Missing: A fourth philosopher on grief

Big Think has a pretty good short piece on three philosophers as standard-bearers for approaches to grief.

After an initial hat tip to memento mori, it looks at each of the three: Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Camus. 

It's not bad as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough.

It needs a philosopher of pessimism, say Schopenhauer from the 19th century or Cioran from the 20th. Or maybe, if you strip off the religious veneer, an Unamuno. 

This is an issue where I part with Camus. "The Myth of Sisyphus," and above all its central message that "we must imagine Sisyphus happy," cited in the piece just before linking to the end of "Life of Brian" about looking on the bright side of life, has always struck me as a wrong move.

Let us quote the whole ending, in translation:

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

OK, let's unpack.

I have no "necessity" (as in psychological, not logical) to imagine Sisyphus, or myself in similar circumstances, as happy. That might be a way of mocking god or the gods, but I'm pretty sure Camus is a good secularist, so, to me, not only should it be true that "You don't tug on Superman's cape," but "you don't spit into the wind [of fate]" and then laugh, or smile.

What in detail does that mean, beyond my riff on Croce, though? (Jim, not Benedetto!) 

First, was Camus as a womanizer in part talking about "the thrill of the chase," per an old Deep Purple song? If so, I think he was wrong on that, too, and I think it's a variation or subset of the above.

There's also a false dichotomy. I can see the universe as not sterile, and not futile, but at the same time, per Genesis 1, תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ or tohu wәvohu in English transliteration — formless and void. Rejecting futility doesn't mean embracing happiness. Also, per Camus' words, he could be seen here, or accused here, of riffing on Nietzsche and postulating Sisyphus as beyond good and evil.

Next, what is the "higher fidelity"? Camus doesn't totally get into this.

The big issue is that we must look critically at Camus' framing. I've hinted at this with the Nietzsche comment, but we need to go further.

In the original myth, Sisyphus was an automaton. He was condemned to push this rock.

So, to riff on Camus, "We must first imagine Sisyphus with volition." An automaton can't really have emotion.

Or do we have to imagine that? For Camus, we do, I think, but do we have to for other interpretations? Can Sisyphus still have a consciousness, even if Zeus in some way controls all his motor neurons?

Anyway, I think Big Think gets it wrong. Sisyphus is certainly not fighting grief, or even generalized loss.

And, I think absurdist Camus is the wrong incarnation of Camus to be riffing on Sisyphus.

Rather, even if he can't physically revolt, Sisyphus imagining himself happy is man in revolt.

I was thinking of a long-ago read that I called "the best three-star book I've ever read," and that might still be true.

Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit by Joshua Foa Dienstag
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A so-so to decent book that could have been so much better

Occasionally I'll penalize a book for having a good, even a great, concept and just not doing it full justice, and this is one of those occasions.

This book rates at least five stars for its rehabilitation of pessimism and for its excellence at connecting the dots between different philosophers without an established "school of pessimism."

It ranks less than five stars for not fulfilling its potential and overlooking three major areas.

Dienstag's project of rehabilitation for philosophical pessimism is done well. He begins by stating two core tenets of philosophical pessimism, that it is anti-systemic and anti-optimistic. He also, in his preface, indicates he will most focus on where pessimism plays out in the arena of political philosophy.

From this, he tackles specific philosophers who can be seen as having a pessimistic core, and groups them into cultural, metaphysical and existential pessimists

First, he shows that many philosophers in each of these three categories did not take pessimism to a world-denying, resigned conclusion. Here he contrasts the culturally engaged Leopardi to the withdrawing Rousseau, the metaphysically engaged Freud to the withdrawing Schopenhauer and the existentially engaged Camus to the withdrawn Cioran.

Dienstag then devoted a separate chapter to Nietzsche, followed by a second devoted to the central role of aphorism as a writing style within philosophical pessimism. He finishes with offering up some of his own aphoristic observations, which make several good points.

I found his outline of pessimism to be hugely thought-provoking. I would find myself connecting the dots on one particular line of thought, turn the page, and see him doing similar dot-connecting in print.

...

Now, the book's shortcomings:

The first is early philosophers. It's bad enough that Dienstag just gives a passing glance to the pre-Socratics, especially since he talks about Nietzsche's analysis of them. It's worse by far that he overlooks post-Socratic Cynicism. 

Other than it possibly (though Diogenes himself has little to say on the matter) still having a cyclical, not linear view of history, Cynicism meets all the benchmarks Dienstag establishes to define philosophical pessimism. Skepticism, beyond his brief mention of Pyrrhonic Skepticism, also deserves more mention and coverage.

The second big oversight was not to include 20th century discoveries in the natural science. Quantum theory, if not antioptimistic, at least puts definite limits on human knowledge. So does general relativity. And so, they push back against his claim that scientific positivism is used up.

The third oversight comes directly from philosophy. How Dienstag could not even have a word of mention for Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which is, at base, a wrecker of systems, totally escapes me.

Dienstag could have added to his three classes of political, metaphysical and existential pessimism a fourth field of logical pessimism. And he could have considered Wittgenstein here in addition to Gödel.

Now, it's true that Dienstag, in his preface, limits his focus to "pessimism (as) a philosophical sensibility from which political practice can be derived." That would rule out Gödel and Wittgenstein, to be sure, but not the Cynics.

Couple of other nitpicking points.

Here and in interviews, Dienstag calls cynicism (lowercase) a negative philosophy. First, cynicism as lowercased is a psychology, not a philosophy. Greek Cynicism is by no means a negative philosophy. For that matter, the same applies to skepticism the attitudinal state vs. Skepticism the philosophical school.

For someone new to the field of philosophy, let alone political philosophy, this book might be five-star worthy. But, to me, Dienstag falls short of that mark. And, the last observations were just about enough to three-star it for me.

I finally did so in the end precisely because this book could have been so much more.

View all my reviews

Or, beyond this book, the Big Think authors (and Camus) needed to read some Edward Arlington Robinson.  

Also, I just read Wikipedia's article about Camus' play "Caligula." Really? Trying to make Caligula himself, even if we discount the worst of the slurs against him, into Sisyphus 2.0? Ye gads.

And, back to the issues at r/AcademicBiblical

 The first is from a mod, not a question-poster or a regular commenter. Well, actually it's from John Meier. I've not read all three volumes of "A Marginal Jew," but I read the first eons ago and I've read enough otherwise about Meier to be kind of dumbfounded that he thinks there actually were 12 disciples. I'm neutral at best on the idea of Israel-symbolism attesting to vs. detracting from, the idea of authenticity. I can see where Meier would think that this is part of Jesus proclaiming himself as the new Israel.

That said, the mod notes that — duh — it's clear that more than 12 followed Jesus. 

So, other than symbolic value by gospelers, why would he believe that Jesus picked out 12?  

==

Why would Paul "invent" the 500 witnesses to the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, per this question? And, why does Dale Allison believe it's real? 

Dale, in reality, that's Corinth 2,000 years ago. Like some Corinthian Jesus-fearer is trekking off to Jerusalem, Judea and Galilee with a checklist asking people within the Jesus-fearer communities there "did you witness the resurrection"?

As for another post from a few years ago, the idea that 1 Corinthians 15:3b-5 was an earlier creedal statement but 6-7 may be Pauline? Per the chapter, verse 3a has Paul's "what I have received." While this does not have the added "from the Lord," the language which he uses to introduce the Eucharist, which many scholars believe he invented, it at least leaves open the possibility he's claiming divine revelation.

Beyond that, since Paul was an irregular visitor to Jerusalem and Caesarea after starting his missionizing, and as far as we know, never went to Galilee, how would he know a certain number of these 500 were still alive anyway?

Add this all up and Allison doesn't have much credibility. It should be added that, per a long-ago piece by me, Allison is at the conservative end of critical scholarship.

==

Side note: I recently left the similar (and also blocking) subreddit r/AskBibleScholars, after seeing the creator saying he was going to migrate it elsewhere or something. (His reasoning made it look self-serving, and besides, even if he moves, he can't kill the subreddit. They live forever, even if it will be a shell.) I also blocked him.

I will take a pass on Alfred Mele

 (At least he's not racialist Frank Miele!)

This is adapted from an updated version of my review of two piecse by Gregg D. Caruso who in them and in other writings, wrestled not only with Benjamin Libet, but also Daniel Wegner and others. Do we have a conscious free will in the classical sense? I think Wegner has, at a minimum, raised some good questions.

 

Wegner's "The Illusion of Conscious Will" is reviewed by me here.

 

Off of it, I am concentrating on Jonathan MS Pearce's review of Caruso and his reliance on the title character, Alfred Mele. 

Back to the logical disjunction. It's possible that some varieties of free will might be MUCH more averse to retributive justice than might a quasi-determinism. Any sort of theory of free will that sees free will as something evolving would likely favor a theory of justice that aided that evolution, even with cases like criminal behavior. Per my "dehumanizing" notes above, that's that type of free will.

And, as for Caruso's case for free will being an illusion, in essence for committing to some broad variety of determinism, beyond my issue-by-issue, action-by-action partial psychological determinism? Per an OK to decent review of his book on the subject, I think I'm far from alone in finding him wanting, even if it's for other grounds, and beyond those, of the review. That said, the reviewer is Jonathan MS Pearce, with all that entails.

 

First, I disagree with his take on Wegner, which seems highly dependent on Mele. Pearce cites Mele, saying he had disproven scientists who claim they have proven free will is an illusion. First, per classical informal logic, can you disprove a negative any more than you can prove it? I doubt it. Second, Wegner himself never claimed he has "proven" any such thing. And indeed, Pearce also notes that Mele accepts the possibility of pre-conscious brain actions that seem to be right up Wegner's street.

 

I should add that the original version of my main piece on Caruso was before my second reading of Wegner. 

 

I will also note that, grokking Goodreads reviews of a couple of books, Mele's "magnum opus" on free will in 2014, per an Italian two-star review, while targeting Libet, of course, and also Milgram and Zimbardo, doesn't even appear to look at Wegner. Also, given Pierce's background, it's interesting that he does NOT pick up on much of Mele's funding coming from the Templeton Foundation. And, at 112 pages, how much argumentation can you do? 

 

And, per his 2013 "Effective Intentions," the editorial blurb has him stating he's deliberately following in Dennett's "Brainstorms" footsteps. UGH! An Amazon five-star review mischaracterizes Wegner. (God, this is epidemic!) They claim that Wegner claims the idea of free will is only imposed after an action. Not.Even.Wrong. Supposedly, Eddy Nahmias, whom I have run into before, pushes this idea even harder with the mash-up word "Willusionists."

 

OK, then in his "Free Will: An Opinionated Guide," one reviewer claims that Mele implies Libet was committing some sort of research and experimentation fraud. I've never heard that claim before, and I find it even more an eye raiser.

 

And, his book on self-deception? The claim that people never consciously do that relies on a pretty rigid divider between conscious, subconscious and unconscious selves, I think. This one-star review at Amazon is hard hitting. (That said, the reviewer seems in places to confuse conscious self-deception with self-deception in general.)

 

As for Pearce? Here he is looking like a Jesus mythicist before pretending to run away from that, but without actually running away. (I just like kicking him again.)

The sayings of Jesus: Do not worry

I had said at the end of Amy-Jill Levine's newest book that I wanted to take a critical look at several sayings of Jesus from  The Sermon on the Mount, and perhaps elsewhere.

My interest is not textual criticism, nor any version of higher criticism. Rather, it's common-sense secularist skepticism. And with that, let's dive into one of his most famous.

From The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:25-32, New RSV:

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

OK, several issues. 

The first verses, 25-28, might be filed under "perennial wisdom," per Aldous Huxley, with verse 29 adding a particular referent from Israelite history.

But, precisely because it could be called perennial wisdom means we have nothing unique to Jesus about the insight.

That said, the saying in the second half of verse 28 is problematic. I'm sure nobody in his circle back then, and nobody outside some early Buddhists or early Jains in India, thought a lily had a "soul" or anything close. Birds have brains, and some level of consciousness, and corvids at least have lots of brains. But, analogizing off flowers makes no sense. Beyond that, lilies also have no hands, beaks, claws or anything else with which they COULD work, even if they had a brain, let alone a "soul."

Verse 30 becomes more problematic yet. Wild grasses, wheat straw, or whatever is either being used for a cooking fire or else burned in the field for clearance? Even in my religious days, wild grasses especially would never have been considered "clothed" by me. Why he didn't talk about sheep on the hillsides of Galilee growing wool, then regrowing it after being sheared, I have NO idea.

Then there's that last verse.

Plenty of gentiles, like the aforementioned Buddhists and Jains, or the likes of the Pythagoreans or Cynics closer to Jesus (including the cities of the Decapolis being home to noted Cynic philosophers at this general time) did not "seek all these things." 

Anyway, to go Jesus Seminar (and I am not sure how they rated the Sermon on the Mount in general, or this part) I'm not that sure Yeshua ben Yusuf said this.

Euphemism creep and language issues

First, "euphemism creep", or the "euphemism treadmill," per Steven Pinker is a real thing. James McWhorter has also written much about it.

It's when a euphemism replaces a no-longer acceptable term, but soon enough becomes no longer acceptable itself.

Think "handicapped" being replaced by "disabled," then that becoming not acceptable and it being replaced by "differently abled." Some day in the not too distant future, because of the word "differently," that will be replaced as well.

This is a field with enough to mine that I am going to write about this on various spots, including my philosophy and critical thinking blog. But, there as here, I'll use the same starting point — Substacker Corey Hutchins talking about how different media outlets in Colorado struggle (or maybe "struggle" with scare quotes intended) on how to talk about "people who aren't supposed to be here," or if I need scare quotes inside that, "people who aren't 'supposed' to be here."

Or, per old friend Brains, who used it non-disparagingly? "Ill Eagles." 

Here, it's not just ground-level, but, in media, an official style issue, as the Associated Press long ago said both "illegal immigrant" and "illegal alien" aren't allows.

I agree for sure with the word "alien." That said, quoting Hutchins, I disagree with the AP already trying to get ahead of euphemism creep three years ago.

“We don’t use the terms illegal immigrant, unauthorized immigrant, irregular migrant, alien, an illegal, illegals or undocumented (except when quoting people or documents that use these terms),” the AP wrote. “Many immigrants and migrants have some sort of documents, but not the necessary ones.”

As I said in a comment to Hutchins, why not just add "allegedly" in front of "undocumented immigrants"? 

Per that Shitter link, the AP does offer alternatives. But? Most of them are kind of cumbersome, which undercuts the usefulness of language.

Also, per the authors I cited at the top of the page, this issue tends to get politicized. And, it's usually "conservatives" vs "liberals." Setting aside L/libertarians and some Green types who claim to be neither right nor left, the politicized polarity also ignores friendly skeptical non-liberal leftists.

I want to move beyond that angle, as I've already tackled the politics on my main blog.

In part, we're at Wittgenstein's language as game. For various reasons, including but by no means limited to, politics, and within that, in the US, including but by no means limited to two-party "duopoly" politics, not everybody will be willing to play the same game.

For me, this isn't a killer. But, it is a heads-up, depending on how serious the issue is. 

Within politics, the AP says that if an official statement has "illegal immigrants" and it's being quoted, quote as is — no bowdlerizing.

However, that's print media. Political interviews, or everyday oral communication, political or otherwise, the issue is not so avoidable.

To extend the language as a game angle, language, like Monopoly, can have "house rules" versions. It can also have people cheating, or the linguistic equivalent thereof. Or throwing temper tantrums. 

Let us take the "word" (that's a scare quote, not a reference quote, folks) "trans."

I don't use it, and won't let it be used in written communication with me. It's either a prefix missing a referent noun or adjective, or the first name of an old GM car.

We can talk about "transsexual" or "transgender." And, that's all I'll talk about. Try to use the stemless prefix and I am out of the conversation. 

This, then gets into larger issues scientific as well as cultural and sociological.

But, let's tie it to philosophical issues. Per last week's piece, I reject attempts to claim that existence is an attribute, whether a general attribute or one of specific items, rather than simply a descriptor.

That itself is not a euphemism. But, it's arguable that something like "Ground of Being," especially with English, not German, title-case spelling, is. 

A partially failed refutation of Gödel's logical proof for the existence of god

 I had heard of his proof before, but never actually looked at it.

Atheology, which gets updated occasionally and is also on Substack, actually offered up a refutation.

And, even my first, partial look said that said refutation wasn't perfect.

My comment.

I am certainly not here to support Gödel, but I am also nowhere near a pure empiricist. I don't have time to read everything now, but, I know your refutation of his Point 1 isn't itself on 100 percent pure ground. And your refutation of his Point 5 is on the wrong grounds. (And I hope this isn't part of your ground of attacking ontological arguments, either.) The better answer is that "existence" simply isn't a property.

And, it isn't. Whatever philosophy professors this guy had, their focus was on philosophers and issues from before the second half of the 20th century, if not earlier.

"Existence" is simply a descriptor. The simple fact of "being" (lowercase, no "Ground of Being") is not a property. To use the quasi-dialectic of the refutation, it really can't be a property. Besides, if this guy were as thorough-going a neo-empiricist as he claims to be, he'd accept that, from his Weltanschauung, there is no such thing as "properties" in general. 

He responded to me on Substack with more verbiage than in the original. On the first point, he said science is empirical not rational. Yes, but, Gödel, like his many forbearers, is offering a logical proof, not a scientific hypothesis. 

On the second? He says he could have cited Kant's famous phrase that existence is not a predicate. But, this is itself a fail. I wasn't referring to Kant, just as I don't refer to Kant in tackling Anselm's and other ontological arguments. Rather, I am riffing on existentialism. Existence simply "is." Hence it's not a property, and I make no reference to Kantian non-predicates.

But, I'm not going to respond to him, lest I get something even more long-winded back. See below.

A later, fuller reading?

Well, I first saw this piece about what Mr. Lyman calls "epirealism" and yes, we're in the land of pretty hardcore empiricism, updated for modern times. And, it's probably not worth arguing with his deconstruction of Gödel. And, as for who he is? By name, I've never come across him before.