Seher asked:

Suppose that you perform an action, and you feel as though you did it as a matter of free choice. Does that feeling of freedom really mean that the action is free?

Suppose that God knows that at midnight tonight you’ll eat a banana. Does that mean your action is determined?

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

I don’t need to “suppose” that I have free choice in what I decide upon — I have it, as long as it can be done and is legal. The word “suppose” in fact indicates a presumption on your part that there is a something questionable about it. But the plain reality is, that free choice is the foundation of life across all life forms, inasmuch as they/we would all be extinct without it.

That’s a challenge for you to think through; and when you have properly attended to all the pros and cons (especially in regard to evolution), you will see the necessity of free choice operating throughout.

Accordingly the introduction of God changes nothing, because you assume that the idea of God is self-explanatory and save yourself the indispensable specification of which/whose God you have in mind. So I will guess that your notion is of an omniscient biblical God watching me eating a banana at 12 midnight on March 29, 2019. Now you want to know if my act determined? Well, that’s pretty simple. If God willed it, then it is. If God did not will it, then I must have; but obviously one of us did, the difference being atemporal there, temporal here, as well as fore-ordained there and spontaneous here. In the former case that moment is etched into the Almighty’s memory as a content that must accompany him from the beginning to the end of time. Frightfully boring scenario — especially if you now multiply it by all the zillions of other determined actions of mice and men throughout eternity.

I hope you can see the absurdity of the situation: If everything that happens in the living realm is atemporally determined, then God is trapped as if by iron chains in his own cage of determinism. Does this make any sense to you? Or would you be tempted to acknowledge it as an oxymoron, mere playing with words, to which no denotation, nor a half-way acceptable connotation can be affixed?

Tentia asked:

I am currently thinking about the will and striving. The will sometimes strives to negate, obtain, or create, or something of the sort.

In the event that this is the result of alienation (from the will and its object), the willing subject might encounter obsctruction or refutation from obtaining the object of striving.

The will might enter into a process of hoping for reconciliation. This process might include work. But nonetheless reconciliation is deferred.

Do you or any philosophers have anything relevant to say about this process of willing, striving, obstruction, hope and deferral? For example, that the object of the will might be an illusion, and the consequences for the willing subject, if letting go of such an illusion does not result in a reconciliation but rather nihilism?

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

Willing and striving are the signatures of living creatures. Necessarily they imply an object or objective. For example food or procreation or mere survival. Obstructions of various kinds are par for the course. Then the creature will certainly feel alienated, frustrated, confused. If it is a human creature, imbued with human-type intelligence, reconciliation is certainly one option of remedying the disjuncture. But if the object or objective was an illusion, the end result need not be nihilism. You have the option of unmasking the illusion as what it is, or you can simply live with it (as e.g. with optical illusions).

However, nihilism is a specific type of ‘rebellion’, usually aimed at specific illusions at large in the social order with which the subject cannot be reconciled — mostly religious, moral, traditional and conventional attitudes which the subject has ‘seen through’, therefore opposes them either actively or passively. Another, somewhat less aggressive term for this type of alienation is ‘disillusionment’.

It became a fairly widespread intellectual issue in the 19th to middle 20th century, when Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Camus expended considerable philosophical ammunition on it. Kierkegaard was another writer of this inclination, that was later called ‘existentialism’; also the poet Baudelaire and the novelists Turgenyev (Fathers and Sons), Dostoyevsky (The Devils) and Kafka. Freud contributed an essay entitled The Future of an Illusion, and in my generation, the litterateur George Steiner published In Bluebeard’s Castle, which is short enough to read in a day. You will find a great deal of relevance to your question in these texts.

Eric asked:

I get a little tired of scientists saying ‘everything is composed of atoms.’ Surely thoughts and feeling are not composed of atoms. I am thinking of this in the context of ‘qualia’ — obviously mental phenomena are acompanied by changes in the brain — but that is not the same thing as the subjective experience — although physicalists wd say it is!

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

I commend your healthy scepticism. For a start, it is palpably wrong to say that everything is made of atoms, since atoms themselves are composed of parts. Therefore the claim is correct only for the chemical realm. But thoughts and feelings are not part of chemistry; and you are perfectly in the right being tired of hearing physicalist assertions — they have not a shred of evidence to support them. For anyone to declare qualia, emotions, desires, will power etc. to be based in chemistry is nothing other than an expression of their personal opinion and no higher in probability terms than your complaint.

Indeed the correlation of certain brain sectors with subjective states and performances succeeds in merely pushing the argument up one level, i.e. that the brain sectors in question each have responsibility for the generation of subjective assessments in light of their particular competence, such as dealing with danger or engendering a cognitive performance. Logically, then, subjectivity begins there; and the outcome of their activity is to entangle your consciousness in the decision-making process or in the cognitive apprehension of some situation. Does this remind you of Dennett’s Consciousness Explained? Well, Dennett himself put the question at the end of his book, whether he succeeded only in explaining consciousness away? I think the aye’s have it.

So you can see that this line of argumentation goes round in circles and knows not where to stop. Our difficulty with subjective states is, that not only humans, but many species of animals are demonstrably equipped with mental capacity. Whereas not a single item of chemistry or physics has ever been shown to exhibit signs of animation.

I am sceptical that this dividing line can be transgressed by future scientific discoveries. We know intuitively and intellectually that there is a dividing line between life and non-life, in the sense that they are incompatible states of being. This is shown by the fact that all life forms make use of physical substrates for their own benefit, whereas nothing in the physical realm is demonstrable as an entelechy, i.e. a potential bearer of life. Indeed the triumph of science rests solidly on the demonstration that the entire subatomic realm, from neutrons to Higgs boson, is utterly devoid of life. In sum, I can’t see any plausible argument whatever, anywhere, for the physicalist doctrine of mental states, subjectivity, qualia or intentionality.

Ruth asked:

What do you philosophers think about the Brexit crisis? Do you have anything useful to contribute? Any advice to Theresa May?

Answer by Geoffrey Klempner

Let’s get clear about the ground rules for the kind of answer you are looking for. A philosopher needn’t be (and usually isn’t) an expert on economic theory or political theory. What we are good at is seeing connections and relationships, and drawing logical conclusions. And we have good memories, too.

I remember the early 70s (I am that old) when German industry and business was booming and the UK was dubbed “the sick man of Europe”. It was a situation that called for drastic action. Under Margaret Thatcher union power was curbed, and the UK shed a large proportion of its manufacturing industry. Between then and now, the service industry and financial sector grew to take up the slack, which is why the UK economy is currently in a relatively healthy state.

Was that the best possible outcome? Those who remember the misery that many endured during the Thatcher years will say, No, but then they owe a plausible story about what real alternatives there were available at the time.

More history, military this time. In 1956, the UK went through the Suez disaster, then 1982 celebrated the Falklands triumph (a disaster for the Argentinians, of course). In both cases, a calculation was made and risks taken. In war, much hangs on relatively small incidents and events. The attempt to retake the Suez Canal could have succeeded with a more credible plan, and if a few more French Exocet missiles had hit their target, the Falklands conflict would have ended in British national humiliation.

Maybe you can see where this is going. The battle to save Brexit is a war. In the case of no deal, trade and business will be hit and some businesses will be hit very hard. Those who have much to lose will naturally complain loudly and lobby for support. But it was always going to be that way. When Churchill took over as British Prime Minister at the beginning of the Second World War there were many who, remembering the terrible loss of life in the Great War wanted to make peace with Hitler, and they had arguments that were just as persuasive as the arguments that Remainers give for revoking Article 50. (I am not comparing them in any other way.)

If you can’t take injuries and losses, you can never win any conflict. The important thing is making an accurate assessment of what you stand to gain. The Leavers have made a strong case that in the place of businesses that fail, other businesses will start up and thrive. If you run a company, you know that there are nearly always alternative markets and alternative sources of supply — if you are willing and able to adjust your business plan. The businesses that can’t adjust will be replaced, and that is as it should be.

You do not need to be an expert to perceive that in UK politics today, cowardice rules. The blamers and complainers get the most TV and radio air time. Meanwhile, watching the antics of the British Parliament day after day, there must be many in the UK who have come to the realization that any vote, in a Parliamentary Election or a Referendum is a wasted vote.

US President Donald Trump has expressed the opinion that he would have handled the Brexit negotiations better than the British have done. I am tempted to conclude that he may be right. But it is not too late. Theresa May has given more than a hint that if her deal with the EU fails as it is now very likely to do, the UK will leave without a deal. There is no logical reason why that course of action should lead to disaster. Along with many others, I believe that we have as much to gain as we have to lose from making a clean break.

Huzeyfe asked:

I came across this in Hannah Arendt’s book: Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy:

“Thinking, as Kant agreed with Plato, is the silent dialogue of myself with myself, and that thinking is a ‘solitary business’ (as Hegel once remarked) is one of the few things on which all thinkers were agreed. Also, it is of course by no means true that you need or can even hear the company of others when you happen to be busy thinking; yet, unless you can somehow communicate and expose to the test of others, either orally or in writing, whatever you may have found out when you were alone, this faculty exerted in solitude will disappear.”

I could not quite understand what is signaled in the last sentence. What does “this faculty exerted in solitude will disappear”? Can you elaborate? Also, can you add your thoughts on this thinking?

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

Something might have got lost in translation. Try this instead:

“When you are deep in thought, you might hardly take notice of anyone in your company; you might ignore them when they speak, perhaps not even hearing them. On the other hand, if you cannot communicate your solitary thoughts to them, either in speech or in writing, and thereby give others the opportunity to weigh them up, the exertion of your faculties in those moments of solitude will vanish when you are finished, as if it never happened.”

I think the plain meaning of this passage is that thinking is a solitary activity; two people thinking are also solitary, even sitting side by side, each with their own thoughts. But the thinking faculty is helpless in bringing thoughts “into the world”, sooner or later you must speak. Then they will not vanish without a trace; they will be considered by others. Then they will either make their way or be sidelined. But communication is the key for any thoughts that do not wish to be soliloquistic.

Xavier asked:

I’m trying to explain to my friends about things existing. I gave them this question: if you place a pencil in an opaque box and close the box, does the pencil exist? They say yes and I ask how do they know and why. All they come up with is “because I put the pencil in there”. I’m having a tough time explaining why the pencil ceases to exist once you close the box.

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

I’m not surprised that you’re having a “tough time”. You’ve done nothing other than hide the object. Meanwhile everyone of your interlocutors is in a position to demonstrate that your assertion of non-existence is nonsense.

All I can say by way of slight remedy is this: That someone coming into the room later and seeing the box, would not know there is a pencil in it. But again this says nothing about existence or non-existence. I think you’ve muddled up a dictum you might have read somewhere, that certifying existence is a privilege of living creatures. This has no relevance to your context, and especially so when plain concealment is your only argument. In short, you have to do better than this!