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PollWhat should the government do about ailing financial institutions? Nothing, except to back off and get out—as any Objectivist knows, intervention is treating the disease with the disease 85% Intervene judiciously—enough to avert a catastrophe that is otherwise imminent 4% Intervene massively—as it's doing 2% Nationalize the whole economy and be done with it. Bring on the USSA! 2% Something else (specify) 7% Total votes: 55
 Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
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Prufrock and Henley, Object and Subject Submitted by NickOtani on Sun, 2007-09-02 04:05.
Prufrock, the main character in T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (2364), is about as different as can be from the narrator of William Ernest Henley’s poem, “Invictus” (1747). One is an object, subjugated to others who define him, and the other is a subject, someone who will define himself in defiance of forces that seek to subjugate him. Prufrock is obviously an intelligent and sensitive man who perceives cat images in yellow fog, yet he is so concerned about preparing a face to meet the faces that he meets that he is afraid to disturb the universe with his own wishes. He lives to please those other faces that will never appreciate what he perceives. Contrast Prufrock with someone who is “the master of his fate” and “the captain of his soul” (1747). The narrator in William Ernest Henley’s poem, “Invictus,” is not afraid. “Under the bludgeoning of chance,” Henley’s character’s “…head is bloody but unbowed” (1747). Prufrock’s greatest fear is that he will be embarrassed, that some woman will reject his advances and people will look at him and think him foolish. He is willing to be miserable to avoid that. Henley’s character, whom is Henley, himself, is suffering from the real pain of tuberculosis, yet he shuns the shade. “It matters not,” to him, “how straight the gait, how charged with punishments the scroll” (1747), Henley’s character will not be conquered. The Mermaids may sing to Henley’s character but certainly not to Prufrock, and that is Prufrock’s point. Eliot thought Prufrock was an example of too much "self-consciousness." He is an observer of the outside from inside himself, communicating only with himself, whom he does not respect. "In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo"(2364), is a chorus which means he sees people discussing the trivia of the day, perhaps some granduer which he will never know. Prufrock observes this as an outsider. He is not involved in those conversations. One of the people he observes is a beautiful woman he contemplates confronting. She was probably kind to him a few times, and he is in love with her. Should he tell her? What if she were just being polite with him? What if she rejects him? Would it be worth it? An allusion to Shakespeare is that Prufrock is no Prince Hamlet. He is no hero. He is just an invisible bureaucrat, part of the furnishings. It is not his place to steal the moment, to take center stage. He is uncomfortable when attention is turned on him. Even his attire is asserted by a simple pin, not long hair or a beard, not an expensive watch or belt buckle. He is conservative. He is concerned with how people think of him, too much so. He lives so as not to offend them, even at the expense of sacrificing his own chance to have a life. Poor, pathetic, self-hating Prufrock. He sees the mermaids singing, each to each. But he knows they'll never sing to him. Eliot may have empathized with writers of the Romantic Era, (1785-1830), which was marked by a desire to leave the comfortable boundaries of reason and logic and venture out, to give feeling the lead. That's what, Barbauld, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats did. In "All Religions Are One," Blake concludes: "If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, & stand still unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again"(41). In "There Is No Natural Religion," he ends with, "He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only. Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is" (42). So, remaining within the boundaries of reason, to Blake and others of the Romantic era was limiting, like seeing only one’s self. One has to break out of these boundaries to keep from standing still. There is something about this will to be free, to venture out away from that which is comfortable, that is nostalgic for both Eliot and Henley. The Victorian Era, (1830-1901), concerned itself with developing individualism for the greater good. There was more social consciousness, concern for individual within society, than in the Romantic period. Mill's brand of Utilitarianism was dominant, and Darwin came along. Science made advances. It was the period when Henley lived and wrote "Invictus." Even Henley wrote patriotic poetry praising England, but his "Invictus" is a strong declaration of independence which does not necessarily focus on the greater good of society. If modernity can be characterized by a fragmentation of the systematic philosophies like those of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, and a search for foundations, then it was around even in Victorian times, when thinking was becoming more scientific and less theistic. Henley asserts the independence of the individual, harkening back to the Romantism of Blake, Wordsworth, and Keats and forward to Yeats and Existentialists like Sartre. It’s the Existentialists like Sartre who contend that freedom is important and existence precedes essence (Sartre, 1943). Henely is proudly proclaiming his existence and his self-determined essence. The Modernist Era, beginning around 1910, returned to this romantic interest in escaping boundaries and developing the individual beyond society's standards. Philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and, eventually, Sartre, rebelled against the systematic philosophies of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, those who kept us controlled and objectified, living for others within a structure which defined us. These unsystematic philosophers brought into focus the issue of “subject verses object,” and then Eliot use the innovative technique of “stream of consciousness” to present the objectified personae of Prufrock. Other writers presented their own objectified characters, like the daughters in Katherine Mansfield's "The Daughters of the Late Colonel" ( 2409) and the models in Jean Rhys's "Mannequin" (2438) . We can, however, as the Existentialists do, think of the "self" as an unending project. We are not fixed and completely defined, like objects, like Prufrocks. We are constantly in a process of becoming, and we never get to the end. I can place myself above myself and observe myself, and I can place myself above those two selves and observe them. I can then place myself above those three selves and so on into infinity. I can never reach my last self. It's like looking into a mirror facing another mirror. If Prufrock would have seen himself in this way, rather than as an object already defined by others, perhaps he would have taken action to define himself for himself. He was, after all, himself another subject just as the subjects who objectified him. Such is the nature of the subject which makes objects of everything other than itself. Objects are those fixed things which are complete, defined, things we observe and classify. They exist in our light. We just can't turn our eyes back in on themselves to completely observe and classify ourselves. So, we remain incomplete. We can't ever get to the end of our "weness." This gives us the freedom, though, to continue working on ourselves, on our natures. Rather than having to settle for our object status, as Prufrock did, we can be subjects who work on ourselves. The answer to the problems of being an object, a thing in itself, is Henley's assertion of his self, the individual who is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul. We can choose our own projects and create our reasons for living. We can give our lives meaning. We exist first and then work on our essences. Out of the night that covers me, As bad as things are, and they are pretty bad, Henley asserts that his soul is unconquerable. Tuberculosis covered Henley, but oppression or lack of pre-existing standards conquers many. In the fell clutch of circumstance It is chance and circumstance, things uncontrollable that bloody his head, yet his head is unbowed, unconquered. We can’t control what happens to us, but we can control our reaction to those things. We do not need to see ourselves as victims, as Prufrock did. We can act on existence and defy that which seeks to objectify us. Beyond this place of wrath and tears The shade is the comfort and security of boundaries, yet it is a horror. The Romantics considered those comfortable boundaries unproductive. One ought to not be afraid to venture beyond them. It matters not how strait the gate, Henley is not afraid about what people will think or say. He does not feel trapped by pre-existing standards and boundaries nor does he despair that such boundaries are not there. Rather than following a path already forged and imposed upon him, he is forging his own path. He is doing what Prufrock would like to do. Works Cited Eliot, T.S. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” The Norton Anthology, English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2000. 2364 Henley, William Ernest. “Invictus,” The Norton Anthology, English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2000. 1747. Mansfield, Katherine. “The Daughters of the Late Colonel," The Norton Anthology, English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2000. 2409. Rhys, Jean. “Mannequin,” The Norton Anthology, English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2000. 2438. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. 1943. bis bald, Nick
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smash him in the mouth
as if you could.
Nick
Haiku for Nick #6
punishment glutton
so greedy for a fight
smash him in the mouth
and he’ll ask for seconds
Nick seeks to destroy the zero
But Jameson just won't be destroyed.
bis bald,
Nick
Nick seeks to destroy the zero
I am who I am at this exact point in time: the point before the next point (+1); the point after the last point (-1). 'Now' is the zero in the present time continuum.
A is A.
End of story.
can be found here. I just
can be found here. I just don't know what you are saying or trying to prove in the quote. Man's potential is part of his nature. I am not a philosopher and have had no formal training in it so there is clearly some context I'm missing. You don't need jargon to understand philosophy, IMHO. I'll ask the question again, at what point is a man stepping into a river a contradiction? Where is it violating the Law of Identity?
Okay, in the Alice in Objectivist Land series, Dr. K, the defense attorney, during jury selection, asked a potential juror who he was. The juror said what his name was, but Dr. K said, "No, that is what you are called, not who you are." The potential juror said, "I am a person." Dr. K said, "No, that is what you are. Who are you?" The potential juror said, "I am who I am." And Dr. K said, "No, this just goes around in a circle and doesn't answer the question of who you are." The point is, if we are all in a process of becoming, then the man is who he is not and is not who he is. He is in a process, like the river is in flux. It isn't A is A but A is in flux, like the river. It doesn't have a fixed nature which determines what it will do in every situation. Man's natue is open ended.
Do you get it?
bis bald,
Nick
Your words...
can be found here. I just don't know what you are saying or trying to prove in the quote. Man's potential is part of his nature. I am not a philosopher and have had no formal training in it so there is clearly some context I'm missing. You don't need jargon to understand philosophy, IMHO. I'll ask the question again, at what point is a man stepping into a river a contradiction? Where is it violating the Law of Identity?
Wm
Again, you leave much unrefuted.
No,it doesn't. This is a task for physicist,not philosopher.The proper philosophical task is to establish that there is existence,which is only thing that exists,that it cannot be created or transcended,that it has identity which can be identified by consciousness.To tell us what existence is that exactly what science does.But science depends on philosophy,no other way around.
Metaphysics is concerned with what is, and epistemology is concerned with how we know it. Just saying what is is and that it is self-evident is not really good philosophy. It is not something on which good science can be based. It is not much better than blind faith.
I think you know my views on altruism and egoism. Why should I repeat myself all over again?
But you are too much of a jerk to comment on my views as expressed in the essay above, the contrast between Prufrock and Henley. You don't want to concede that you agree with them. I think that is very unfriendly. It's like I said before, you disrespect me. Nothing I say will satisfy you.
bis bald,
Nick
Huh?
Nick, your speaking gobbledygook again. What do you mean a potential juror who he was? What is this stuff about a river? At what point is this man stepping into a river a contradiction?
I'm not sure what you are asking? Where did I say something about a potential juror? Please copy and past the phrases you question.
Stepping in a river refers to the analogy Heraclitus used when describing reality as in flux. One can't step twice into the same river. And, if man is also in flux, then he is what he is not and not what he is. He is in a process of becoming. The word "is" is too static to capture man's reality.
This may be gobbledygook to those who are not familiar with philosophical jargon, but it does make sense to those who understand it. I am never sure at what level I have to speak until people interact with me, but I try not to talk down to them. People may need to stretch a bit.
bis bald,
Nick
Leonid"It doesn’t tell us
Leonid
"It doesn’t tell us if existence is static or in flux. It tells us that existence is, but it doesn’t tell us what existence is. It doesn’t tell us if it is raining outside."
No,it doesn't. This is a task for physicist,not philosopher.The proper philosophical task is to establish that there is existence,which is only thing that exists,that it cannot be created or transcended,that it has identity which can be identified by consciousness.To tell us what existence is that exactly what science does.But science depends on philosophy,no other way around.
"Still, you made no comment about the strong egoism of Henley and the altruism and collectivism of Prufrock. Are you just ignoring this?"-I think you know my views on altruism and egoism. Why should I repeat myself all over again?
Gobbledygook
Nick, your speaking gobbledygook again. What do you mean a potential juror who he was? What is this stuff about a river? At what point is this man stepping into a river a contradiction?
Wm
I know you don't know what I mean.
"All the shabby construction for a naturalistic ethics is quite unnecessary for a supernaturalist."
I don't know what do you mean by that. I don't believe in supernatural. It is no such a thing.
I never said you were a supernaturalist. I was comparing what you said about the construction of existentialism in explaining freedom to what a supernaturalist would say about construction for naturalistic ethics. He or she would say it is not necessary because God tells us what is good or bad. You say the construction for explaining freedom is unnecessary because it is self-evident. Both answers are really inadequate.
All I understood that you negate axiomatic knowledge. Well,try to construct any meaningful argument without it.If you ask how do we know that there are axioms,then it is simple-from observation.If one asked "how do you validate existence",one should just point around and say-"this is existence." No other validation or innate knowledge is required.
Yes, that is Rand’s ostensive definition. She waves her arm around the in the air and says, “This is existence.” But this doesn’t get us very far. It doesn’t tell us if existence is static or in flux. It tells us that existence is, but it doesn’t tell us what existence is. It doesn’t tell us if it is raining outside.
Further, I did not negate axiomatic knowledge in my post above. I did acknowledge I exist and that objects exist. I identified myself and my fellow humans as subjects, as the things for themselves, as opposed to the objects, the things in themselves. This is part of my construction which explains free-will, the construction you negate as unnecessary because it is self-evident.
Still, you made no comment about the strong egoism of Henley and the altruism and collectivism of Prufrock. Are you just ignoring this?
Bis bald,
Nick
Leonid"All the shabby
Leonid
"All the shabby construction for a naturalistic ethics is quite unnecessary for a supernaturalist."
I don't know what do you mean by that. I don't believe in supernatural. It is no such a thing.All I understood that you negate axiomatic knowledge. Well,try to construct any meaningful argument without it.If you ask how do we know that there are axioms,then it is simple-from observation.If one asked "how do you validate existence",one should just point around and say-"this is existence." No other validation or innate knowledge is required.
Changing and contradiction
“But also, Dr. P mixed in some stuff about how Sartre said he is what he is not and is not what he is. He put this in just to make Sartre look like he is violating the law of identity, which he is, but what he means is that man is in the process of becoming. It’s like when you asked the potential juror who he was. The correct answer should have been that he was who he was not and was not who he was. He was in a process of becoming, like the river into which one cannot step twice.”
bis bald,
Nick
Changing
If something is 'always changing' then that is its nature. It is what it is, which includes what is changing about it and what is possible for it to do. "Is" may be a complicated word in language, but we aren't talking linguistics -- we are talking philosophy. Usually when someone says things like this it is the immediately followed by an equivocation. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find it in your post. Where you see 'axiomatic change', Nick, I see the Law of Identity -- things behaving as they behave -- as is their nature. For something to violate the law of identity it would not simply have to change. It is the nature of most things to change -- this is part of most entities identity. To violate the Law of Identity something would have to be both what it is and what it is not at the same time or in the same respect. Something would have to be a contradiction. Search as you might, contradictions don't exist in reality. The Law of Identity is inescapable.
Wm
from Alice in Objectivist Land, part 3:
Alice wonders if Rand and company went too far with Aristotle’s law of identity. Rather than simply using it as a procedural tool for communication and thinking, they try to use it to identify reality. If A is A, they say, it means something exists and is what it is, that it has a specific nature. Well, thinks Alice, President Clinton may have been right when he said it depends on what “is” is. This little word, and the concept of being or existence, can be very complicated. Heidegger and Sartre wrote thousands of words about it. Sometimes ‘is’ seems too static to really capture its subject or object. Perhaps ‘A’ is in the process of becoming. Perhaps reality is really always changing, like Heraclites said. We just use the law of identity and other rules of inference to think and talk about it. Certainly we can’t make much sense if our variables keep changing identity in the middle of an argument. We would never be able to reach a conclusion. If we say “If A, then B. A. Therefore B”, ‘B’ would not follow if ‘A’ changed its identity the second time it is used. So, the law of identity preserves consistency and coherency in communication and thinking, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect reality, which does continue to move and change identity.
bis bald,
Nick
Attacking the Law of Identity
Your attack on the law of identity still leads to a reductio ad absurdum fallacy. "A is A" makes no claims that you must deal with a definition or a snapshot. It also does not say that you must understand the object fully, or even anything about if an object can be understood fully in principle (indeed these concepts are only possible once you accept and understand the law of identity). The law of identity only says that what is is and is not what it is not in the same way and in the same respect. Things are what they are.
Wm
Why not talk about my post, not everything else?
Yes, this is quite eloquent presentation of existentialism.
There is very little evidence in your comments that even read it. It is about a small aspect of existentialism. It is about egoism, anti-atruism, and anti-collectivism. The contrast of Prufrock and Henley is like the contrast between Peter Keating and Howard Roark. However, you are talking about the process of becoming, identity, and free-will v. determinism. You are not talking about the post above.
Such a philosophy which is based on premises that it is no identity and no existence only becoming,change contradicts even its own name. That is obvious that such an evasion cannot be a result of an error. It was done on purpose. To understand this I’ll start with analysis of your notion that logic is faith. Faith is a knowledge accepted without evidence. What is the evidence you evade in regard to the logic? The Law of Identity. Why to reject an axiom which is self-evident and on which all validations are based? To justify becoming, never-ending change of nothing in unknowable world of indeterminism .What is evaded again in regard to the process of change is the simple fact that any changing object possesses identity in any given moment of time.
We talked about this before. I quoted another passage you evidently didn’t read. I’ll quote it again:
“You seem to have this in common with the Existentialist that things are in process,” said Dr. P, “but don’t things have to have identity before they become?”
“What you are ignoring is that“ process” and “becoming” are the larger terms,” said the Mad Hatter, “‘A’ is a snapshot, a conceptual presentation of a still-picture of an entity, making something in process appear passive. It is not the case that specific natures, which are static, come first and then change. They are changing, and we give them unchanging natures for ease of communication and thinking.”
How the evasion has been made possible? By applying concept of potential infinity to the actual finite process- the fallacy which Aristotle refuted while explained paradoxes of Zeno.( and its mathematical expression is differential calculus) Why it is important to have undetermined world? You place there the source of free will as you explained in one of your previous posts. You think that if free will is originated from the undetermined world then mind is also undetermined, and this is another fallacy.
First, you should have addressed this under the post where I addressed it, not this one. Second, I also talked about this in Alice in Objectivist Land, part nine;
“We are not objects to be shaped and molded by external stimuli over which we have no control. We are not victims of our environment. We are subjects. Our natures are not fixed and completed, as are the natures of the things-in-themselves, the things without freedom. We are incomplete and participate in the creation of our own natures. We are the things-for-themselves, and we are still in a process of becoming. We exist, become aware of our existence, and then work on our essences. Existence prior to essence.”
Every attempt to place the source of free will outside of the realm of human consciousness spells determinism since it’s mean that mind’s actions is result of antecedent events ,originated from some other place. It’s doesn’t matter where you place it: in your world of becoming or Tao or Holomotion-the result would be the same-determinism. If I were determinist I’d prefer its original version which at least doesn’t destroy base of rational metaphysics. But I’m not. I think that free will is as self evident as existence and consciousness. You said that you read my article “ Phylogenesis of Consciousness and Free will”. but apparently you didn’t understand what I’ve said. I didn’t validate free will-it’s doesn’t need validation, but I’ve demonstrated that its origin not in the some imaginable undetermined world but in the life itself and all the shabby existentialist construction is quite unnecessarily.
All the shabby construction for a naturalistic ethics is quite unnecessary for a supernaturalist. All he or she has to say is, “It is good because God says is is.” All the Objectivist says is, “Free-will is self-evident upon introspection.” This is really not satisfying to serious philosophers. For Objectivists, “consciousness,” itself, is something magical, mystical. It exists because it exists. They reject the complete mechanistic model of scientists like B.F. Skinner, but they also reject the dualism of Descartes. However, when they talk of an external reality, they also imply an internal reality, a consciousness which perceives the external reality. This is a dualism. Existentialists account for a subject/object dichotomy, the in-itself and the for-itself. They allow for the incomplete nature of humans to participate in creating itself, not just discovering something as self-evident.
bis bald,
Nick
Haiku for Nick #1
Neo-Horatio
high on his plinth
stuffed with self-importance
blowing his own horn in vain
Faith,logic becoming and free will
Leonid
Yes, this is quite eloquent presentation of existentialism. Such a philosophy which is based on premises that it is no identity and no existence only becoming,change contradicts even its own name. That is obvious that such an evasion cannot be a result of an error. It was done on purpose. To understand this I’ll start with analysis of your notion that logic is faith. Faith is a knowledge accepted without evidence. What is the evidence you evade in regard to the logic? The Law of Identity. Why to reject an axiom which is self-evident and on which all validations are based? To justify becoming, never-ending change of nothing in unknowable world of indeterminism .What is evaded again in regard to the process of change is the simple fact that any changing object possesses identity in any given moment of time. How the evasion has been made possible? By applying concept of potential infinity to the actual finite process- the fallacy which Aristotle refuted while explained paradoxes of Zeno.( and its mathematical expression is differential calculus) Why it is important to have undetermined world? You place there the source of free will as you explained in one of your previous posts. You think that if free will is originated from the undetermined world then mind is also undetermined, and this is another fallacy. Every attempt to place the source of free will outside of the realm of human consciousness spells determinism since it’s mean that mind’s actions is result of antecedent events ,originated from some other place. It’s doesn’t matter where you place it: in your world of becoming or Tao or Holomotion-the result would be the same-determinism. If I were determinist I’d prefer its original version which at least doesn’t destroy base of rational metaphysics. But I’m not. I think that free will is as self evident as existence and consciousness. You said that you read my article “ Phylogenesis of Consciousness and Free will”. but apparently you didn’t understand what I’ve said. I didn’t validate free will-it’s doesn’t need validation, but I’ve demonstrated that its origin not in the some imaginable undetermined world but in the life itself and all the shabby existentialist construction is quite unnecessarily.
.
*SIGH*