Jim asked:

We have to write an essay on the following:

Please write an argumentative essay in response to the following. Locke: whatever has the consciousness of present and past actions is the same person to whom they both belong (278). Explain and evaluate Locke’s claim.

I don’t really understand Locke’s statement. I thought it might mean that if for example I got drunk last night then today I learned from my actions last night and am therefore a different person that I was yesterday. I really need help. I just don’t really understand how I would approach writing this essay. Thanks!

Answer by Craig Skinner

The quote ‘Whatever has the consciousness of present and past actions is the same person to whom they both belong’ is from 27.16 of the famous chapter (27) ‘Of Identity and Diversity’ in Book 2 of Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (2nd edition 1694).

Locke is not concerned here with learning from our actions or with moral improvement. He is concerned with what makes it the case that somebody is the same individual over a period of time. He is especially concerned with fair praise and blame, both in this life and at the Last Judgment, what he calls ‘forensic’ issues. Obviously praise/blame can only be fair if the individual being rewarded/punished is the SAME individual as the one who did the good/bad deeds.

So, what makes me the same individual as yesterday or last year?. Locke distinguishes between being the same Human Being (‘same Man’ as he puts it) and being the same Person. Neither depends on being the same Substance.

Being the same Human Being, like being the same plant or animal, is to be the same living, organized body, to be ‘the same continued life communicated to different particles of matter, as they happen successively to be united to that organized living body’ (27.8). In short I am the same Man as twenty years ago even although none of the atoms constituting me then is part of me now.

Being the same Person is to have continuity of consciousness – one presently remembers one’s past actions. Locke’s famous definition of ‘Person’ (27.9):

‘A thinking intelligent being, that has reason, and can consider it self as it self, the same thinking thing, in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking’

So Personal identity is not identity of Substance (one could swap one’s material body, or, Locke feels, one’s immaterial soul, without loss of identity) but identity (continuity) of consciousness.

Being the same Human Being and being the same Person needn’t always go together. Locke describes an early mind swap thought experiment. The mind of the Prince enters the body of the sleeping Cobbler (whose own mind departs). The individual who later wakes up is the same Man as was (the Cobbler), but a different Person (the Prince).

You can think of yourself as essentially a Human Being or as essentially a Person.

If you are essentially a Human Being, then you were once a zygote, then an embryo, a foetus, a child, an adult, and may sadly sustain brain damage and pass into a persistent vegetative state (PVS). If you were to get a brain transplant, you would be the same Man with a new brain, even though this brain thought as it did in the donor, just as a transplanted heart pumps blood as it did in the donor, so that the brain thinks it IS the person of the donor in a new body, like the Prince waking up in the Cobbler’s body.

If on the other hand you are essentially a Person, then YOU were never a zygote or an embryo, nor can you be a human in a PVS, for none of these has consciousness, far less continuity of consciousness. If your brain were transplanted into a new body you would think of this as YOU getting a new body rather than somebody else getting a new brain.

Each view has its counterintuitive aspect.

The Human Being view means that identity goes with the body not the brain in brain transplant/downloading thought experiments. On the other hand, the individual in the PVS is still YOU (as relatives mostly think, few take the Person view and think you no longer exist).

The Person view means that identity goes with the brain/mind in transplant/downloads. On the other hand YOU were never an embryo or a foetus, and the individual in the PVS is not YOU.

So, in short, the quotation we started with states the psychological, or memory, or continuity of consciousness criterion for being the same Person, namely you are conscious of your present actions and recall yourself doing past actions.

So in your ‘argumentative essay’, you need to:

1. Explain that the Locke quote states the condition for persisting Personal identity.

2. Distinguish between identity conditions for a Person and for a Human Being (‘Man’ in Locke’s text). Quote Locke’s definitions of (sameness) of Man and of Person.

3. Evaluate the pros and cons of Locke’s memory criterion for Personal identity.

Pros:

(a) intuitive, corresponds to the common notion of a ‘self’

(b) allows fair dealing by the law and by God at the Last Judgment. At the latter (so the story goes) you may not even have a body, but are the same Person who did the deeds when embodied, and can remember doing them.

Cons:

(a) what about discontinuities in consciousness (i) sleeping (ii) memory for distant events lost – Thomas Reid’s example of the Old General who remembers nothing of his boyhood – according to Locke the old man is not the same person as the boy, but he clearly is. On the other

hand is it fair to punish a person for something they can’t remember doing (she was mad, or drunk at the time; or is now demented). Locke thinks it is sometimes not fair.

(b) a big one this, the definition is circular, begging the question. How do you know that the memories you have are genuine rather than false or quasi- memories ? To suppose they are YOUR memories presupposes there is a YOU. Maybe we can say there must be an appropriate causal relation between me now and the memories I have.

(c) problems with split-brain/fission cases – which of the beings, both of which are psychologically continuous with you, IS you. Maybe neither, and what matters is survival (continuity of consciousness) not identity.

Finally, do read Locke’s Chapter 27 (or at least 27.8 to 27.29), it is one of the most important, influential, and still relevant parts of his philosophy.

Craig Skinner at PhiloSophos.com

 

Dale asked:

A common Judaeo-Christian belief is that God is omnipotent and omniscient. Another common Judaeo-Christian belief is in mankind has free will. Are these two ideas mutually exclusive, or can they be reconciled? How, and why?

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

These ideas have been debated by some of the brainiest people for over 2000 years, so you’re not the first to ask.

They can be reconciled, but only on the proviso that the questioner agrees with the basic tenets. But to understand those is impossible without intensive training in theological philosophy, so this is not going to be part of my answer.

There are other ways, however.

The first is the skeptical perspective which demands of the claimant to explain the exact meaning of the words ‘omnipotence’ and ‘freedom’. It is practically impossible to do this: First, because we humans have no experience of ‘omni-anything’ because of our limited scope for exact knowledge of something as vast as the universe. Second, because ‘freedom’ is a social term and relies on consensus, which cannot be achieved to everyone’s satisfaction. Therefore ‘freedom’ is a rubbery term because you cannot make a list of all the possible constraints on freedom, only on those which operate in your particular society and the habitat in which you may live. Similarly ‘omnipotence’ is a term that relies on doctrine because we cannot make a list of all the powers that have to be included in it.

Accordingly both of these words are born from language use and share in the limitations of what humans can express. Which means they are conventional terms. We agree (very roughly) on what their meaning is supposed be and put these into a dictionary. That does not stop debate on them.

Another way would be to limit the meaning of both words to ‘practical’ usage. Take some monkeys and leopards out of the zoo and release them into the wild – into a congenial habitat of (say) a thousands square miles which conforms to the habitat in which they evolved. Then put a fence around the habitat. You have now played God with them. You have given them their ‘freedom’ while curtailing it at the same time to certain limits. They can now work out their own survival strategies and live happily ever after. You reserve the right to observe them and ‘cull’ a disobedient individual every so often if you choose.
The animal might well come to the belief (if they could think) that you make their food grow and frighten them with lightning and earthquakes. They might end up praying to you, imploring you to look after them.

This, more or less, is what all theological arguments amount to.

From a strictly logical point of view, of course, the terms ‘omnipotence of One’ and ‘freedom of the many who are subject to the One’ cannot be resolved. They are children of human naivety and the constraints on language, the same kind as the many paradoxes we can create with language.

Write on a card, ‘The statement on the other side is false’. Write on the back, ‘The statement on the other is true.’ That’s your answer.

Jürgen Lawrenz at PhiloSophos.com

 

Warisa asked:

Why should we be happy instead of depressed or sad? We live in a horrible society don’t we?

Answer by Geoffrey Klempner

This is a good question. I take it that what you mean is, what right have we got to be happy, given that the world is in such a bad state, which is a question about justification and our sense of right and wrong, rather than the question why, as a matter of fact, do human beings manage to remain cheerful in depressing circumstances.

However, as a lead in I will start with this second question. As a matter of empirical psychology, it has been observed that human beings need to keep a moderately upbeat mind-set in order to function at their best. This claim is borne out by most people’s everyday experience. That long list of chores that you had planned to do today, is much harder to tackle if you are feeling down and depressed.

This claim can be contested. I was having a conversation with one of my students this morning about a view which is also widely accepted, without any sense of inconsistency, that for artists, writers and poets, the feeling of melancholia is an important spur to creativity. There is painful tension in the artist’s life which their creative activity seeks to resolve.

Rather than try to solve this conundrum, let’s just assume that moods, both positive and negative, can have a useful function. Human beings are complex creatures. It is better to experience the highs and the lows, rather than only the highs or only the lows. That’s not a philosophical claim, just an empirical one. I don’t even know if it is necessarily true, at all times. It seems plausible.

Your question is different. Philosophers, psychologists etc. tell us that we ought to strive to be happy. Even the great philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote a book about it (‘The Conquest of Happiness’). But what right do we have to be happy, when there is so much misery around?

Take a concrete example. Let’s say a new movie has come out describing the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 where up to a million innocent people were slaughtered in a frenzy of violence that lasted 100 days. The movie has received tremendous critical acclaim. You go with your best friend. Emerging, shattered, two hours later, you are distressed by your friend’s reaction, ‘Wow, what a fantastic film! I really enjoyed that. Where shall we go to eat?’

There is something inappropriate about your friend’s reaction. You would have to have a skin as thick as a rhinoceros to react in that way. How did you ever get to be friends in the first place?

I want to put the case for happiness. We ought to try to be cheerful and keep our spirits up, because we do live together in society. Being cheerful doesn’t just benefit yourself, it benefits others as well; directly, because as a matter of empirical fact mood is infectious, and also indirectly for the reason I gave above: that it makes you more effective in carrying out necessary tasks that benefit others as well as yourself.

If we ought to strive to be happy, then it follows a fortiori (from the stronger premiss) that we have the right to be happy.

As the example of the Rwandan movie shows, reactions can be more or less appropriate in the circumstances. As a volunteer with refugees you hear a harrowing tale of persecution and torture first hand, with tears in your eyes. That’s an appropriate reaction. But that human response is fully consistent with maintaining (or struggling to maintain, given the adverse circumstances) a cheerful and positive mind-set.

The problem with the argument I have just given, is that it assumes that things aren’t too bad. There are still ‘reasons to be cheerful’ (as the rocker Ian Durie observed). How bad would things have to be, before, any feeling or expression of cheerfulness was felt to be a travesty? Let’s not debate about exactly how bad things really are in society today. The point is that the argument that we have the right to be happy, if valid, ought to be valid in any circumstances, not only in those that are favourable. – I don’t have a ready answer to that.

http://www.philosophypathways.com/vita.html

 

Lluther asked:

Dear Philosophers:

The only book on Hegel I have browsed that made any sense to me is ‘Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition’. Could it be that by ‘Geist’ Hegel was playing on German Geist = Holy Ghost == God. Therefore Phenomenology of Geist is really Phenomenology of God, a risky title in Mitteleuropa in early 19th Century.

Answer by Martin Jenkins

Hegel is interpreted in many ways. For some, he is a Christian thinker who’s writings offer a superior understanding of the Trinity and Incarnation. For others he is proffering a pan-psychism where the universe itself has consciousness. In either, there is a common theme of unification, of the reconciliation of subjective human thought with higher, objective thought.

Collections of essays written by the young Hegel in the years 1796-1800 were first published in 1907. Entitled Hegel’s Theological Writings, themes emerge which are central to his later writings. Themes such as the relation between the finite and infinite, the overcoming of alienation, estrangement and the reconciliation of oppositions.

These themes are present in works such as the Phenomenology of Spirit. Finite consciousness becomes aware of itself [for-itself] in self consciousness. It further finds categories of thought not only within itself but within the world/universe itself. Thought is in and for itself: consciousness reflects upon the world. In doing so, it unites with and thereby reconciles itself with the rational structure of the world. This marks the Absolute Idea. The Phenomenology is a history of Human consciousness moving towards this Absolute end.

If Reason/ Ratio/ Thought is in the world, the reconciliation of human consciousness with this objective Reason etc, could be read as the reconciliation of finite thought with infinite thought. Namely, the reconciliation of humanity and the Mind of God. Hegel makes reference to this view in his writings. However, it would be a radically different conception of God to that held by traditional, orthodox theology. It would be in the direction of pantheism or deism.

The ‘personal God’ to whom one prays would perhaps, be classed by Hegel as pertaining to figurative, representational thinking. Understanding tries to systematise the ideas behind the figurative into Theology/Metaphysics. One of the main themes in Hegel’s thinking is that the Understanding is limited to the principles of traditional logic such as non-contradiction, identity and excluded middle. So Understanding cannot deal with the Doctrine of the Trinity for example. Logically, the ‘three in one’ is a contradiction. Hegel believes he has superseded such limitations with his Speculative Reason – Dialectic. This highlights the logical categories, connections and historic influences underlying both the Understanding and the Figurative. Hence instead of the fixed, immutable categories of Theology, there would be a process Theology that explains the underlying movement of thought and how it is influenced by social/historic factors.

I think Hegel’s conception of God would, rather like that held by Spinoza two hundred years previously, be judged too radical by orthodox Theology. Most people still prefer, as perhaps, they would in the Nineteenth century, the personal conception of God which Hegel labels as Figurative. [?] Hegel’s approach is perhaps, developed by Ludwig Feuerbach in his Essence of Christianity. Here, Feuerbach concluded that the underlying figurative representations of existing Christian religion were symptoms of human alienation. Alienation could be overcome and humanity reconciled with itself again, if the qualities attributed to and objectified in God, could be ‘returned’ to Human beings themselves. In the place of such alienation would be a humanistic religion based on human solidarity.

Martin Jenkins received the ISFP Fellowship for his dissertation ‘Aristocratic Radicalism or Anarchy? An Examination of Nietzsche’s Doctrine of Will to Power’. He is a Pathways Mentor.

 

Brian asked:

I’m bringing Bertie’s teapot to earth and placing it on a table. If eight strangers sit around it with pencils and sketchpads and each produces a drawing which, though different from the others because of the angle of view, is consistent with the existence of a teapot created by known human technology, why is this not proof of the physical existence of the teapot?

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

I don’t know Bertie; I suppose he is your favourite green Martian. But even if I got this wrong, if he brings an object with him, the situation is clear cut (in short: we are not proposing a Matrix-type illusion or virtual reality, but I’ll discuss this too).

The drawing is prima facie proof that the teapots exists. Eight normally sensitive people with good rendering skills doing it independently of each other leave you no choice but to accept their testimony.

Even more so if you fill the pot with tea and they drink.

All life forms on earth survive on the strength of this sense certainty. Many don’t even have nerves, but still survive because they have other means of ‘proving’ the existence of food and foes, heat and cold etc.

If you programmed a computer to render the teapot it would produce a similar drawing as one of the draughtsmen. If you throw the teapot at the monitor screen you’ll break it.

So this establishes beyond all reasonable doubt the existence of the teapot.

Your question plays on certain dubious theories that are constantly bandied about in the literature of perception which presuppose, without good evidence or sufficient reason, that what we see may not be ‘real’, that all perceptions are manufactured by the brain and that we live in a permanent state of illusion. The thesis of the brain in a vat is of that ilk, and so is the presupposition behind the movie ‘Matrix’.

I don’t wish to sound dogmatic, but the fact is that we don’t have an adequate theory of life, nor an adequate theory of the mind. While this state of affairs persists, anyone can step forward with any conjectures they like. The brain in the vat theory sounds like radical nonsense to me, but you need not take my word for it. Ask any theorist who believes in it to give you a comprehensive account. But you won’t get one, and that’s the real problem.

To return: The proposition that all our perceptions are kinds of illusions is as threadbare of sense as they come. If all humans see objects the same way, then the word ‘illusion’ is meaningless and should be removed from the dictionary. But this is unnecessary because the use of that word in such a context is simply misuse.

What a bat can see may not be ‘real’ in the same way as what you see, but the bat can eat it and so can you, and you will both survive. By eating you prove the existence of whatever food you digest.

It is a different matter if you are asked to give proof of what this food or, in your example, the teapot ‘really’ looks like, independent of the way the draughtsmen and the computer draw it. This is because the teapot produces ‘phenomena’ which your senses pick up. But this is an insignificant problem – even though it seems to bother a lot of people. The point is simply that your eyes can hardly pick up the pot bodily. They can only perceive the radiation reflected from it and manufacture an internal (2D) representation. But you can pick up the pot with your hands (touch); and if you smash it, you can hear the sound.

You see from this that nature has equipped us to perceive RELEVANT information from the teapot to ensure that we perceive something that actually exists, has a certain form, occupies a certain space etc. What is NOT relevant to us for the time being, is its atomic constitution. But we can ascertain this as well, with appropriate technology.

So if you wish to cast doubt on the reliability of our senses to discern real objects, you have to find pseudo-objects. E.g. illusions, hallucinations, virtual reality etc. But these are categorically different kinds of perceptions than those which help you and every creature on earth to orient themselves, navigate and survive.

In sum: Our perceptions are exceptionally reliable. You will find on closer scrutiny of the literature that writers often confuse what your eyes see and your ears hear, with what you judge the phenomenon to have been. If you see the teapot in bad light, you might judge that you are seeing a miniature UFO. But don’t blame your eyes for this! In Shakespeare’s day people used to ‘see’ ghosts. How come we don’t see them any more? It is because ‘seeing’ is a cooperative construct of your eyes and brain; and what your brain makes you ‘see’ can well be a ghost, if you are conditioned to seeing certain phenomena as ghosts. This is what illusionists, virtual realists and other entertainers of this kind exploit. All you need to know about this, however, is that these are peripheral, exceptional cases. If we really were forced to live by them, we would soon be extinct!

Jürgen Lawrenz at PhiloSophos.com

 

Ramala asked:

What should be the role of philosophy in the 21st century? As we know, it is the era of technology. People have been moved so much by the technological breakthrough, a person with philosophical background naturally gets embarrassed in proving the relevance of his subject in the present day world. What should be the best way to stand with his subject?

Answer by Peter Jones

To me the real issue is not that this is a technological age, we could say that it has been one since Roman times, but that it is an age of quantum mechanics, relativity, dark matter, the Higgs field, string theory and so forth. Philosophy has failed utterly to keep up with these weird developments and now finds itself becoming increasingly irrelevant to the sciences. The attitude of physicists to philosophy is often straightforwardly dismissive. It is, as you say, embarrassing. More worryingly, it means that these days many professional physicist are hopeless philosophers, not feeling the need to investigate it or even seeing the point.

So perhaps the best thing 21st century philosophers could do is to get down to work to bring it up to date. I think there are signs that this is beginning to happen, but, as you point out, there is clearly a long way to go. As to how this is to be done everyone will have their own opinions. While it languishes in the 19th century, however, it will remain irrelevant and difficult to defend.

These comments would not apply to the philosophy of the East, which is a whole different ball game, but I’m guessing you did not mean to ask about that.

In the end there seems to be only one stand to take as a philosopher in any time or place, which is to strive diligently to understand how the world works.

Peter Jones received the ISFP Fellowship for his dissertation ‘From Metaphysics to Mysticism: Exploring the Case for a Neutral Metaphysical Position’