Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 19:51:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: HAB: Integrating Philosophy & Everyday Life


Ralph,

I can admire, in your essay on your sense of "How to
integrate philosophy and everyday life"
(http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/phillife.html), that
you want to clarify "what kind of work should be treated as
legitimately philosophical in our time." I *"can"* admire
this because you make clear in your essay that you want
reliable resourcefulness for your thinking, rather than to
emulate your "bureaucrat" who autonomously evaluates what
"should be treated as legitimately philosophical." Neither
you (I suppose) nor I (let me tell you) admire elitist
thinking. 

But what IS "our time" such that philosophy is legitimate?
What makes philosophy "legitimate in our time"? Your answer
is, more or less, your sense of what's Hegelian—or, as you
say in the end, "[t]he conception of philosophy [that
is]...the full, self-confident unfolding of the powers of
the human intellect, described by Fichte and Hegel." 

One could call this the self-formative interest. Indeed,
your "autodidact"ical interest seems quite amenable to
being called a self-formative interest. Habermas shows his
appreciation of Hegel's interest as being self-formative in
Habermas' early-'60s essay on Hegel's Jena lectures, in
_Theory and Practice_; and this appreciation of Hegel is
evident in Habermas' critique of Hegel's "philosophy of
absolute reflection," in the early chapters of _Knowledge
and Human Interest_ (which is also definitively critical of
Marx's materialist reductionism, i.e., "the program for an
instrumentalist translation of Hegel's philosophy of
absolute reflection"; see
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/habermas.htm).


Anyway, the validity of the self-formative interest
survives a critique of Hegelian absolutism. There is
abundant reason to pursue the theme of the self-formative
interest, both via Habermas's work and otherwise. My
conviction of this has been a keynote of my participation
with HAB List subscribers that past 5+ years, a theme which
was also a keynote of my dissertation on Habermas, "The
Discourse of Emancipatory Practice in Habermas's Historical
Materialism" (1979) and in extended conversation with
Habermas about parts of that dissertation, 1980. 

The interest in "a higher stage of formalization...and
abstractness" is, of course, typical of the history of
philosophy, just as the interest in "the art of
philosophical thinking [as] the mediation of the abstract
and the concrete"---mediating "the development of the
capacity to think" and "a fine-tuned intuitive sense"---is
typical of philosophical teaching, classically in the
tutorial and commonly in the college classroom.

I recall in high school---I've wanted to share this little
story for a long time—my fascination with the debate club,
the *form* of it, i.e., that each team had to be prepared
to argue *either* side of the issue, when they went into
competition. "The issue" for that year (shared among teams
around the region) was always *genuinely* controversial,
such that good arguments could be made for either side, and
the prize went to the best team's argumentation. The
amazing thing about the best teams was their ability to win
in argumentation of either side!

We see a similar "condition" of validity claims (as my
little story continues) in jurisprudence, especially at the
developmental stage of moot court, where law students may
have to argue either side of a case. And questions from the
bench have the function of clarifying what either party is
exactly arguing (which we see in realworld law via
appellate court events). 

Philosophical teaching can look a lot like questions from
the bench (thinking of the tutorial, rather than the
classroom). But philosophical teaching isn't *largely* or
*basically* analogous to the juridical stance of
impartiality (prior to judgment), since teaching---at its
ideal "point" of tutorial---is interested in developing the
thinking, not just, so to speak, doing archaeology (e.g.,
the early parts of a psychoanalysis); and teaching has no
interest in definitive judgment, unlike the court. 

One good way to develop thinking is to find the point of
apparently irresolvable controversy (relative to the
other's apparent stage of conceptual understanding),
working on the one hand to patiently distinguish what's
apparently latent from what's really latent in the other's
thinking; and on the other hand (in light of that) to
clarify a (the?) relatively real irresolvability (relative
to the other's determined "place" of reflection). 

Such working-through via working with the other may mean
that the teacher takes on an argumentational stance
*relative* to the other (rather than expressing his own
view). 

This dynamic can be pursued further. Presently, I just want
to suggest a direction for understanding "mediation" in
"the art of philosophical thinking."

I agree with you that "[p]hilosophy is a mode of
cognition"---in part a reflective mode, but also an
*historized* mode of cognition---"and its skills are
conceptual." By 'historized', I want to mean (for the
present) that good philosophy appreciates that the best of
good philosophy is exemplified by the exemplary positions
in philosophy, which constitutes its history—associated
with the names of the philosophers exemplifying those
milestone positions---not that anyone ever masters most of
the best positions (though doctoral students are supposed
to). But one's own development is more or less fated to
more or less exemplify one of the exemplars, at best, such
that one's development would be radically advanced by
becoming a student of the exemplar (rather than pretending
that philosophy begins with one's own wonder--while it
really *does*, in a sense; see the work of Matthew Lipman
and his Philosophy for Children movement). Plato "lives"
because every Western teenager is likely at heart a
Platonist, before entering into the pathway of
developmental thinking called philosophy. 

A professional philosopher might genuinely believe s/he's
far beyond, say, Plato (as, say, an Analytical philosopher,
i.e., a practitioner of inquiries in the 20th century
Analytical tradition) only to be one day exposed as a
closet Platonist. How this happens is that, in one's way
through the history of philosophy, one meets Plato relative
to one's own self-formative interest (and its stage of
conceptual self-formation) that affords a *representation*
of what Plato thinks, which justifies (through critique or
critical appreciation of "Plato") a passage of thinking
beyond "Plato" which turns out to have been basically a
genuine passage of one's development beyond that
*representation* of Plato, which remained nonconsciously
Platonic at heart. 

So, indeed, one comes to hope that, as you say,
"[c]onscious philosophy enables a person to penetrate
beneath phenomenal appearances and ideological smokescreens
to uncover the underlying essence of any phenomenon or
picture of reality," but it turns out that searching for
"the...essence" of the "picture" perpetuates a reflection
of the searcher whose searching is thereby destined to
remain basically "conscious" in that sense, i.e., as a
searching for some essence of itself searching. Of *course*
we want to frame the phenomenality of appearances so as to
understand them fundamentally. But what that fundamentality
IS has been understood in other ways than as an essence
(the fundamentality of searching may outgrow essentialism).
To say that philosophy "is a quest for insight into
objective reality beyond appearance" is just to declare a
stance that *conceals* other modes of reality. 

Habermas, you may know (having endured subscription to the
HAB list for some time, you noted last March),
distinguishes objective reality from its intersubjectivity
and subjectivity, as does Hegel (though JH makes the
distinctions on a different basis: *cognitive-linguistic*
differentiations of world relations, based in "formal
pragmatics"), so your objectivist stance isn't yet nearing
Hegel's, though you seem to idealize absolute reflection. 

You ask: "Does the highest stage of
self-consciousness...require total embodiment in[]
systematic abstract reflective thought?" 

No. There is no highest stage of self-consciousness. But
one can understand the search for the highest stage highly,
i.e., well. There, the fundamentality of conceptualization
evolves (but to say this surely doesn't make sense as a
mere assertion). 

Meanwhile, the history of philosophy has progressed
through—thus evolved—fundamentalities, what Heidegger calls
"stemmings" in "the history of Being," which culminate in
the 20th century phenomenological/deconstructive critique
of metaphysicalism (i.e., in a phrase, the aspiration to
disclose the essence of highness), which gave Europe the
mandarin Kantian intellectual culture of post-WWI Germany
(cf. _The Genesis of Heidegger's *Being and Time*_,
Theodore Kisiel, 1993) which turned into Zarathustrian
support for Nazism (cf. _The Heidelberg Myth_, Steven P.
Remy, Harvard UP 2003), whose essence (having sought
essence) was, according to Heidegger (in his Nietzsche
lectures of the 1940s), "the spirit of revenge." 

But that's the extreme. The domestication of this shows in
the romance of The Concept, longing for some awe-inspiring
integration of abstraction that then patronizes the common
folk in terms of its charitable vision of the heights, as
it mediates its achievement with the people--which tends
toward so-called (by deconstructionists) "logocentrism".
For example, to believe, as you say, that "for me the heart
of philosophy consists of ontology, epistemology, and
logic" accords with logocentrism in philosophy, as does an
attitude toward ethics as "possible laundry list[] of
concrete assertions about this and that" (i.e., ethics is a
lowly derived mode of systematics). 

But I agree with you that "the development of abstract
reflection and deep intuition are both indispensable," yet
the evolution of thinking indicates that the "and" of
reflection and intuition is, fundamentally, beyond
systematics. Or so I would argue. 

I could emphatically agree with you that "[n]ot only can
philosophy [without quote marks - G] illuminate everyday
life, but everyday life and social practice may
supply...nourishment" for reflection. But dailiness is not
sufficient, of course; so I can't agree that it may supply
"the nourishment and discipline" for reflection, nor can I
subscribe to a notion of reflection which is basically
"abstract reflection."

It is dangerous, after the 20th century, to presume to
refer substantively to "the formal philosophical heritage
of the human race," since aspiration "to develop one's
capacities" belongs to all, whatever their conditions of
life. This was the key point of Noble Laureate Economist
Amartya Sen in _Development as Freedom_, 1999, as well as
some approaches to the aims of education (which focus on
actualization of human potential; see _Of Human Potential_,
Israel Scheffler, 1980? Also: _Extraordinary Minds_, Howard
Gardner, 1999?). 

Also, Ralph, the spirit of revenge is obvious in your
relations to others. Though you write that "I do not seek
to...devalue...the capacity of various people to think,"
this claim is starkly undermined by your communicative
practice. 

Yet it's true that "the inept application of abstract
thought just creates more confusion and static," but "all
the bad philosophy that surrounds us" reflects your overt
contempt for what doesn't reflect your aspiration to be a
German Idealist, and there's no need to be contemptuous of
other's lack of interest in 19th century idealism. It's
just so unfortunate that you "have not found one book in my
lifetime of any use in teaching the art of philosophical
thinking as I envision it." Clearly, the notion of
envisioning should not be beyond question. 

So, the emancipatory interest of knowledge—so integral to
Habermas's _Knowledge and Human Interest_—should not be
overlooked, for philosophy is not only a means of
enlightenment, but also (as Wittgenstein famously
advocated, and the Ordinary Language school of analytical
philosophy advanced) philosophy can also be
therapeutic--maybe even in a *psycho*therapeutic sense. 

For example, anyone who has a grandiose sense of
self-importance AND believes that he or she is "special"
and unique and can only be understood by, or should
associate with, other special people AND is interpersonally
exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve
his or her own ends AND lacks empathy: is unwilling to
recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
AND shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes, THEN
that person exhibits five of the nine traits of
narcissistic personality disorder required for that
diagnosis (http://www.psychologynet.org/npd.html). From a
philosophical perspective (the interest in the
conceptuality of one's self-formative interest), one might
be concerned about the intellectualizing of someone with
that disorder, e.g., the conceptual *crudeness* of one's
contempt for others who don't satisfy one's needs, as
exhibited by a moderately-toned writing that suddenly turns
nasty whenever it refers to others, as you do in your
postings, and as you do at points in your essay under
discussion. 

Habermas' explicates the emancipatory interest
philosophically, as a critique of Nietzsche in Freud, who
developed the emancipatory interest in his discovery of
psychotherapy (albeit as very long-term psychoanalysis).
Nietzsche, of course, had an epochal sense of narcissism,
in his Zarathustrian longing. 

You *have* read some Habermas, haven't you?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, if you're still reading---or to others, at
least--let me say that I use postings to try out stances,
as well as to occasionally assert my own position on things
(rarely; and even then too spontaneously, I later realize).
Sometimes, I have the apparently silly notion (given lack
of response) that thinking "aloud" will be useful to
others, even causing constructive discussion. In short, I'm
not posting for self-expressive reasons--almost never. 
Even my extended defenses of Habermasian thought over the
past 5+ years began as an overt effort to *appropriate*
Habermasian stances to come-what-may on the list, rather
than to basically express my own stance toward Habermas's
thinking (which is eclectic, in the flow of other kinds of
developments). In short, I haven't been in a struggle for
recognition, rather an experiment in online discourse. That
means that my postings are usually *stances*, often in the
spirit of a debating club (but there's nothing ingenuous or
cynical about this; it's just a matter of living
*mediation*). 

One may suspect I'm a conservative (a frivolous mistake)
because I'm interested in what the rationality of the Bush
administration might be, but actually I'm just practicing
the hermeneutics of understanding rather spontaneously. 

Generally, it's so much more interesting to base critique
(to which I haven't given time, relative to the Bush
administration) on understanding of the other rather than
caricature. Slamming caricatures is just too easy. As every
psychotherapist knows, even misfits embody a claim to
rationality (while no decent psychotherapist would regard a
client simply as a misfit, I should add); and every
psychotherapist knows that the *efficacy* of therapeutic
action happens only within the "rationality" of the other. 

Of course, I don't have any chance of changing any
conservative minds, but a first stage in such a process
must be to understand conservative thinking *from the
conservative perspective*. But my interest in this has been
slight (as shown in my loss of interest in the Bush
administration rejection of the Kyoto process).  

Anyway, critique that has any realistic hope of
emancipatory efficacy, e.g, turning, say, "Conservative"
support for an issue into "Liberal" support of *practical*
alternatives (rather than just preaching to the "radical"
choir in oppositional caricatures that organize the tribe
against power, but without a clue about how progressive
alternatives might go)--and / or to *practically* translate
Liberal understanding into genuinely progressive
alternatives, when that's appropriate--such critique must
begin from a stance of understanding the "rationality" of
the other's *own* perspective. Now, radicals have always
been too important for such tedious work; after all, it's
about organizing against power rather than learning how to
work it to progressive ends. 

But when I *do* generally work this way--the labels fall
away. What remains salient is, so to speak, the hybridity
of the things themselves: the lifeworld conditions that
engage the *whole mix* of folks (especially as the scale of
consideration increases, from locality to region), the
organizational conditions, the administrative conditions,
etc., each of which involve all age levels and backgrounds
of understanding (which any successful politician grasps
intimately), such that *genuinely* understanding any
important issue is, to be fair to it, a very, very elusive
thing. (I know this from years of trench-level experience
with "educational reform" at several levels of "trench.")
*Consensus*-based progressivity is a very difficult thing,
but no broadly appealing political program is possible
without it. 

--------------------------------------------------------------

Jumping contexts, I wonder sometimes that perhaps
Habermas's philosophy is well-suited for theory of
diplomacy. But thinking about this requires a real
understanding of the conditions of effective diplomacy
amidst the realities of international relations, which
seems much like a small town writ large (a town with
inestimable ethnic diversity---like Berkeley, where I've
lived for over a quarter century, not that I think of the
daily planet as Berkeley, though a local free newspaper
named The Daily Planet recently died from lack of
advertising. Let me tell you that a luxury of free media
has a natural-selective dynamic to it). 

In the global village, its a vanity fair, with the threats
of punks in the night, progressive programs that can't
survive the passing on of their originators (Will the UN
dissolve into the community of alliances as one
"regionalism" among more territorial ones?), litigations
for remedy whose cost bankrupts the best of intentions ("No
good intention goes unpunished" is a legacy in activist
Berkeley, as well as with UN agencies), too few local
specialists for the labyrinth of special problems (steep
slopes in the sojourn of regional educational opportunity;
and the foreign students in the U.S. choose to stay), etc.,
etc. 

At the level of an actual town, one can make sense of the
prospects and challenges of leadership, and one might hope
that social theory and practice contributes to the
formation and sustainability of progressive, realistic
groups that have leading effects across electoral eras. 

It's pragmatic to wonder the extent to which learning from
local progress can inform understanding of international
relations---working from "Think globally, Act locally" to
thinking about what is *really* involved in the "locality"
of acting globally. 

The 24-hour news cycle is a global locality. The issue of
"Iraq" has been a great example of how global
communications have enforced a learning curve on Texas
conservatism. It has dimensions such as that European
undermining of the diplomatic threat of force against Iraq
undermines Colin Powell's diplomatic position relative to
Donald Rumsfeld's military position in the interpretation
of "Iraq" by Bush's inner circle of advisors. Like in 2000,
when a vote for Nader was effectively a vote for Bush,
going "French" is a feather in the cap of unilateral
militarism. The global locality works this way. Vanity
fair, gangs, bright minds vs dim minds, reliable
institutions of diplomacy vs political adventurisms of
every stripe. Daily planet...small world...six degrees of
separation in the netweave of social evolution. 

Yet,  any short depiction of anything important looks
either facile or obscure. So, my point here, I guess, is
that thinking works by analogy as much as anything, such
that discourse—a means of discovery, prior to being a means
of justification--faces issues of modeling prior to issues
of validation. Conceptualizing the issues in a problem
complex is a primary purpose of what is called "theory" in
the humanities (and I would understand the human sciences
with emphasis on the "human"), and discourse about
conceptualization seems to me a primary purpose of
philosophy. 

So a path from lifeworld to philosophy goes through the
range of levels and kinds of conceptual modeling by which
we render our understandings and, conversely, by which
philosophy appropriates itself to life. Habermas is perhaps
the best example of this kind of work for me, as he has
mastered so many idioms.

Well, I'm stopping here arbitrarily.

Best regards to all (especially Ralph),

Gary






     --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---