Were I to start treating everyone -- friends and strangers -- equal, this would, in most people's eyes, mean that I had ceased being a true friend. This isn't a function of "objective" differences between friends and strangers. Different relationships simply ask different things of us.) The more fundamental question is what morally pertinent concepts we can apply where. While "interest" (or "rationality") clearly has no use when talking about seriously brain damaged people, other morally weighty concepts like "dignity" and "honor" do. Losing ones love for -- or, to couch the claim in moral language: <i>failing</i> to keep loving -- someone who's life has been reduced to bodily functions, seems possible too.</div>
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When investigating the hypothesis that our concern for -- the dignity, the honor, the human value (but obviously not the well-being) of -- permanently unconscious people may be nothing but sentimentality and self-indulgence, it is instructive to ask: <i>What would it be for a grieving wife, say, to realise that this hypothesis was true in her case?</i> This surely is possible. What I am questioning though, is that this is always the case. Self-pity, I am guessing, is one source of any wife's tears under such circumstances -- she has after all suffered great loss -- but feeling sorry for herself is hardly all everyone is capable of. I have no problems imagining this realisation shattering a wife's self-image and recasting her understanding of her marriage. ("Am I really this shallow! Am I just self-indulgent? Don't I love him? Have I ever?") Such accusations, of course, only make sense if she <i>ought to</i> be feeling for and thinking of her husband too.<br />
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"We don't treat someone as a vegetable <i>merely because</i> he mentally happens to be on their level!" This expresses an understanding of what it <i>means</i> for a human being to lose all mental capacities: Human beings may lose their limbs, their wits or their minds; but their humanity -- their moral significance -- cannot be lost in the same sense. (This, I believe, is a central feature of our modern understanding of ourselves. We are all fundamentally equal. Human dignity is supposed to be unconditioned, that it is <i>entirely independent of personal capabilities and characteristics</i>.) Hence, that human body is not <i>simply</i> a body (understood as a "biological material" or "meat"), but remains human, in some crucial sense. "A human <i>body</i>," some might say, a remark which might be an important reminder in some circumstances: Refusing to accept, as mourning relatives sometimes do, that significant changes have taken place in their loved one, means closing ones eyes to reality. However, in order not to mystify our moral instincts, one must keep emphasising the other word in that sentence: What lies in that hospital bed is (not a mere body, but) a <i>human</i> body.<br />
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To some this smacks of word-play. But that, I think, is because they mistakenly take "human being" primarily to be a descriptive term, denoting (specimens of) a biological species. "What lies in that bed is not merely a body, but the body of one Homo sapiens," would indeed be nothing but word-play. But only someone with a tin ear for nuances would hear this as a serious attempt at say the same thing with different words. In reality this could only be some kind of crude joke. (In philosophy one sometimes unwittingly tell such jokes.) What makes it a joke, is the fact that "human being" in many circumstances, as in this one, is a morally laden term -- permeated through and through by other terms like value, honor, dignity, etc -- which cannot be substituted this way; but, rather, if it should be replaced, must be replaced, as Simone Weil sometimes does, by terms like "precious" and "sacred".<br />
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But isn't this sidestepping a difficulty? What <i>reasons</i> do we have for revering human beings so? What reasons do we have for claiming human equality, when what we see plainly are differences? The philosophical instinct here might be to investigate whether these claims can be substantiated. This instinct is misleading, I believe. Are we to understand these expressions, we are better advised to investigate where and how we <i>learn</i> the meaning of such them, and where and how they are <i>expressed</i>, than to look for a justification. (This reveals me as a Wittgensteinian. Human sanctity/equality is in no need of a metaphysical justification. First, attempting to justify it risks undermining precisely what one hopes to secure, namely its <i>unconditionality</i>. Second, attempting to ground this abstract idea (or ideal) in something firmer is to misunderstand what role this idea plays in our thinking. Human equality is not something we have discovered, or might discover sometime soon, hidden underneath all human differences; it is rather a concept with which we regard and accept these differences: This concept is held fast by everything that surrounds it, by our practices.)<br />
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So, then, where should we look? Among other places, to the kinds of cases I have been discussing in this post. Being horrified by the proposal with which I started, is one instance of it. The self-accusations of the self-pitying wife might be another. Through such reactions, our own and others', we see what it can mean to say that a human being, no matter how afflicted by suffering or reduced by illness or injury it is, is still a human being and our equal. "There is something sacred in every man," Simone Weil writes. That is not his rationality, not his ability to suffer, nor is it his interests or his personality: "It is he. The whole of him. The arms, the eyes, the thoughts, everything...It is this man; no more, no less...Not without infinite scruple would I touch anything of this." Such formulations both express and give shape our idea of human value.vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-49801921967980979082013-10-20T17:25:00.001+02:002013-10-20T17:32:29.196+02:00Thinking Film.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would just like to draw attention to <a href="http://thinkingfilmcollective.blogspot.co.uk/">this new blog</a>, where Rupert Read and Phil Hutchinson in collaboration with television resarcher Vincent Gaine will be philosophising with and about films. </span>vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-79229707036103063592013-10-06T18:48:00.000+02:002013-10-07T09:20:11.830+02:00Grayling on Wittgenstein.I finally read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wittgenstein-A-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192854119/ref=cm_rdp_product">A.C. Grayling's book on Wittgenstein</a>. Having heard rumors about it, my expectations were not too high. Grayling's presentation of Wittgenstein's thinking is never truly deep. But as far as a very short introduction goes, his explanations of the private language argument, rule-following and so on are detailed enough. However, there is an undercurrent of <strike>hostility</strike> skepticism running through the book, which surfaces when Grayling, on the concluding pages, launches a series of objections to "Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy and his method of doing it" (p. 132). I could make this a short blog post by simply professing my agreement with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R12AFHEN5H1D1D/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0192854119&nodeID=283155&store=books">this</a> rather sour review on Amazon, but I will elaborate a little on it.<br />
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Wittgenstein's philosophy is not beyond criticism, of course, but Grayling's critiques seem to grow out of a misunderstanding of that philosophy.<br />
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[P]hilosophy is in Wittgenstein's view a therapy; the point is to dissolve error, not to build explanatory systems. The style is accordingly tailored to the intention. It is vatic, oracular; it consists in short remarks intended to remedy, remind, disabuse. This gives the later writings a patchwork appearance. Often the connection between remarks are unclear. There is a superabundance of metaphor and parable; there are hints, rhetorical questions, pregnant hyphenations; there is a great deal of repetition....Wittgenstein's style is expressly designed to promote his therapeutic objective against the 'error' of theorizing (p. 132).</blockquote>
As a description of Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy and his method of doing it, this isn't too off. But readers are, according to Grayling, best advised to ignore these aspects of Wittgenstein's thinking. His programmatic remarks about philosophy, his "own official avowals about therapy and the avoidance of theory" (p. 133) are deceptive. Wittgenstein denies that his writings contain systematically expressible theories, "[but] indeed they do" (p. viii). A careful examination of his scattered remarks will uncover a philosophical theory of meaning and language with "an identifiable structure and content, even if neither, in their turn are as transparently stated and as fully spelled out as they might be" (p. 133). This conclusion, however, is possible only by doing substantial violence to Wittgenstein's texts. But this is a consequence Grayling is ready to accept, as he finds no merit in Wittgenstein's writings as such: they fail in a major philosophical duty: "namely, to be clear" (p. 133). Wittgenstein's organization of his thoughts is obscuring rather than illuminating their philosophical content. Not only are his writings summarizable "but in positive need of summary" (p. viii).<br />
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There is one way of taking this as a charitable interpretation of Wittgenstein. When someone rambles, one should do one's best to make out what he is rambling about. From a different perspective, however, this is entirely misplaced charity. Taking Wittgenstein seriously as a philosopher, requires taking his writings and the conception of philosophy they express seriously too. Language sometimes confuses us. Often we react by searching for order in the complexity. But this is confused too. Order is not what we need (nor is it to be found). The solution is getting an overview. Hence, Wittgenstein's writings are designed to ease the grip this and other deep-rooted philosophical ideas have on our thinking about language and the world, not by replacing these ideas with new ones, but rather by making their status as metaphysical ideas perspicuous to us. If we think there <i>must</i> be something common to everything called "games", or else they would not all have the same name, Wittgenstein's suggestion is: Don't think, but look! (<i>PI</i>, 66) When philosophers use a word -- "knowledge", "being", "object", "I", "proposition", "name" -- and try to grasp the <i>essence</i> of the thing, he encourages us instead to ask if the word ever actually used in this way (<i>PI</i>, 116). When our thinking ties itself up in philosophical knots, what we need is not another theory, for theorizing is often what gets us into trouble in the first place, what we need are methods for untying these knots.<br />
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Hans Sluga (whose <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wittgenstein-Blackwell-Great-Minds-ebook/dp/B005K047O0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380889989&sr=1-1&keywords=hans+sluga">latest Wittgenstein book</a> I also read this summer) agrees with many of Grayling's descriptions of Wittgenstein's writings. But he makes something entirely different of them:<br />
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Wittgenstein covers an exceptionally wide range of philosophcal and quasi-philosophical matters and ... he manages to speak about them with an unusual freshness, in a precise and stylish language, often with the help of surprising images and metaphors. This has suggested to ... a group of readers that what is of greatest interest in Wittgenstein's work is the manner in which he engages with philosophical questions. On this view, Wittgenstein teaches us above all some valuable methodological lessons (p. 16).</blockquote>
At one point, Grayling calls this "a neat apology for obscurity". Further down the same page, however, he suggests:<br />
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Perhaps the value of Wittgenstein's work lies as much in its poetry, and therefore its suggestiveness, as in its substance. There is no doubt that in this respect Wittgenstein's work has stimulated insights and fresh perspectives, especially in philosophical psychology, which have helped to advance thought about these matters (p. 133).</blockquote>
At first blush there seems to be a tension here. If Wittgenstein has helped advancing thought, he has done so by helping us see our thinking afresh. Descartes' cogito argument, for instance, troubled Western philosophers for centuries. How could we possibly break out of the prison of our own minds? The so called private language argument doesn't <i>solve</i> this problem, but if it convinces us that the question is confused, the argument might <i>dissolve</i> the problem for us. By curing us from confused thinking, a successful Wittgensteinian "therapy session", one might argue, results in the exact opposite of obscurity. But Grayling doesn't think so. On his view, philosophy (unlike therapy) is not simply combatting wrong perspectives on things, but also constructing explanatory thought-systems. And it is of course true that Wittgenstein's writings seem obscure when read as attempts to rise to these demands. However, as I have argued, I believe Grayling is wrong in assuming that Wittgenstein (contrary to everything he writes) is <i>trying</i> to answer to these demands.<br />
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Here I am not arguing that all philosophy should be conducted in the manner of Wittgenstein (in a sense that would be impossible: if we were never tempted to theorize, "therapeutic" philosophizing would be superfluous too). What I can offer, though, is an example of how such philosophizing might work. Grayling writes that...<br />
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... it is a mistake to suppose that reminding ourselves of the main uses of words like 'good' and 'true' is enough, by itself, to settle any questions we might have about the meaning of those terms. Indeed, it is notoriously the case that question about goodness and truth, which are paradigmatically large philosophical questions, cannot be resolved simply by noting the ways 'good' and 'true' are as a matter of fact used in common parlance -- that is, in the languagegames in which they typically occur. It would seem to be an implication of Wittgenstein's views that if we 'remind' ourselves of these uses, philosophical puzzlement about goodness and truth will vanish. This is far from being so (p. 115).</blockquote>
When someone asks what "good" means, a Wittgensteinian would answer with a question: "What particular use of the word 'good' are you thinking about?" The meaning of "good" depends on whether you are thinking of a good taste, a good night's sleep, a good footballer, a good deed, or a good person. Forcing you to reflect harder on what you meant, this challenge <i>might</i> convince you that your initial question was confused. On the other hand, this needn't work, because you might, as Grayling suggests, just as well rephrase you question: "Not 'good' used in a particular way, but goodness as such." This, of course, is the kind of philosophical puzzlement Wittgenstein's "therapeutic method" is designed to combat. The fact that such reminders don't always work certainly is no proof that Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy and his manner of doing it is wrong. <i>It only proves that his therapy doesn't always work.</i> And there is no problem with that. Because Wittgenstein never said, as Grayling has him saying, that reminders about ordinary language use <i>by themselves</i> could make philosophical puzzlements go away. In addition one needs the <i>will</i> to receive these reminders in the right spirit. Philosophy, on Wittgenstein's account, is a fight against one's own temptation to view things in a certain way. It is not a given how that fight will end.vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-85847581695324317872013-09-03T23:21:00.000+02:002013-09-03T23:21:25.602+02:00Aeroporto di Fiumicino. Et mulig møte.- Pappa, hvem var det du møtte?<br />
Jeg forsto ikke hva hun mente, datteren min. Vi satt under solseilet på taket av feriehuset i Italia. Spørsmålet kom som rett ut av det blå.<br />
- Nei, hvem tenker du på? Når da?<br />
- På flyplassen.<br />
Fremdeles uklart. Jeg møtte ingen på flyplassen det jeg kunne huske, ingen jeg visste hvem var i alle fall. Mente hun den damen i informasjonsskranken, hun som hadde vist oss veien til bussen?<br />
- Nei, han mannen, han med alle politimennene.<br />
- Åh, han, sa jeg. - Det var en berømt fotballspiller, men jeg <i>møtte</i> ham vel egentlig ikke. Jeg <i>så</i> ham på flyplassen. Han så jo ikke meg, og vi sa ingenting til hverandre, så det var egentlig ikke noe møte å snakke om.<br />
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Mange hadde kanskje <i>ønsket</i> å kunne skryte av å ha møtt, for eksempel, Lionel Messi på en flyplass, men det er fordi "møte" signaliserer en sosial sammenkomst av betydning. I mitt tilfelle sto jeg i en krok og passet koffertene da denne berømtheten, omringet av sju bevæpnete politimenn, småløp forbi meg. Jeg kan skryte (hvis det er skryte jeg vil) av å ha sett ham, at han passerte like forbi meg, eller at jeg kunne kjenne lukten av ham ... eller, nei ..., men jeg kunne ha skrytt av at jeg kunne ha tatt på ham hvis jeg bare ville (skjønt dette hadde utelukkende være en antydning om avstanden mellom oss -- på ett tidspunkt var han kun én meter unna!! -- og ingen beskrivelse av den reelle situasjonen, for hadde jeg gjort det minste forsøk på beføling hadde lovens lange og mange armer satt en kontant stopper for det -- og dessuten hvilken interesse skulle jeg ha av å <i>ta</i> på vedkommende?), men jeg kan på ingen måte si at jeg har møtt ham. Dette betyr ikke at andre umulig kunne se misunnelige på meg og tenke at jeg har møtt Lionel Messi, eller at andre, under lignende omstendigheter, vil kunne si at de har "møtt" Michael Jackson, Barack Obama eller Jesus. Det betyr heller ikke at jeg mener at folk tar feil om de på denne måten forsøker å uttrykke hvilken betydning en slik hendelse har hatt for dem. Det betyr bare at det for <i>min</i> del kreves det en viss kontakt -- ikke bare fysisk nærhet, ikke bare fysisk kontakt heller, men en viss interaksjon -- før jeg vil snakke om "et møte". (Jeg har ingen definisjon å by på, men er det ikke merkelig å si at jeg har møtt noen som aldri har møtt meg?) Antagelig går det en slags nedre grense nettopp ved det gjensidige blikket. Vi snakker jo om blikkontakt: Vi kan møte noens blikk, så hvorfor ikke snakke om et "blikkmøte"?<br />
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Jeg kom til å tenke på dette da jeg i dag leste følgende anektode i et essay av Asbjørn Aarnes:<br />
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En lærer i folkeskolen gav elevene en stiloppgave: <i>Fortell om et dyr du har møtt</i>. Tolv-trettenåringene stod og lurte en stund: <i>Møter</i> man dyr? Er det ikke bare mennesker man møter? En tenksom liten kar kom frem til læreren med et spørsmål: "Jeg så engang en hjort som kom svømmende mot meg over et vann. Hjorten så på meg, det så jeg. Kan jeg da si at jeg <i>møtte</i> ham?""Ja," sa læreren, "så du den i øynene, da kan du si at du <i>møtte</i> hjorten." (<i>Har fjellet ansikt? Naturfilosofiske essays.</i> s 30-31)</blockquote>
(Hei igjen, forresten. Jeg har vært lenge borte. Jeg legger skylden på ferietid og at jeg har vært opptatt med andre skriverier. Forhåpentligvis vil bloggingen ta seg opp igjen utover høsten.)vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-45426890889297189112013-07-04T15:34:00.001+02:002013-07-04T15:34:45.338+02:00What I Draw from Drawing.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you may have noticed, lately I have posted some of my own drawings on this blog. (I have done this once or twice <a href="http://orienteringsforsok.blogspot.com/2012/02/spor-av-ei-verksemd.html">before</a>, even linked to my <a href="http://bibin.hioa.no/~s124115/index.html">never-to-be-completed web page</a> my "art".) Even though this is little more than showing off, or making a fool of myself, as the case may be, I have discovered that I enjoy seeing my doodles out there, so I may continue submitting sketches and drawings to my regular posts in the future.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What then do I draw from drawing? I am not sure, exactly, apart from the fact that I love doing it. But give me a little time, and I should be able to come up with some intellectually more respectable reasons for yielding to my lust. Drawing clearly has to do with perception. Drawing is mostly seeing correctly. When I am sketching, especially when drawing from life, I am concentrating on perceiving only what I perceive, not what is supposedly there. This exercise may have some spill-over effect to my other interests. Drawing sometimes feels like fighting certain temptations, not unlike doing philosophy. Wittgenstein's warning, "Don't think, but look!" (PI 66) is just as useful to an artist as it is for the philosopher. Don't think that this a hand, and that hands have five fingers on them, but look -- study the shape of the object in front of you, how does it appear from this particular perspective, don't draw what is hidden from view, how many fingers do you actually see, and so on. Drawing, therefore, is learning to see. You learn to trust your own eyes -- not blindly(!), but because you know you have made your vision more reliable through hours of concentrated practice. Kids running around can of course be disturbing. This kind of disturbance, however annoying it may be, is not really why concentration is essential to drawing, however. I am thinking more of silencing my own voice than shutting out those around me. Again, there is a similarity with philosophizing. Drawing too, some say, is a quest for understanding. This is often true, I think -- and as with philosophical understanding what is required is not so much analyzing tools and a talent for categorization as a simple will to listen. A good drawing session has the form of a conversation. The draughtsman too has things to say, obviously, but there is always the danger of becoming a talkative know-it-all who doesn't take other opinions seriously. Sometimes we scrutinize someone's ideas in search for symptoms. This might result in a diagnosis. That is what understanding someone means in psychiatry. But this is not conversing. The understanding of someone that might come from a genuine conversation, i.e. when we are tuned in to each other the right way, is more akin to becoming familiar with each other, getting, as we say, to <i>know</i> that other person. When drawing, particularly when drawing from life, I am, in similar fashion and for similar reasons, trying to calm down my own voice, telling me this and that about whatever I am looking at, in order not to interrupt the object in front of me. Another name for this efferent concentration, the other-directed concentration I am aspiring to when drawing from life, is attention. "Attention," according to Simone Weil, "is the rarest and purest form of generosity." So there you are. Yielding to a lust contributes to my virtuousness!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enough rambling!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This will never become an art blog, let alone a blog devoted to investigations of the act of art making, because, as you will appreciate by now, I have a hard time expressing (in understandable terms) what drawing is, what it means to me and what one can learn by it. One who manages to just that is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/John-Berger/e/B000APXY9O/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1372848004&sr=8-2-ent">John Berger</a>. He truly knows what he is talking about, both as an artist and as an art historian, and his writings are always eloquent and a pleasure to read. In particular I have enjoyed, obviously, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Berger-Drawing-John/dp/0954897633/ref=la_B000APXY9O_1_40?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372848330&sr=1-40"><i>Berger on Drawing</i></a>. His book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/About-Looking-John-Berger/dp/0679736557/ref=la_B000APXY9O_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372848401&sr=1-2"><i>About Looking</i></a>, which is less devoted to drawing, but discusses photography, perception and art in more general terms, is also inspiring -- and it opens with the, by now, classic essay "<a href="http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/gustafson/FILM%20161.F08/readings/berger.animals%202.pdf">Why Look at Animals</a>". <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ways-Seeing-Based-Television-Series/dp/0140135154/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372934236&sr=8-1&keywords=Ways+of+Seeing">Ways of Seeing</a>,</i> first published in 1972, has been highly influential in that it focuses on, and to some extent has altered, <i>how</i> we look at pictures. I have yet to read <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bentos-Sketchbook-John-Berger/dp/0307379957/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372854263&sr=1-3">Bento's Sketchbook</a></i>, with the subtitle "How does the impulse to draw something begin?", but as it promises reflections on sketching soaked with philosophy, Baruch (or Bento) Spinoza's in particular, the book sounds almost too good to be true: "<i>Bento's Sketchbook</i> is an exploration of the practice of drawing, as well as a meditation on how we perceive and seek to explore our ever-changing relationship with the world around us."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is any number of good <i>how to</i>-books out there, books that teach you different techniques, what pencils and brushes to use, how to achieve certain effects and so on; but the best book I know of that aspires to teach people to use their eyes, is Betty Edwards' book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372935407&sr=1-1&keywords=Drawing+on+the+Right+Side+of+the+Brain">Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain</a></i>. I bought my copy on a visit to the US many years ago, and made good use of it. This is very much an anyone-can-learn-how-to-draw-properly kind of book. Like learning how to read, it doesn't require any special gift, nor is there any mystery about it -- it is just a matter of learning to do certain things the right way. As the title suggests, the book is based on some theory about the two brain hemispheres having different capabilities, one side specializing in linguistic tasks, the other in visual-spatial. Edwards makes claims to the effect that the linguistic side is too dominating, and that this is what needs fighting if we are to learn how to draw anything but stylized images of things. I don't know how well supported these theories are, and frankly it doesn't matter. Who cares whether the theory is true or false, so long as the treatment works? I always thought the theoretical parts of the book unnecessary. You do not need to tell a child anything about its brain for the reading exercises work. In Norwegian the book is titled <a href="http://www.adlibris.com/no/product.aspx?isbn=8202213959"><i>Å tegne er å se</i></a>, which translates as "Drawing is seeing", and that is quite enough for me.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is a youtube video based on the book:</span></div>
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<br />vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-29087159254360622912013-06-29T21:38:00.002+02:002013-07-04T23:04:12.927+02:00Bukspretting som forskningsmetode?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I 1986 ble en internasjonal avtale mot kommersiell hvalfangst undertegnet. Avtalen åpner for begrenset fangst til vitenskapelige formål. Siden avtalen trådte i kraft har Japan fanget mer enn 10.000 hval i havet sør for Australia. Alt kjøtt selges på det åpne markedet i Japan. På dette grunnlaget trekker </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Australia i disse dager Japan for retten.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jun/25/australia-japan-whaling-antarctic-challenge" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have taken this case because we believe the whaling being done by Japan is blatantly commercial whaling and is not for any scientific purpose. It is in breach of the international convention</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">," forklarer Bill Campbell, en australsk sakfører ved domstolen, som mer enn antyder at Japan kun har iført sine hvalfangere rene hvite labfrakker. John Frizell fra Greenpeace legger til at "</span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/25/us-australia-japan-whaling-idUSBRE95O1HI20130625" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All necessary research on these whales can be done by non-lethal means</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">." Det er muligens en overdrivelse, for det hender jo at forskere "må" begå drap i forskningens navn, men som primær forskningsmetode virker dette nokså suspekt, også på en lekmann som meg. Er man interesert i å lære disse dyrene å kjenne, hvordan de lever sine liv, hvor de gyter (heter det "gyting" hos hvaler?) og så videre, må man vel kunne studere dette uten å ta livet av dem? Japan på sin side avviser alle anklager om at forskningen skulle være et skalkeskjul for kommersielle interesser, og bedyrer at fangsten gir forskerne viktig informasjon. "</span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jun/25/australia-japan-whaling-antarctic-challenge" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Japan's whaling activities are conducted purely to enhance science for conservation and sustainable use, and we'll make our case based on those facts</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">," forklarer en anonymisert kilde ved utenriksdepartementet i Tokyo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her er et skudd fra hoften. Hvis det ultimate målet med forskningsfangsten virkelig er å forhindre overbeskatning og utrydding av artene, må kanskje anbefalingen forskerne lander på bli at denne typen forskning opphører. Riktignok fanger Japan "bare" tusen hval i året, hvilket ikke betyr allverden, men australske myndigheter har regnet ut at dersom <i>alle</i> undertegnende nasjoner var like ivrige på forskningsfronten, hadde mer enn 83.000 hval måttet bøte med livet årlig bare i Sørishavet, og det hadde vært en katastrofe for bestandene.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Norge har for øvrig aldri signert denne avtalen og fanger hval på samme måte som alltid, iført hvalfangerutstyr.]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dom i saken faller først om noen uker.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I mellomtiden, her er noen flere saker jeg har underholdt elevene mine med.</span><br />
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</span>vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-55437410061990318922013-06-24T15:37:00.000+02:002013-06-24T15:38:51.365+02:00Picture Book.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As friends of this blog will have noticed, lately I haven't been blogging as much as I once used to. One reason is that I have been trying to get some serious philosophy done. More importantly, though, I have been busy working at the local school. Work is fun, but, because I have mainly spent time with the first graders, quite exhausting too. After school, most kids from first through third (and some from forth and fifth) grade attend the school's daycare centre. Here I get to help them do their homework, chat with them, play football, and philosophize too; but what I enjoy most of all is sitting down with these kids doodling. Many of the kids have never known grown ups to draw before and find this inspiring. It is rewarding for me too. P</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">laying with pencil and crayons </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">alongside a bunch of ten and twelve year olds with a massive hang up on the grotesque, makes my imagination venture into unknown territory.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having no philosophy to show for the past month, I thought I could at least offer my readers proofs that I haven't abandoned them out of simple laziness. So here are a few of the drawings from these few weeks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it's not all about monsters and zombies. Kids also love small fury animals...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqxAyxeit-D3PtmgrviewAe1chT388Ywj-YQT1OZpUnp7rcb2BZodNlPMFPFn3_kVDYESMVPx5Yjm_N3q-3i8MDb5nV75Bx2iy4GCLb6nqqOPCmOCI1Li-qGQxfel79WmvBwiGnOUFqo/s1600/SCAN0084-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqxAyxeit-D3PtmgrviewAe1chT388Ywj-YQT1OZpUnp7rcb2BZodNlPMFPFn3_kVDYESMVPx5Yjm_N3q-3i8MDb5nV75Bx2iy4GCLb6nqqOPCmOCI1Li-qGQxfel79WmvBwiGnOUFqo/s320/SCAN0084-6.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...and goofy clowns.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4PF3HfHFYwWxqstghmkvwenl2k-3_LfeisiMoSpt_-7vFLtY9Ct0uiUD3LZjeekc0OF3cSu7AyVTamcBlDGeV6mv4jlpnQf0gUmOe8ptKSVBt3IlBJcfW8-CnrnjPghWBruOhKhyphenhyphenB7hs/s1600/SCAN0084-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4PF3HfHFYwWxqstghmkvwenl2k-3_LfeisiMoSpt_-7vFLtY9Ct0uiUD3LZjeekc0OF3cSu7AyVTamcBlDGeV6mv4jlpnQf0gUmOe8ptKSVBt3IlBJcfW8-CnrnjPghWBruOhKhyphenhyphenB7hs/s320/SCAN0084-8.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEvvd4As-hTSEC9Q6VJftov8hslhUqLVgtE8_nSIydjpk3_BWA7WTnEbZnkjBWMMmqvvpOiJilOQDD_gmdNsO1-h02bBphUEGESBrsYPz2UOW8-e3FPqSBj85gDPTkL8OAlKVp3F72WgA/s1600/SCAN0084-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEvvd4As-hTSEC9Q6VJftov8hslhUqLVgtE8_nSIydjpk3_BWA7WTnEbZnkjBWMMmqvvpOiJilOQDD_gmdNsO1-h02bBphUEGESBrsYPz2UOW8-e3FPqSBj85gDPTkL8OAlKVp3F72WgA/s320/SCAN0084-11.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, here's a picture of some of my fellow draftsmen watching a movie on a rainy day.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09qHD34UWMewwnydn0TQUuxuxhlaOV3hk_YwJtujqI0kr0toKWGjmTRwQ19Z5IIe81afQA1So8ZWXJRqnMCx2gbsT0bq__6weahqoaU5cNNmfkKZD30xMBtSfKZMfF843Dwau_iHLzJI/s1600/SCAN0084-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09qHD34UWMewwnydn0TQUuxuxhlaOV3hk_YwJtujqI0kr0toKWGjmTRwQ19Z5IIe81afQA1So8ZWXJRqnMCx2gbsT0bq__6weahqoaU5cNNmfkKZD30xMBtSfKZMfF843Dwau_iHLzJI/s320/SCAN0084-4.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-84107566428118245792013-06-23T17:31:00.000+02:002013-06-23T17:31:30.671+02:00In a most delightful way.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ole Martin Moen forsvarer hedonismen i <a href="http://morgenbladet.no/kultur/2013/den_siste_hedonist">Morgenbladet</a>:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For å forstå det må man se på hva slags problem hedonismen forsøker å løse. Spørsmålet jeg stiller er hvilke ting i livet som er verdifulle i seg selv, og ikke bare som middel henimot videre mål. Om man undersøker de andre tingene filosofer foreslår som verdifulle, som kunnskap, kjærlighet og så videre, kan man vise at disse verdiene har én ting til felles, de er middel til å oppnå et nytelsesfullt liv. Å oppnå nytelse og unngå smerte er det eneste som er godt i seg selv.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Journalisten stiller et naturlig oppfølgingsspørsmål om rusmidler og smertestillende medikamenter. Finnes det noen kobling mellom Moens hedonisme og hans liberale holdning til narkotika? Moen tror ikke det:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeg har vært for legalisering hele tiden. Og hedonister må være åpne for at dersom vi kan få en intens lykkeopplevelse for eksempel av narkotika, kan man ikke automatisk avvise det som lite verdifullt. Vi bør selvfølgelig være bekymret for bivirkninger, men dersom vi kunne tenke oss at det fantes rusmidler som ga intens lykkefølelse uten bivirkninger, så var det bare å kjøre på.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Riktignok ser han ett potensielt problem her. "Som hedonist vil jeg gjerne at verden skal bestå, og om alle er ruset hele tiden, kan det være at vår verden faller sammen, så det er kanskje ikke å anbefale." Men hvis vi forestilte oss en lykkepille, fullstendig fri for bivirkninger, som heller ikke ga noen rus, bare endret den kjemiske væskebalansen i hjernen og ellers lot alt være som før, da var det kanskje bare å kjøre på? Her er det mange uklarheter. Jeg vet ikke engang om et slikt medikament er tenkelig. For dersom væskebalansen i hjernen endres, så må vel det påvirke mange andre ting også? "Den lykkeliges verden er," med Wittgensteins ord, "en annen enn den ulykkeliges." (<i>Tractatus</i> §6.43) Verden og tilværelsen ser mye lysere ut for den som er lykkelig, for eksempel. Full av lykkepiller ser vi utfordringer der vi før så problemer. Dette -- altså at vi tar ting på en mer positiv måte -- kan neppe kalles en <i>bivirkning</i> av at hjernekjemien endres, men er nettopp hva vi håper å oppnå med en slik pille. Men hva skal vi si når lykkepillen, fordi den fyller oss med en følelse av lykke, påvirker måten vi <i>gjør</i> ting på? Ofte kan man jo se kvalitetsforskjeller på arbeid utført med glede og gledesløst pliktarbeid. "Tilsiktet virkning" kan det ikke være snakk om her: kvalitativt annerledes håndverk kan ganske enkelt ikke være målet med et medikament. Bør vi oppfatte slike konsekvenser som bivirkninger av pillebruken eller bør vi betrakte dem som ringvirkninger? Hva vi faller ned på er langt på vei et spørsmål om språklige preferanser. Min egen språkfølelse tilsier at "ringvirkning" passer best i de tilfellene der konsekvensene er til det bedre. Der lykkefølelsen, som hos manisk-depresive i deres maniske faser, resulterer i ukritisk arbeidseufori og ditto resultat, er jeg (fordi "bivirkning" i mine ører låter negativt) mer åpen for å snakke om "bivirkninger" av pillebruken (skjønt i en ikke-medisinsk betydning av ordet). I og med at skillelinjene mellom tilsiktet virkning, bivirkninger og ringvirkninger ofte er vanskelige å trekke opp, er det heller ikke klart hva Moen mener når han tenker seg "rusmidler som [gir] intens lykkefølelse <i>uten bivirkninger</i>". Formodentlig tenker han på rusmidler uten avhengighet og uten psykiske og somatiske skader.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">En person med dårlig selvbilde vil naturligvis ønske å kunne komme på bedre tanker, ønske å kunne forandre negative tanker og følelser til positive. Jeg vet ikke hva Moen mener med "automatikk", men jeg er enig i at, dersom dette kan oppnås ved bruk av narkotika, "kan man ikke automatisk avvise det som lite verdifullt". Dette gjelder ikke bare for hedonister. I visse tilfeller vil det være uproblematisk å svelge en pille som ved et trylleslag kan kaste lys over tilværelsen. Det springende punktet er kanskje hva det dårlige selvbildet handler om, om det er berettiget eller ei, for eksempel. Det er forskjell på et tvers gjennom hederlig og på alle måter godt menneske som sliter med depresjoner, og en person som bebreider seg selv fordi han rett og slett prioriterer feil og ikke strekker til. Negative tanker og følelser er ikke alltid et onde. Noen ganger er negative tanker bare negative og/eller symptomer på sykelig depresjon. Andre ganger er negative tanker og følelser på sin plass fordi de forteller oss noe viktig om virkeligheten. Moen diskuterer ikke dette viktige perspektivet. Ta en far som tilbringer hele dagen på kontoret og knapt ser ungene sine. En lykkepille vil muligens kunne fjerne den dårlige samvittigheten. Hvis pillen ikke er avhengighetsskapende, bør han da benytte muligheten? Hvis egen lykkefølelse er alt som betyr noe, skulle det være alt i orden. Det finnes vulgær-hedonister som tenker i den retningen. Det gjør ikke Moen: "Det er ingenting i hedonismen som tilsier at det må være egen lykke man skal strebe mot. Hedonisme er en teori om hva som er godt. Det videre spørsmålet om hvem sitt gode man bør fremme, er et annet spørsmål." At pappa sitter glad og fornøyd med seg selv på kontoret bøter jo ikke på ungenes savn. Men sett at også kone og barn -- og alle andre impliserte parter -- gikk på slike (harmløse) piller, slik at de ikke savnet far i huset, men tvert imot gikk omkring med en intens lykkefølelse. Var det da bare å kjøre på? Finnes det resurser innenfor rammene av hedonismen til å se noe problem med det?</span></div>
vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-64328651946665450502013-06-02T00:48:00.001+02:002014-05-23T20:59:03.765+02:00Dreaded analogy...not so fast.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://hugo.random-scribblings.net/press/interviews-and-other-articles/659-voiceless-i-feel-therefore-i-am-22feb07">Here</a> is Coetzee with another take on the dreaded analogy between animal cruelty and the Holocaust, this time in his own voice:</span></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-US">The transformation of animals into production units dates back to the late nineteenth century, and since that time we have already had one warning on the grandest scale that there is something deeply, cosmically wrong with regarding and treating fellow beings as mere units of any kind. This warning came to us so loud and clear that it you would have thought it was impossible to ignore it. It came when in the middle of the twentieth century a group of powerful men in Germany had the bright idea of adapting the methods of the industrial stockyard, as pioneered and perfected in Chicago, to the slaughter – or what they preferred to call the</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-US">processing</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-US">– of human beings.</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span">Of course we cried out in horror when we found out about this. We cried:</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">What a terrible crime, to treat human beings like cattle! If we had only known beforehand!</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">But our cry should more accurately have been:</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">What a terrible crime, to treat human beings like units in an industrial process! </span><span class="apple-style-span">And that cry should have had a postscript:</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">What a terrible crime, come to think of it, to treat any living being like a unit in an industrial process!</span></span></blockquote>
<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">Whether you accept this argument or not depends, <i>at least</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">, on whether you accept the premise that human beings and animals are similar in morally significant ways. (You may admit all the <i>empirical similarities</i> Coetzee draws on even if you don’t, but in that case you are likely to dismiss the <i>moral</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"> analogy he draws on the back of these similarities as a non sequitur.) If you accept something along the line of Peter Singer’s idea of the expanding circle of moral concern, then you might concur that treating any living creature as a production unit is similar to treating human beings like that. The moral power of the analogy would presumably weaken as you move further and further away from origo, but as long as you don't overstep the outer boundaries of the circle, it won't loose all power. Inside the circle of moral concern, you can always describe such treatment as a violation against our common creatureliness, or something to that effect. I am prepared to say things like that myself. Though, I am not sure exactly what saying this amounts to. (Nor am I, for that matter, certain where to draw the periphery line.) But it surely entails that no living creature can be treated any way we please. However, the Nazis were not simply refusing certain living beings admission to our community of fellow creatures, they were denying certain <i>human</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"> beings admission to our idea of a common <i>humanity</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"> too; and that makes a (moral) difference, doesn’t it? On the other hand, one could, <a href="http://orienteringsforsok.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-horror-horror.html?showComment=1368624813492#c5668578707777787938">as Matthew Pianalto points out</a>, suggest that this question is nothing but further evidence of our inherit speciesism.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Other important differences between factory farming and the Holocaust are also too often overlooked by people who are horror-struck by undeniable similarities. T</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">he Nazi crimes were not “merely” to treat living beings as units in an industrial process (nor was it merely to treat <i>human</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"> beings this way); the aim of the Nazi’s was to exterminate certain human beings, to eliminate the Jews and to wipe the Earth clean of them. In this respect the (admittedly factory-like) Holocaust didn't much resemble factory farming. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camps">Extermination camps</a> were launched as the final solution to the Jew problem. With the problem finally solved, the murders would have stopped too simply because there would have been no one left alive. The industrial stockyard aims at something altogether different: it aims for eternity. Factory farming is a perpetual enterprise, where animals are ceaselessly being brought into the world for the purpose of being killed, to paraphrase Elizabeth Costello. I agree with her that this is a significant difference (though I am not sure I follow her when she claims that factory farming <i>therefore</i></span><span lang="EN-US"> dwarfs any evil the Third Reich was capable of). The extermination camps and the industrial stockyard are strikingly similar in some respects -- in that they employ many of the same methods, for instance --, but the extermination camps were, unlike the modern stockyard, fueled by hatred for their victims and aiming for their annihilation. In this respect the Holocaust was more analogous to a merciless war on vermin than to the merciless meat industry.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">Many people disagree with this “dreaded analogy” because (as I have pointed out in the preceding paragraphs) this is far from a perfect analogy; but then again, there is no such thing as a perfect analogy. A perfect analogy simply wouldn’t be an <i>analogy</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"> at all. Finding differences doesn’t necessarily undermine the possibility of connecting the dots (that depends on the number and the character of the differences one is talking about). On the contrary, a non-perfect fit is a prerequisite for talking about an analogy between two subjects at all.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">"The reasons why the Allies fought against Germany were complex, but many people believe rightly that the Holocaust itself would have proved sufficient reason," Raimond Gaita has written, </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">but “</span><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">no one can seriously wish to respond, to the slaughter of animals as though it justified taking up arms against farmers, butchers and people who work in abattoirs.” To this I would like to say: in one sense yes, maybe, but in another sense no. "Fighting" is of course a complex term with many applications. Hence there are numerous ways of <i>fighting</i></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"> an evil. It may be true that no one is</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"> prepared to shoot and kill farmers and butchers (though, <a href="http://orienteringsforsok.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-horror-horror.html?showComment=1369174912845#c1593650611173449336">as I pointed out here</a>, whatever truth there is in this, it is hardly of the empirical kind), but many people do walk the streets daily in protest against what butchers and farmers are doing; they write about it, talk about it; they refuse to be accomplices in the wrongdoings by boycotting their products, and try to convince others to follow their lead. Many people would be very relieved (though, perhaps not <i>as</i> relieved as they were when the Holocaust ended (but, then again, how to compare?)) if the horrific treatment of animals that Coetzee describes were to come to an abrupt end. Boycotting and walking the streets in protest is, of course, not <i>the same</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"> as taking up arms, but may still be an analogous reaction. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What troubles me with expressions like “animal holocaust” or “<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2003/apr/21/opinion/oe-dujack21">eternal Treblinka</a>” is not that one rhetorically bridges a gap between two kinds of horror, but, rather, that one steps too quickly from one to the other as if there were no gap there at all. Stuart Rachels does so with <a href="http://languagegoesonholiday.blogspot.com/2013/04/killing-animals-and-killing-people.html">this</a> one-liner. Seemingly blind to all the important differences, such rhetorical moves strike me as both insensitive and unthinking. That being said, I do not think it is </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">impossible to connect the two phenomena in reasonable and non-offensive ways. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consider this quote by Wittgenstien:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">Supposing you meet someone in the street and he tells you he has lost his greatest friend, in a voice extremely expressive of his emotion. You might say: "It was extraordinarily beautiful, the way he expressed himself." Supposing you then asked: "What similarity has my admiring this person with my eating vanilla ice and liking it?" To compare them seems almost disgusting. (But you can connect them by intermediate cases.) (Lectures on Aesthetics</span><span lang="EN-US">, II, §4)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is this analogous (!) to our own question? I suggest that it might be. People may of course be divided over how many intermediate steps one needs (and what steps they must be) in order to make the connection, but if one can, through sensitive employment of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">intermediate cases,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> connect one's delight in someone's expression of sorrow with one's delight in eating vanilla ice cream, then, I believe, one can also, as Coetzee (to my mind not quite successfully) attempts to do, namely to draw the connecting line from people's horror in face of the Holocaust (the murdering of human beings on an industrial scale in order to get rid of them) to his own horror in face of modern food industry, where billions upon billions of living beings are being turned into production units in order to be slaughtered and used for food, without behaving disgustingly.</span></div>
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vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866752812895683230.post-84796124512332394902013-05-29T00:15:00.002+02:002013-05-29T00:15:43.539+02:00Simply tasteless?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have just finished watching the TV series <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_(TV_miniseries)">Holocaust</a></i>. This is widely regarded as a classic, and has won several awards. But to me it was just another typical family drama, albeit set against an untypical historical background. The historical circumstances is, of course, the main "attraction" here, but, disappointingly, they are too often unconvincingly depicted.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The quality of the acting is, given the line-up of famous actors, surprisingly poor (with Michael Moriarty as the cold and creepy Erik Dorff as an honourable exception). Lack of visual despair sometimes makes it look as though the harassment never really bother the Jews. The dialogues are sometimes very awkward. From time to time the characters say things in the interest of the audience; they explain things that must be obvious to anyone in their vicinity, but which the uninformed TV viewer may not be aware of. Worse still is the apparent lack of interest for accuracy. The concentration camps seem wholly unreal. While <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_This_Is_a_Man">Primo Levi</a>'s inmates are reduced to bundles of primal instincts, the Jews in <i>this</i> version of Auschwitz discuss their terrible lot with sometimes pompous phrases. Everything looks too clean and too healthy too. When seeing well nourished prisoners in pristine looking outfits slaving day in and out under backbreaking labour without a single drop of sweat on their faces, the only thing that kept me from laughing was the sheer injustice of it. Throughout the nine hours I was neither moved nor shocked once, except for when historical footage appeared on screen. The brutality simply was not brutal enough and the suffering not nearly deep enough.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The makers of <i>Holocaust</i> seem to me to have been either too ambitious, in wanting to show all sides and sites of the Holocaust, or not quite ambitious enough, in wanting to do so using only a limited number of characters. As in my childhood's favourite TV series, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time..._Man">Once Upon a Time...Man</a>, </i>where <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">the history of mankind is illustrated from the point of view of a group that is always composed of similar recurring figures, the handful of chara</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">cters in </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><i>Holocaust</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> simply turn up at too many significant points in history for the story to be credible.</span></span><br />
vhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16887661953741578765noreply@blogger.com0