Tuesday, January 06, 2004 2:16 PM Subject: Re: Gnothi

Mr. Moore,

It is a pleasure to personally welcome the person who responded to my plea for help regarding which edition of the Enneads to get (I got the Viking and am saving up for the Loeb). I read your commentary on Sokolowski with much interest; I append below a conversation that may be of some slight interest to you. I am also intrigued by your continuing reflections on Hume, Hegel, and Heidegger: an interesting trio to link together. I do not agree with your reading of Hegel, but your reading of Hume is awakening an interest in Hume that could never have arisen from the common, and commonly stale, portrayals of Hume as one of "The British Empiricists," to allude to a book title.

GCM: The relation to Hegel is loose, but I think Donald W. Livingston has shown a definite connection. Also, the English philosophers of the later half of the 19th century were mostly Hegelians (MacTaggert, Bradley, etc.) AND Pyronnistic (radical) skeptics which they considered Hume to be (Green & Gross). One recent connection I ran across accidentally was a discussion of Hegel and his concept of "God". There was (or is) a controversy whether "God" was only and simply a concept. The conclusion seems to be "Yes". This would be in perfect accord with Hume's NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION ("What a noble privilege is t of human reason to . . . be enabled to infer so sublime a principle (my emphasis) as its supreme Creator?"). Hume is using very careful language here. It would also be in accord with an early lecture of Heidegger's at Marburg (1927?) where "God" is classified as an ontic object to distinguish it from ontological being. This is a point many commentators of Heidegger completely fail to grasp. "Sein" is NOT "God" and was never intended to be, and Heidegger never changed his mind. If someone actually believes he changed his mind about divine existence, then the later Heidegger could only be classified as a Germano-Hellenist polytheist. Hegel's point seems to me to be, considering his criticism of Hume, is that "the Concept" is absolutely necessary for the advancement of human knowledge, especially science which he followed keenly. Hume would not disagree with this, nor would he disagree that it is 'knowledge'. But he would always put in the proviso, which people still gnash their teeth about because he proved his point so well, that it is not certain knowledge but only probable knowledge. Psychologically, our modern minds are so indoctrinated by belief in the "certain knowledge" of science

(supposedly based purely on "sense impressions") that we no longer notice the numerous exceptions to the rules. These exceptions are usually trivial but are thus brushed aside without keen observation. However, this whole issue actually came to a crisis at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries between Ernst Mach ('science must be strictly based solely on sense impressions') and Boltzmann (atomic physics can only work on a probabilistic mathematical basis). Mach was a Neo-Kantian, but I do not think Kant would have agreed with him. Hume definitely would have disagreed. He would have said science has to be based on ideas created by the imagination. "Sense impressions" are simply that which we think about with ideas. They communicate nothing in themselves (simple common sense often overlooked). So I see the main conflict between Hume and Hegel to be "the style of philosophy". Hegel is authoritative, Hume is "Don't worry, be happy" but done so in a beautifully and VERY deliberately designed fashion. Hume was not at all writing for the same audience as Hegel was. Both Hume and Hobbes absolutely loathed universities. British universities were above all designed to turn out ministers. Hegel dealt with German universities that were immensely more secular. However, I think this situation benefited the British philosophers more than the German philosophers. Except maybe for Kant, academic status became a primary motivation for German academic philosophers to the point of megalomaniac obsession with Heidegger. There books were mainly read, even in Germany, by people with a primarily academic orientation. In Britain, everybody read Francis Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume as well as Joseph Butler, Edmund Burke, and Thomas Reid. British philosophy, however, started getting fuzzy and academic again, as well as "German" with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Through Coleridge, I'm sure, came the desire to take Hegel seriously (Coleridge's favorite was Schelling). John Henry Newman was the product of both 'schools' of thought with the later addition of some scholasticism.

Hi Professor Crowell,

Thanks for the response. I believe that the impulse behind phenomenology is right on. I sympathize with Heidegger's saying that to this day, thought has never let beings be. I agree with the line in Herzog that "No philosopher knows what the ordinary is, has not fallen into it deeply enough." I think phenomenology is absolutely crucial for our coming to know the ordinary. But as phenomenology has developed so far, it seems to ignore those authoritative decisions that set the context for the ordinary. Its inadequacies in treating the political ultimately infect its analysis of the ordinary. The political as experienced tends always to be distorted in phenomenological analyses--a curious result for an approach that seeks to return to lived experience! The problem comes out perhaps most forcefully in Arendt's writings: Arendt's silence re justice ignores what has long been the guiding question not only of political philosophy but of politics itself. The Q (quality?) of justice could become the guiding Q (quality?) of political philosophy precisely because it was, and remains, the guiding Q (quality?) of politics. The Q (quality?) of justice ultimately leads (in part) to the Q of the right order. Not accidentally, Arendt is silent about that, also. She speaks only of our ability to bind one another via promises rather than of right order. Ethos replaces dikaion. Or rather, dikaion itself becomes an artifact of ethos.

GCM: Many of these problems are worked through very pragmatically and thoroughly in David Hume's ESSAYS and six volume HISTORY OF ENGLAND and, even more important, A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE. I do not think it unreasonable to say Hume essentially inspired Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS which first started coming out the year Hume died. Hume also had much direct experience working as a relatively important government bureaucrat (then without the stigma). A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE deals quite intimately with the "ordinary". It literally changed Hume's life and the whole focus of his philosophy from being academic to being designed for "polite conversation", an important philosophical concept in him (recall also Dr. Hannibal Lecter). All grounds of considering "the ordinary" AS ordinary are utterly and finally destroyed. Norman Kemp Smith, possibly the most authoritative Hume, Kant, and maybe Descartes scholar, made a strong case that Hume came to write the first epistemological part of the TREATISE after he had written part two on the "Passions" and part 3 on morals. Therefore the epistemology is ALWAYS considered primarily and fundamentally from a ground of passionate desire and moral intent. The main and only thing that ties all this together is the imagination AND "tradition" or "custom" or "vulgar understanding". In other words (language), our minds are "always already" set when we come to philosophically think about epistemology. The "passions" rate as "sense impressions" fundamentally, coming from an unknown ground (we can guess bits and pieces, but just "bits and pieces" and only "guess"). Morality is gained from experience and need. The primary need, just as in Hobbes, is peaceful relations with others which necessitate the 'voluntary' or better, "always already" historically agreed upon and continuously evolving code of laws. "Law" is entirely FICTION evolving through experience historically. Therefore politics the exact same. The priority of politics changes fundamentally from achieving "good" or "acceptable ends" to establishing an effective government (no matter what) that has continuity, builds on what has been accomplished before, and ENDURES and is STABLE. Hume makes this point brutally but very soundly. The evolution of the English crown from the rowdy acts of a drunken braggart to the steely consistency of Alfred the Great to the brutal political manipulation of William the conqueror and so forth, is the establishment of an authority that will be obeyed by all parties. After the MAGNA CARTA is signed by the weak and incompetent King John, another evolution of authority starts with parliament to A) simply get thinking to listen to it (the House of Lords) and B) the evolution of the status of the commons from a bare but significant mention in the Magna Carta to the people who not only have the money but are ready and willing to spend it (the nobles are really stupid in this regard) so the king can go play warlord in return for extra rights and privileges to the point they totally control the king's purse strings which comes to the ultimate crisis of 1640. I think none of this would be disagreed with by Heidegger, especially since Hume's view of history is NOT progressive, does NOT guarantee things will always be getting 'better and better'. Hume is very well aware the historical evolution of the law is Darwinian, not Huxleyian, and that it 'retrogresses' quite often in the conflict of strong and weak personalities setting up unique personal but also historical situations. In Darwin, "the survival of the fittest" rests in the nature of the momentary "niche". What can survive in the niche this moment may not be the best an hour from now. Whatever comes out on top as the ‘best’ is up to pure chance. So the future, as with Heidegger’s “Geschict” is always completely unpredictable. You ought to read Hume’s essay on Walpole’s deficit spending. Reading the <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"TREATISE also automatically clarifies many obscure sentences in Heidegger precisely because Heidegger treats everything like he is a scientist establishing natural laws whereas Hume operates from common sense and experience <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"ACTUALLY (Heidegger ‘says’ he does this – he accepts the general Kantian schema Kant directly derived from Hume – but does it in very dictatorial fashion) and thereby <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"ALSO shows all the weak points, the blank spaces, and warts and blemishes of <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"ACTUAL intellectual investigation. Hume is <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"NOT an empiricist. Since he considers “political compromise” a fundamental philosophical category, more unexpected and ‘demeaning’ names might be used, like “a polite and sociable philosopher” or “a jolly good fellow but a real thinker.” There is no fitting him at all within labels.

I would not try to replace phenomenology. At this point, I do not think that is possible. Especially given our situation as late moderns, the lessons of phenomenology need to be learned, and learned well. I would, however, supplement modern phenomenology with both Hegelian phenomenology and Socratic dialectic. Especially the latter. I would in particular follow Strauss in beginning with the common opinions about things and proceed from there. It seems that it is largely due to its willingness to ignore the common opinions about things that phenomenology brushes aside questions of justice.

GCM: I agree with Strauss (Leo Strauss?). But more. “Phenomenology” has become an unnecessary ‘buzz’ word not meaning much of anything, or rather, what anyone wants to mean at the moment. Everyone understands clearly words like “pain”, “sense”, “common sense”, “tradition”, “custom”, “the rigors of the law”, “hate” (Heidegger’s primary passion from the first volume of <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"NIETZSCHE). If one clearly and honestly delineates all the real boundaries of one’s real ignorance, resolve that many of the most important things we <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"NEED to know we yet can <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"NEVER “know” (the future, the end of one’s motivations, Paul’s “salvation” and “the resurrection of the body in glory”, the external word), then the need for big and vague words dissolves. One of the keen points I have been trying to make is that ALL of Hume’s philosophy is based (as he repeatedly and plainly says) on “belief”. No complications here. “Belief” is “belief”, and every single person according to their specific situation evolves their own belief. Hume is a philosophical Theist. Newman is a Roman Catholic. Heidegger is a Nazi. Sartre is a Communist. None are wishy-washy in their “beliefs”. All are completely different EXCEPT in how they logically argued from their first principles, i. e., “belief”.

That’s all folks.

Sincerely’ Gary C. Moore

I know that is not entirely true, that there are many, esp. the French, who are taking up the Q of justice. But they take it up within the framework of philosophical ethics and not of political philosophy. This is again related to the replacement of dikaion by ethos. This replacement explains the curious fact that the current neo-Aristotelian movement is sometimes called "communitarian;" i. e., neo-Aristotelians invert Aristotle's own understanding of the relationship b/t the ethical and the political.

In the words of my master, "But the being of things, their What, comes first to sight, not in what we see of them, but in what is said about them or in opinions about them." All this talk of language and basic words causes Heidegger and his progeny to be rather dismissive of opinions as such. In What Is Called Thinking, he dismisses opinions as one-sided views (p. 32ff.). He most certainly does not point out that newspapers, magazines, and radio programs are dominated in their headlines and lead stories by political stories. They point more or less directly to the Q, What Is to be Done? We all have opinions re this Q. Heidegger disregards these opinions and rushes to "the other side" of opinions as such. To borrow an image from S. Rosen, borrowing from Strauss, Heidegger moves beyond opinions, but to a beyond that is like Laputa.

I will definitely take a look at the Embree.

Best, Kang

On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Steven Crowell wrote:

Kang,

you may be right about phenomenology's inability to get to what is "most primordial." But do you have another approach in mind that is better suited to this task? Dialectic? Analytic philosophy? Deconstruction? I'm interested in how you would see this matter. And do you have specific ideas about why it is that phenomenology is not up to it?

As for the question of whether phenomenology has anything to say about the political, I think you are right that good work is hard to come by in this area. John Drummond has written some interesting things. He comes from the Sokolowski tradition, but is better. I agree with you about the weakness of the political stuff at the end of Sokolowski's Intro.

You might take a look at a collection titled "Phenomenology of the Political" (Kluwer), edited by Embree and Kevin Thompson. I have an article in there and there are some that are fairly good. Bernasconi's article on "community" is noteworthy, etc.

Take care,
--SC