My conversation with pro prasanjit Biswas.


Prasanjit Biwas - Immanuel Kant's Religion within the bounds of Reason alone thrashed out the idea of duty as an obligation to the law, but such a duty goes along goodwill for the Other. A religious man, therefore, remains duty-bound to respect the Other religion as well. In Hegel religion, itself becomes subjectivistic giving rise to unmediated communities of faith. Between Kant and Hegel, somewhere lies the possibility of radical evil in Man. Can we overcome it in the spirituality of faith?


Randhir Gautam ( me ) -

Kant claims the individual should become autonomous and follow universal precepts like the categorical imperative. To follow the law is obligatory but decisions over inclinations must follow laws that it gives itself. Kant’s key distinction is between heteronormative - following laws given - and autonomy or self-legislation - following laws it gives itself. Kant’s moral philosophy does not jettison the heteronomous but transcends it via autonomy.

Hegel posits then religious life as authentic in his early writings up to the Phenomenology of Spirit, or Mind, when he located absolute knowledge or synthesis as transcendent of religions, perhaps due to his recognition of the multiplicity of religions! After this point, he recognizes the issue of social order and posits the state, along with law as ‘right,’ as the essence of social order. Hegel is recognized as a statist philosopher and his early works are not often discussed; the Phenomenology along with the Encyclopedia explicate his notion of dialectics or change.

Evil is not a topic that either discusses in detail although the Philosophy of Right by Hegel contains specific sections on problems and Perpetual Peace by Kant addresses the main issue of war and the necessity of diplomacy.

The realist perspective on evil takes human nature in a real sense as having a violent essence, as biological and political. Therefore the law of force is necessary and the main question is over the degree of constraint!

The problem with faith or religion is that it has too often led to war, violence, artifice, exclusion, etc., basic evil. The ideals of religion are meaningful, ie love, but it lacks the values of freedom, equality and rights which is why the moral philosophies too often fail to act morally either by no action or zealotry and fanaticism. Morality itself may not have the impact it should have on states of the affair - it is not necessarily a constraint!

Prasanjit Biswas - I am extremely happy to read the detailed response from you. The last paragraph brings out your own position. Saying that moral philosophy is not constrained to operate morally is like saying religion does not operate religiously. Putting it this way prioritizes limits, antinomies and constraints, while both religion and moral philosophy guided by categorical imperative do not require any such constraints. Violations of the moral law, therefore, is a violation of the imperative of moral law, it is not a violation of a counterfactual condition of restriction. To understand this argument, you may kindly read Barry Stroud's essay entitled, Kantian argument, conceptual capacities and invulnerability. As far as Evil is concerned, Kant discussed it prominently in
Gesammelte Schriften in German. You can try to read it. Kant thought a variance is an act of free will that changes the contours of faith into grace.
As far as Hegel is concerned, radical evil is part of Bildung, a delegated framework for aufhebung of any error in religious faith.

Randhir Gautam - There is a distinction between moral judgment and moral action, discussed in the literature. 

You don’t think that religion often does not ‘act’ religiously? In phenomenology, discussions of the other and violence (Sartre, Levinas) address the gap in philosophy over evil, over the absence of the problem of the other, eg explaining the Good Samaritan or the problem of genocide, war, etc.

I’ll look at Stroud again. If you could, can you be more exact in your citation to Kant and Hegel?

Bildung is basically education, socialization, development. Hegel discusses this in his Phenomenology of Spirit, 1807. Religious consciousness is a very late development as I thought I indicated.

Presanjit Biswas- I gave you a kind of problematic in response to your notion of constraints on moral philosophy to say that constraints do not work. What works is the following of principles and their violations. Both situations are free from constraints. This could be exemplified by saying religion does not act 'religiously', which means not acting according to its stated principles. But that does not mean that moral philosophy, in a similar vein, does not act in a moral way. It rather means that moral philosophy is open to violations by certain kinds of action and actors, on whom prior constraints cannot be imposed. I have given some references of Kant earlier. Hegel's Zerrissenheit’ is the source of  Bildung, the formation of second nature with its many expressions and manifestations connected with Sittlichkeit and to be overcome by aufhebung, as I mentioned. Both Phenomenology and Encyclopaedia have such a framework. Further, you may see Hegel's Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts and Werke in zwanzig Bänden. Of course, reading should be subject to interpretation.

Randhir Gautam -  You don’t actually speak and read in German do you? Can you just write the titles in English so I know what you are actually referring to?

Philosophy is not the same as action, ever. Praxis and practice can be described and discussed in philosophy but this is a distinct entity from the action. Likewise for language, which is a form of action, but is distinct from the use of implements, activity. The orders are not the same as the implementation or application.

Moral philosophy and judgments are distinct from moral action and action generally. Two different things!

Sittlichkeit means ethical relations which enters language prescriptively or a posteriori as description, in between is the event!

I am well-read, so if you refer to a philosopher, I have background knowledge. But I don’t speak German. Orwell also complained about writers who punctuated their work with foreign terms, why not just use your own words?


Prasanjit Biswas - Randhir Gautam can I discuss with you in chat? Seemingly, you are philosophically sound, but not a professional philosopher.

P B - So for Kant and Hegel both, they looked at religion necessarily on the basis of their metaphysical conception of how beliefs are formed and how they are concretized. But both these aspects are inseparably connected.

Without original sources, you can' t formulate much in Philosophy, as English sources are not always sufficient.

Randhir Gautam  - Firstly, define philosophy by distinguishing it from the professions and theology and science. Philosophy is not a technical skill! Philosophy involves evaluation and interpretation to advance understanding!

Are you poking fun at English? In philosophy, it is improper to assert without offering a reason!

The ‘metaphysical’ is often used pejoratively as imaginary or thought or as a conceptual framework and thus as arbitrary. So, I would not use the term, concept suffices.

Kant does not state how beliefs are formed, as far as I know. Kant addresses the necessity of a certain way of thinking from a priori conditions to a posteriori perception and then back into the or ‘a’ system of thought!

Hegel does offer an account of how beliefs change on the basis of their adequacy (to account for all known factors and problems) which may have followed from his reading of Kant and its reception. Kant addresses the necessity of each concept in his formal system of Critiques - this follows from Hume’s criticism of induction and causality which Hume claims does not contain necessary conclusions. The conclusion for Kant is that their antinomies (dualisms) which are not resolvable and require faith or assumption. However, for all other phenomena, science is required. Kant is a natural scientist who recognizes the limits, eg free will, god, etc. But, Kant’s moral philosophy and politics are deterministic and universalizing: autonomy, categorical imperative, etc. Kant is also a liberal who recognizes the 3 prongs: individual rights, freedom under the law, and equality, that is, universality.

Hegel’s primary impact is his Philosophy of Right! His Phenomenology of Mind and other similar works are important, but historically and politically, the Philosophy of Right amplifies beyond Kant the freedom of thought, the limitations of spirit as geist or culture and the institutions of the state. Hegel does not abide by the liberal notion of equality as seen from the perspective of the master-slave dialectic or the relation between subjects and to the state! Hegel does recognize rights which is only one part of the meaning of his title!

The relation of belief to realization is highly conditioned for both philosophers who cannot be called instrumentalists or pragmatists! They are not!

RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S  ABIDING LOVE FOR SHIKHISM AND ITS FOUNDER

      Guru Nanak ,the founder of Sikhism was born this day (allowing for the inaccuracy of a lunar calendar ) five and half centuries back. He was a product of a churn called ' bhakti movement'  that swept the subcontinent  challenging the caste hierarchy and bringing a synthesis of Islam and Hinduism.Guru Nanak was an incessant taveller,in search of the truth .Maybe his continuous interaction with different communities freed him from sectarian narrowness and prejudices .He held before a people divided by caste ,class and religion the vision spiritual equality, human brotherhood, always insisting on honest work .No relious reformer of his time spoke so eloquently about the dignity of labour which was intended to be a critique of Brahminism that degraded and dehumanized  the labourers. It is therefore  is no wonder that Sikhs have been a flourishing community wherever they have settled and whichever country they adopted as their own.Rabindranath Tagore,the poet and thinker, was also a product of a reformist movement initiated by Raja Rammohun Roy ,' the first modern modern man of India' .Roy sought to synthesize the Enlightment tradition of the West with the best elements from Hinduism,Islam and Christianity ,A profound Islamic scholar,he  wrote his  rationalist tract Tu'hfat Ul Muwahidin in Persian  and brought out the first Persian  journal of the world.The poet's father Maharshi  Debendranath Tagore ,a great admirer of Rumi ,Hafez and Saadi, found in Sikhism ,the kind of religious community he had in his mind .In 1873 ,he would make a pilgrimage to the Golden Temple in Amritswar with his youngest son Rabi ,a budding poet.

        The poet's biographers Andrew Robinson and Krishna Dutta write ," For about a month they settled at a place not far away from the Golden Temple of the Sikhs The Maharshi was drawn to the temple by the rousing worship by the middle of the sacred lake ,and Rabi went too. Sometimes the Maharshi joined the hymns .No Sikh ever objected .Here was a prime lesson in religious tolerance .....Here in Amritwar at the age of eleven ,Rabi composed his first song .He also began to sing for his father .Evening was their time
                           
                               You are my friend in all difficulty and doubt
                                And companion in the darkest passage of life

     When they returned ,they brought a Sikh boy who received a welcome' which would be not unbecoming  of Maharaja Ranjit Singh." In his early  collection of narrative poems Katha o Kahini he immortalized Banda and his martyrdom in a moving poem- The Brave Prisoner .My communist  father used to recite it to me with great dramatic force  .A rebel himself, he drew  inspiration from Banda's heroic defiance in face of gruesome torture and death.His poem still vibrates in my memory .Tagore was the first Indian to renounce his knighthood in protest against Jalianwalabagh massacre, when our nationalist leaders thought it wiser to remain silent .             Tagore's writings on religious dialogue and tolerance make frequent reference to Guru Nanak and his religion of devotion and work.

          Tagore would later enter into a bitter controversy with Mohandas Gandhi regarding the Dalits' decision to convert to Sikhism . Gandhi who did his best to keep the Dalits within the Brahminical fold in a state of servitude, was pained when Tagore strongly supported conversion to Sikhism as a way of liberation . With his usual clarity, he wrote," If the Sanatani ( orthodox ) Hindus of the upper classes are not prepared to extend the ordinary rights of a civilized existence to the Harijans, they should not also cry against the victims seeking shelter in the Sikh fold ." But Gandhi did . Mahadev Deshai, his secretary wrote ' Bapu ( Gandhi)could not believe that you could have ever given your assent to a proposition like this .' In his response Tagore held his ground and expressed himself  even more boldly :

"  Sikhism has a bold message to the people and it has a noble record. How great it would be its effect if this religion can get out of its geographical provincialism ..and acquire a nationwide perspective one can guess. I do not find anything in Sikh religious practice and creeds which hurts my human dignity " In this dark time when fascist forces are polarizing society along religious lines with sinister conspiracy and systematic violence, we need to remember the words of Guru Nanak and his lasting message of religious tolerance, primacy of truth and universal brotherhood/sisterhood.

B Sur

The Sutta Pitaka is to one of the three pitakas of Buddhism in the Pali language. It contains the basics of Buddhism and the discourse of Lord Buddha.The sutta pitaka is divided into five nikayas ("collections"); hence these texts are also referred to as the Nikayas.
The Sutta Pitaka contains more than 10,000 suttas (discourses) attributed to the Buddha or his close companions.
There are five nikayas (collections) of suttas:
1. Digha Nikaya (dīghanikāya), the "long" discourses.
2. Majjhima Nikaya, the "middle-length" discourses.
3. Samyutta Nikaya (saṃyutta-), the "connected" discourses.
4. Anguttara Nikaya (aṅguttara-), the "numerical" discourses.
5. Khuddaka Nikaya, the "minor collection".
Digha Nikāya
This includes The Greater Discourse on the Foundations of purity and emptiness of minds from negative thoughts, The Fruits of the Contemplative Life, and The Buddha's Last Days. There are 34 long suttas in this nikaya.
Majjhima Nikāya
This includes Shorter Exposition of Kamma, Meditation of Breathing, and observation of  of the Body through inner vision. It is known as Vipashyana. There are 152 medium-length suttas in this nikaya.
Samyutta Nikaya
There are, according to one reckoning, 2,889, but according to the commentary 7,762, shorter suttas in this Nikaya.
Anguttara Nikāya
These teachings are arranged numerically. It includes, according to the commentary's reckoning, 9,565 short suttas grouped by number from ones to eleven.
Khuddaka Nikāya
The Dhammapada is the best known and most widely esteemed text in Buddhism and it is known as Gita of Buddhism. It is from khuda Nikaya of Sutta Pitaka.

What is Philosophy and Philosophizing?

Philosophizing concerns itself with the actual TERRITORY of potentially intelligible experience – in its ENTIRETY – and with the rational mapping of that territory: pioneering and cartography. The modern philosopher attaches equal value and importance to both the outer and inner realms of experience – both of which are regarded as OBJECTIVE in nature. (“Subjectivity” applies to the personal idiosyncrasies of the thinker and constitutes something of a necessary evil that the philosopher is always striving to objectify and see BEYOND.)

Like Columbus, the philosopher avails himself of the maps rendered by other cartographers who came before, but – also like Columbus – he relies chiefly upon his mysterious but indisputably real inner certainty that there is more to be discovered than can be found on any available maps. Also, like Columbus, the philosopher who first lands on previously un-mapped shores is apt to mis-name or mis-treat that TERRA INCOGNITA precisely because its true character and peculiarities are, as yet, unknown. That work is best carried out by the settlers who come later, since they have the benefit of hindsight and a more stable acquaintance with the “New World.” Thus, we see that the pioneering spirit is better equipped, by nature and temperament, to open up new territory for exploration than the settler type, who is better suited to make full and proper use of that newly claimed territory.

A thinker who is bloated with half-formed thoughts and gaseous intuitions is like a woman who is always pregnant but unable, for some reason, to actually DELIVER the unfinished embryo or fetus lodged within her womb. A fitful, skittish thinker who never allows his seed-like thoughts and insights to ripen and attain their proper degree of animate complexity is like a woman who suffers from one miscarriage after another – never able to make it through the full gestation period. The seasoned and discerning creative thinker is like a woman who gives regularly repeated, healthy birth, sometimes even to triplets and quadruplets, and soon has a burgeoning family under her watchful and conscientious eyes and hands.

As early as she can, the philosopher acquaints herself with the full array of colored ships within the kaleidoscope – those generally stable and timeless elements that are ultimately responsible for the infinite variety of particular, individualized configurations generated by the ever-turning kaleidoscope. Without a respectful acquaintance with as many of these “archetypal” elements as she can discern, she will have little recourse but to reduce all the complex configurations to the one or two elements that she does know about. Such elements have names like ‘will to power,’ sexuality (ἔρως), chance (τύχη), play (līlā), entropy, neutrality/equilibrium, etc. The greater the philosopher, the less likely she will be to fall prey to reductiveness. The greater the number of genuine elements acknowledged, the richer and more true to life will be the philosophical depiction of the whole.

We can see an analogy between philosophical activity and monitoring the changing weather in a meteorological scheme or system. The actual changes that are continually underway “in the air and on the ground” correspond to the totality of human activities as they unfold in the field of time, or history. The constants are abstract categories (air temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, jet stream activity, oceanic currents and temperature, etc.) and these correspond to archetypes or the colored chips in the kaleidoscope. The interplay between these factors provides the stable framework or structural constraints within which the DYNAMICS of actual weather systems are made manifest.

The philosopher is concerned, among other things, with tracing the links between the actual phenomenological configurations – the intelligible events and symptoms generated by human experience – and the archetypal elements, or constants that always lie at the root of things (just as the colored chips are at the source of the infinitely variable kaleidoscopic images). In attending to these elusive or hidden links, the philosopher is able to intellectually ground the particulars in the archetypal sources out of which they emerge. The effects of such philosophical activity upon the soul of the thinker are of considerable spiritual import. Such disciplined philosophical activity has a divinely ANCHORING effect upon the mind – aligning the microcosmic philosopher with the macrocosmic scheme within which he lives as a spark or living image. Aside from the generally consoling effects of this mental experience of at-one-ment with a divinely ordered cosmos, there is a poignantly paradoxical sense of being both greatly EXPANDED in (the range and depth of) consciousness and profoundly HUMBLED by the recognition of one’s insignificant place in the sublime, stupendous scheme of things.

Paul

Basic  Concepts in Contemporary Epistemology

Epistemology is the study or theory of knowledge. The nature of knowledge (whether and to what extent we can claim to possess any knowledge, and how we know that we know) has fascinated reflective people since the dawn of written culture -- maybe longer, but we lack any records. Contemporary epistemology is built on a history of research spanning 3,000 years.

The current understanding of knowledge, and how we can answer the many dogged questions about it, is extremely sophisticated, especially in light of artificial intelligence, which prompts the obvious question: “Can an artificial intelligence ‘know things’ or ‘possess knowledge’? If so, what does that tell us about the nature of knowledge?” A full grasp of contemporary epistemology would require a few years of study, but here is a small sample of the basic concepts, used pretty much universally in the field.

Knowledge claim – Any claim or implication to the effect that someone knows something; any assertion that a particular statement or belief is true (or is truly known to be false).

Justification – A reasonable response to the question, “How do you know?” Justifications usually, but do not always, involve some kind of appeal to evidence.

Truth – A property of any statement or belief which satisfies certain conditions called ‘truth conditions.’ The term ‘false’ would apply to any statement or belief which fails to satisfy those conditions. The exact nature of truth conditions, and when they are satisfied, is an issue of long-standing controversy.  For cursory purposes, we can assume that the truth conditions of a statement have been satisfied if and only if the world is as the statement asserts it to be.

Truth-bearer – The kind of thing that can be true or false.  We do not say of a walnut that it is true or false (unless we have reason to believe it is a fake walnut, in which case “truth” is being used in a different sense, as a synonym for “genuine” or “authentic”).  In Analytic Philosophy, those things regarded as truth-bearers are usually considered to be statements, as opposed to beliefs or thoughts or concepts or ideas, because it is easier to examine statements than it is to dissect any kind of mental entity.  A statement is not the same as a sentence, because there are many kinds of sentences which cannot be true or false; for example, commands.  A command like “Close the door!” can be obeyed or disobeyed, but it can be neither true nor false.  Statements could be considered a sub-class of sentences, i.e., those sentences which are capable of being true or false.

Belief (or Doubt) – Any statement or proposition with respect to which one has adopted an attitude, known as a ‘propositional attitude’. A belief is a statement toward which one has adopted a positive, accepting propositional attitude; a doubt is a statement toward which one had adopted a negative, rejecting propositional attitude.

Internalism – The theory that the conditions under which a knowledge claim is justified are conditions which are internally, or subjectively, or intra-experientially, accessible to the knowing subject. I can know (and perhaps only I can know) when my knowledge claims are justified.  Such a justification might involve, for example, my awareness of the amount of research I have done to justify my claim.

Externalism – The theory that the conditions under which a knowledge claim is justified are conditions which are not available to the knowledge-claiming subject without external mediation; for example, information to the effect that an individual’s vision and hearing are, in fact, operating optimally. (I probably did not see a horse in the kitchen if I am suffering from a partial retinal detachment, but I don’t know that I’ve suffered such a detachment; it will require an external expert to discover this fact.)

Virtue theory – A form of internalism (see above) according to which I know whether I’m justified in making a knowledge claim because I am aware of how much effort I have put into discovering, examining, and analyzing any alleged evidence for or against my knowledge claim, but also because I know that my efforts have been legitimate, ethical, and honest to the best of my abilities. I know only too well whether my investigation has been rigorous or lazy; if I have been lazy in my justificatory efforts, my knowledge-claim is not justified, although I alone may be aware that my knowledge claim is unjustified.

Reliablism – A form of externalism according to which I am justified in my knowledge claim if and only if all systems (cognitive, perceptual, communicative and technological) involved in my acquisition of the information that I claim to know are, in fact, in optimal working order. If all systems are “go,” so to speak, when I acquire an item of information, then I am justified in claiming to know that item. But I may not be able to confirm that all systems are in fact “go” without the intervention of an outside expert (for example, an optometrist or audiologist to check my sensory systems – or a lab tech if I happen to be a machine).
James 

Kant and Freud on Time

The experience of objects in space and time is only possible through the representation of the necessary connection of perceptions. The connection requires the applicability of the categories of relation to objects of experience.

Kant is concerned with explaining how it is possible for us to represent the temporality of experience. We cannot perceive time itself, nor is time a concept. Kant says there are 3 ways that we experience time: thru the notions of persistence, succession and simultaneity - we must explain how we are able to experience these three aspects of temporality. Although one moment follows another, time itself persists. And for any two events in time the first must be before, after or at the same time as the second. So the awareness of two events as being in time involves a capacity to distinguish between the events being successive or simultaneous.

Kant argues that the capacity to represent and distinguish between the persistence, succession and simultaneity of time and events in time requires the application of the three categories of relation. The category of substance is required for the representation of persistence, the category of causation is required for the representation of succession and the category of community (or mutual interaction) is required for the representation of simultaneity.

Causation however as an apriori concept only occurs when something goes "wrong" otherwise we have no idea of the actual causal relations. Lacan makes this insight.

Freud has a different understanding which involves the distinction between the Jewish and Christian metaphysical doctrines. Freud posits that symptoms are caused by events in the past - in the individual's past and in humanities past: the oedipal complex for example does not manifest symptoms immediately but only subsequently in the future. This behavior is determined by the past. Freud also invented the notion of the primal horde and the murder of the leader-father (in contrast to other forms of the father) to account for guilt and the construction of laws (totems and taboos). Sartre addressed this problem of determinism but posited that the treatment must be a turning back of the future to the present. Although this insight may not make sense in the individual case, it may be intelligible in terms of political history where the key issue of 'what will happen next' is of widespread concern.

Freud's use of time is however different from the Christian use of time which posits a beyond to the temporal, and thus a different motivational set than the material-temporal view that revolves around the past and the present. The Christian view of time revolves around the present-future and a notion of salvation. Freud addresses the determinism of past events by helping the person to understand the crucial situations of the Oedipus complex and the leader complex whereas Christians are determined by the effect of present behavior on future salvation.

DOCUMENTS TO BE UPLOADED BY THE RESEARCH SCHOLARS ONLINE BEFORE THE PHYSICAL
SUBMISSION OF PH.D. THESIS. 

Mathematics - Incomplete and Contradictory

Newton's (1643-1727) moon and planets are like Heisenberg's electron except that Newton did not realize that location and velocity were relative. Heisenberg (1901-1976) proved that you cannot measure the location AND the velocity of an electron because both are always changing.

Godel (1906-1978) proved that any system is either inconsistent or incomplete. He published his two incompleteness theorems in 1931, following his dissertation in 1929 "On the Completeness of the Calculus of Logic." The grammar of numbers, all the rules for making numbers, will either be incomplete because some rules will be missing, or inconsistent: there will be rules that contradict each other.

Godel demonstrated that certain mathematical theorems can neither be proved nor disproved with accepted mathematical methods. He said, "It will never be possible to acquire the certainty that mathematics does not contain contradictions." There is a class of undecidable problems. AND, there are rules that are true but unprovable. This contradicts the foundation of mathematics that what is true can always be proved.

Godel discovered the impossibility of mathematics as true and provable - there exists a logically necessary impossibility that cannot be avoided. Therefore, any system, like any person, group, culture or organization is either incomplete or inconsistent/contradictory.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) stated in his posthumously published 1965 "On Certainty" that the problem with the terms 'knowledge' and 'knowing' was that they excluded error. It may be that he realized this language problem and thus began to reflect and critique his 1922 Tractatus. His life work took on the character of investigating the contradictions, puzzles and queer notions that he found in linguistic expressions.

One similar problem was discovered by Lacan (1901-1981) in his 1932 thesis "On Paranoiac Psychosis in its Relations to the Personality." Lacan explained that the distinction between the neurotic personality and the psychotic personality. For the neurotic personality, the rules of grammer that produce language are incomplete. Each person has a partially different set of rules for speaking language which results in different uses of language and symptoms. For the neurotic, the rules of language, or what seems intuitive and right, are incomplete. For the psychotic, the rules of language are fixed and contradictory. The fixed contradictory rules produce the symptoms of paranoia and hallucinations!

Lacan's main example is the distinction between the idea of a 'symbolic father,' the person or agency that interferes with the relation of desire between the infant child and the mother-er, and the Names-of-the-Father, the fixed meanings that designate each person, their proper names. There are many symbolic fathers in each person's life - anyone who separates the child from desire, from their mother.  But, there is only one Name-of-the-Father, one's father's name. Lacan asserts that the psychotic has violated the rules of the relation or contract with his father, and has been excluded, separated rigidly from his or her mother. So, the rules of language and meaning are not properly fixed: only some meanings are fixed, and other meanings are variable or loose.

The primary factor affecting the psychotic is the concrete nature of meaning - saying something is like something else as in metaphor or synecdoche is understood by the psychotic as actually existing. "Father" is only understood as a fixed name, the actual person who is one's father, and the 'symbolic father,' or 'cultural father,' is absent.  The fixed nature of meaning overrides the figural and metaphorical understanding of expressions.
Fedric

Karl Mannheim's sociological theories 

Moral Judgment and projection
The bias of psychoanalysis.

There are a few skills learned in the therapeutic analysis. One is the ability to detect projections, including the ability to distinguish one’s own counter projections from those incoming. Another is to realize what your real desire or intentions are, which may reveal one’s own self-deception eg false consciousness, false self, etc. Whether knowledge of your true desire permits you to change is a different story.

These skills involve very careful and subtle distinctions that are mostly below the threshold level of conscious awareness and must be sensed in altered states: dreams, sleep, reverie, etc.

Talking only works with people who can be asked questions, or “confronted,” and responds genuinely.

Projection occurs following the splitting process of my good self and bad self, what is categorized as me and not me, and from assessments of others as good or bad.

This is a dimension of personality which may be related to earlier experiences and to social conditions. Attributing splitting and the projection of the negative qualities to a virtue deficiency may be your counter-projection.

Personally, I have no way of defending myself at the moment unless I also project back if the other is a destructive narcissist, borderline or bipolar. However, during reflection which is not an altered state but is quite different from an attending and responding position, likewise, the analytic attitude, in its variations, has a defined difference from “social” behavior, I can absorb and interpret the other’s “behaviour” and try to understand what happened and is going on. This may help to secure a finer and stronger boundary. Ultimately, the other needs to question their feelings and thoughts, their object relations and realize what they are doing, eg intruding, overconforming or renouncing, not recognizing or demeaning others - prejudice is unconscious!

Intuition is abroad notion which could be fleshed out by mentioning skills, techniques or even theoretical orientations.

What I notice in your statements is an emphasis on social interaction, behaviour and talk but these are largely controlled by situation, setting and power hierarchies or roles. Addressing the psychological in situ and over a period of time gets at personality and object relations, patterns.

There is perhaps a gap between thinking-feeling and moral judging. Kohlberg measured degrees of moral adequacy, Gilligan found gender differences and many researchers have explored nuances of morality; most people think it’s a given, they were born with their moral precepts and everyone knows what morals are!! This nativist view is deeply mythical and full of error. For example, in many fields morality is utterly irrelevant: wars, the street, family life, organizations where money and power arbitrarily determine thinking, feeling and judgments.

Projecting proceeds from splitting. There are other psychological defences to consider.

Projecting in its functional and benign form involves signalling to communicate. But, often projecting is attacking in some way - recognizing that one is being attacked may involve a subtle and careful reflection on one’s feelings and thoughts.

The most insidious form of projecting is possessiveness. This is taken for granted however because most people are under myths, following myths, and unconsciously. The family triangles, the similarity between peer and sibling roles, and the generalization of family roles and assumptions - all most people do is family - speaks to the relevance of notions like the universality of the Oedipal Complex, and to the religious myths each is born into. No one ever wonders why Jesus is not considered central instead of Oedipus. It is a bias of psychoanalysis. 

The Power of the False

Philosophy cannot discard metaphysics - thought is the source of evaluation and ideas, like hypotheses.

However, metaphysical statements are constrained insofar as they are entirely unfalsifiable and non-verifiable. But, these constraints mean that the ideas, hypotheses, in question, must be suspended to be revived when relevant evidence emerges.

Evidence may be material or it may be a logical explanation. Logic has defended metaphysics for eras. The evaluation of logical claims is enhanced by material evidence, and by critical rebuttals to critique - an absent step in many problems.

Deleuze makes very strong claims for the role of evaluation in the context of the ‘power of the false.’ He obtains this notion from Nietzsche but by abstracting; FN’s Will to Power addresses falsehood but is not mired in it. However, deception, deceit, lying, obfuscation, obscuring, etc., is our dilemma. Falsehood has power!! This dovetails uneasily with Popper’s falsification thesis, which posits falsifying as ‘one fell swoop’ to the truth.

Metaphysics is limited by logic, evidence, falsification, evaluation and the power of the false, but our imagination and thought must still move through this medium, all the ideologies, to reach for an epistemic advance!

Spirituality

There is no inner peace, spirituality does not result in tranquility. Fatalism - the notion that God works through people and that whatever happens is because of god, and you can do nothing about it, must also be rejected as false consciousness! The problem with consciousness is that supra-consciousness of an entire historical era can determine human consciousness, like the beliefs in religion and spirituality.

Spirituality is about spirits; not only about all kinds of unknown and mythical spirits (the world is full of gods) but also that humans have souls which are extended in space with force and voice! What humans do is create myths and beliefs, stories that rationalize their feelings and actions.

People of a religious sense or detect whether others are praying - asking God in their mind for help or something. This idea that humans believe in praying really is fatalism, even nihilism: the notion that there is nothing you can do about it or whatever!

Spiritualism is deeply ambiguous and metaphysical; it typically resorts to a dogma of how to live, what to do, etc., and this can lead to immorality!

There is no peace nor justice but what man secures.

There are even greater deleterious and insidious influences. What is at issue is our state of consciousness as humanity in its historical epoch, or era. Some individuals attempt to transcend this state of consciousness by seeking knowledge of the past epochs of humanity and of humanity’s conditions of existence: including technology, social organization, psychology, medicine/biology, etc. But, achieving knowledge of these reality complexes does not necessarily mediate the larger state of consciousness which is enthralled and mystified by religious dogmas, myths and "legal doctrines," and economic ideologies to which politics panders.

Achieving transcendence through knowledge is only a partial answer. The masses must change, achieve goals that liberate themselves from the constraints and blinders of religion and economics to attain commonly held, public values which also work against violence and exploitation. Public policies and their implementation is a step in the right direction, but public participation requires the informed opinion, knowledge not the false consciousness of spirituality. Praying will not solve these practical problems.

Let’s face it, binary, dichotomous ingroup-outgroup thinking is widespread and as inequality, it is the source of harassment, discrimination, psychopathology, criminality, and terrorism, not to mention wars!

This state of consciousness is our historical epoch. The political scientific question is how to get past it - I do not believe that the religious mentality, spirituality, helps, it is too heavy a burden.

Judgment is a complex topic.
Generally, the big difference is between prejudgment and formal judgment. Formal
Judgment is based on evidence and reasoning in an explicit set of contexts, etc., jurisdiction, laws, rules, and norms that constitute positive or codified policy.

Prejudgment is based on feelings, sentiments, and nostalgia into which everyone is conditioned or socialized. Feelings or emotions are very powerful determinants of thought and action unless mediation by formal
judgment occurs in the life of the person ... or culture!

Hume’s famous idea that reason serves the passions reflects the problem. Personality in the context of culture is determined by feelings more than reasons, impulses if language more than reflection. The practices or belief systems of cultures have strong elements of prejudgment: bias, prejudice, hatred, discrimination. These kinds of elements or factors may be encoded into the law!

Cognition has been defined as evaluation which is a complex skill involving many aspects: reasons, explanations, evidence, and discourse processes which differentiate prejudgment from formal judgments - the latter requires a factual or empirical basis as distinct from feelings.

MN ROY ON THE DANGER OF FASCISM

 MN Roy ( born on March 21,1887),the founder of the Communist Party of Mexico and the Indian Communist Party in exile (1920) was dedicated to human freedom .He had a first hand experience of fascism and his understanding of the phenomenon was far in advance of his  Indian contemporaries .After the failure of the the Comintern mission in China ,he returned to Berlin in 1927 .Roy loved Germany and had a native like fluency in German .As he was deeply grounded in the German intellectual tradition ,he could trace the growth in greater depth .Unlike Marxist determinists such as R Palme Dutt ,he didn't see it merely as a crisis of a dying capitalism but a more complex phenomenon-  a new barbarism threatening all the great achievements of the Western civilization and liberalism - all that is free ,tender and beautiful .Much before Lukacs's Blum Theses (1928 )  Roy put forward the idea of a United Front against fascism .He was convinced that only such a front of those who were committed to democracy and freedom could  resist the recrudescence of the new barbarism .This went against Comintern's policy of discrediting and maligning social and Liberal democrats .Actually Stalin's sectarian policy helped the rise of fascism .While in jail Roy wrote Fascism (1933) which was the first full length study of fascism by any Indian .It is markedly different from Dutt's "Fascism"  in so many ways .Yet Indian Marxists would always refer to Dutt's book as a Bible and curiously remain hostile to Roy's more nuanced and sophisticated analysis .
  Indian nationalists lacked this wider vision .Their only aim was  the wrestle the power from the British which for them was an unmitigated evil .Comprised entirely of upper caste elite ,they  were hardly bothered about caste ,class or gender oppression .So they came to admire Hitler and Mussolini and found the belligerent ultra nationalism more attractive than tame Liberalism of British variety . .The RSS worshipped Hitler and their nationalism was  consciously modelled on fascism .They identified the Hindu with Hitler's pure Aryan and henceforth their politics would be directed towards creating a Hindu India purged of semitic ( here Muslim) and other corrupting foreign influences .But most in the Indian National Congress also  looked to Hitler as their possible ally .Subhas Bose was one such deluded  person .This brought Roy in conflict with the Congress and the fascist sympathisers within it .He was all for supporting the war effort .How could India be free under a new order based on tyranny ,genocide and destruction ? He saw it clearly that an Allied victory would only hasten India's freedom .He called Indian nationalism " an antiquated creed  " - blind and self defeating .His opposition to the INC and Bose's INA (a propaganda ploy of the Japanese)  ,alienated him from the masses and sealed his political future .The victory over fascism ,as Roy predicted ,led to more freedom in Europe and dismantling of the Empire .
         However, Roy did not have any illusion that fascism was dead .In a perceptive essay " Religious Revivalism and the Danger of Fascism" (1952) Roy saw how  "religious revivalism in India and similar countries becomes an ally of fascism ....Therefore fascism in India need not - and I believe will not take the shape and form it took in Europe ..Fascism in India ,and the fascist danger in India ,is associated with religious revivalism " .The absence of human and humanistic values and the predominance of an authoritarian mentality among the people ,makes India a fertile ground for religious fascism .He also saw where it would come from - the RSS and its allies ." This kind of mentality can be galvanised by a movement of religious revivalism ,which in our country is sailing under the colours of a cultural movement .For instance the RSS will nor admit that it is a religious revivalist movement ." Roy was convinced that this religious fascism could not be fought with the European experience alone: ." So anti fascist movement or any movement for resisting the growth of Fascism ,will also have to take a different form to meet the danger " .Alas we are yet to develop the resistance in the domain of culture and consequently the political resistance is so unorganized and weak .Roy could not fully  foresee how this form of fascism would ally itself with crony capitalism and use the mass media to manipulate the public mind and manufacture consent in the most devious manner .We are therefore moving fast towards a Third Reich situation - the total  subversion of democracy paradoxically through democratic institutions and conventions .More than ever ,we need a united front of different political parties and movements which  ,despite all differences ,believe in secular democracy ,freedom and the autonomy of democratic institutions .Beware of the left intellectual mafia ( Karats ,Patnaiks et al) within the CPIM and CPIML groups - all perversely Stalinist and pursuing the same sectarian policy that  brought Hitler to power .
B aur

THE SERIES OF GRAMMARS PSYCHOLOGY
(important)

---"is there any smaller sphere in which you think psychoanalysis is an appropriate method or inquiry? (ie, hopefully the one it is intended for - personal therapy rather than public argumentation)."--- Gerard

I think that it is always better to use this series:

1. Means: Personality traits and reward systems. (anglo/physical)

2. Cause: Acquisitionism and Propertarianism.(masculine/objective)

3. Training: Stoicism (Acquisition of virtues by CBT)

4 Affect(Heroic): Jungian ( Archetypes as proxies for traits) (german, sympathetic)

5. Defect:(Victim)Freudian Analysis (feminine conformity) (Jewish feminine)

This series begins with the most precise but least experiential and moves to the least precise but must experiential.

Personally I would prefer, that we use the above series just like the series math, physics, chemistry, biology, cooperation (sentience/economics), speech (negotiation), that we all knew the hierarchy of those from the most physical to the most experiential, and as such that we understood how each expresses a more fictional but more experiential grammar as we proceed down that list.

This series is as important as:
1. The hierarchy of Measurements (mathematics)
2. The hierarchy of States of Matter (physical science)
3. The hierarchy of Grammars (language)
4. The hierarchy of Knowledge (aristotelian categories)

Gd

who is having sex with whom?

The normative facts, or statutes, as distinct from superstitions, religious beliefs and myths, and crowd/group/mob psychology are very different from natural law which is no longer abided in any jurisdiction in the West.

As for problems like slavery or intolerance of others due to race, ethnicity or class, we do live in a capitalist society where socio-economic status and kinship terminology 'set' social relations on a stage with definite determining factors. Therefore, it is hard not to perceive that propaganda, govt policies, and rank hierarchy in the societies of the West give many people the sense of being an authority over others and positing many people as servants or inferior or persona non grata.

The gestalt switch between citizen and criminal, between honesty and liars, between the prejudiced-asocial and the social is a fine line that was apparently worse under natural law and religious orders and is today somewhat better under the positive laws of the judicial system, but is this any way to order a society with laws and punishments and the exceptions - the breaking of laws without punishments!

It helps in the calculation of consequences, in the prediction of behavior but there are so many variants - I think many people have a natural law heart and are astonished or resisting positive law normativity. There are laws, norms, judgments which transcend and contain impulses and beliefs.

As for monogamy, we live in societies and cultures where the belief in monogamy is countered by No Fault Divorce, remarriage, and so-called adultery - a euphemism for deviance. The effect of monogamy is not only jealousy and its behavioral-attitudinal nexus but its social restriction: stay at home, no friends, impersonal/depersonalization...

                                                       Teaching philosophy

 The pragmatic aspect of teaching philosophy is often contrasted between Inquiry and Direct Instruction. The objection to Inquiry approaches is the non-conformist or individualism of the approach which delimits the use of Direct Instruction which tends to put many students in a situation of incomprehension. The prior knowledge and skills of each particular class of students is a necessary factor to determine the trade-off between Inquiry and Direct Instruction, or how much guidance is appropriate

One of the significant consideration for understanding the learner, and thus deciding upon a particular teaching method at the moment under the social-political context of daily life in the classroom, is to define motivation. In past Motivation was considered an attribute of the learner. Now, motivation resides in the interaction between the learner and the subject matter, so the teacher focuses on what the relation may be between the student's dispositions and the particular subject matter the teacher wants learned. It is ultimately the learners who make choices about how to construct knowledge.

 Kuhn in her article (Is Direct Instruction an Answer to the Right Question) states that

we need to focus our attention on what sense students are making of things. The key to improving learners’ performance is examining what it is that they are undertaking to learn, what they think it means, how they construe the meaning of this material in relation to themselves, and whether they can see it as worth learning.

I value students’ centered approach in teaching. Being a lecturer I believe that The role of a professional educator, like any other professional, eliminates love, hatred, blind faith, submissive attitude, emotional, and personal elements from the classroom, especially today when casteism, capitalism, racism, sexism in its many forms, bullying, social class distinctions, etc., can be so disruptive to a particular cooperative setting.

Really our personal teaching philosophy only becomes important to the parts of a program for which we are responsible and they must fit in to the organisational needs, how we teach has to be pragmatic. If your teaching very large groups it very much limits your options but its a good idea to consider the assessment process as a part of the teaching, it focuses the student’s attention and always consider the learning outcomes these tell you what you want to achieve, good outcomes should be measurable so putting something in about evaluating sessions is a good idea.

This means before you start you know what you want to achieve and know how you’re going to check if you've achieved it. You’re going to have to match this to your particular needs

I'll try to give an example, one of the programs I lead was for people who already had a professional qualification and who worked in mental health. It was around developing skills in Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy. In the specification document in the teaching and learning section, I put;

As psychotherapy itself can be described as a process of social learning.  It is useful to utilize teaching and learning strategies that are congruent with the theoretical and philosophical ideas underpinning the chosen model. Therefore, to facilitate learning, a range of approaches, consistent with Cognitive and Behavioral theories and practice will be used to inform the methods of delivery.

Initially the strategies are designed to facilitate the development of the knowledge structures or cognitive schema's that will underpin future learning. To facilitate the learning of a wide range of ideas, early in the course much of the content will be delivered using didactic teaching techniques, with some individual supervision to link the content of the modules to their practice. Over the length of the course the students will need to elaborate on these knowledge structures in terms of depth or level of learning and breadth of knowledge. This will be facilitated by more student centered, practice related content used to focus discussions and review by the whole group. As students will be from varied backgrounds in relation to their profession, area of practice and previous learning experiences, the use of their past and current experiences will be an important part of this learning process. Skills development will require an increasing use of role play. The assessment process will reflect this increased emphasis on practice informed by theory

The techniques used will reflect the view that learning is a developmental process and that methods to facilitate learning should reflect the student’s particular needs at the different stages in this process.

MORALITY AND CULTURE

Morality does not depend on culture. What is right and what culture designates as what one may say or think or do, or how to judge, may be different.

Culture changes individuals thru socialization, legal requirements and institutional forces; individuals change culture thru discussion, critique, insights and innovations, and rebellion.

Culture defines what is right in the legal sense, culture is at its base, the law. The law does change also.

The moral - legal difference is where cultural right or law and moral judgment conflict. If there is an ethical totality, then the legal and moral viewpoints have to equilibrate.

Another way of looking it this is to speculate on the degree of plurality in a culture. I don’t mean that the law or justice is different for different groups, but that difference in viewpoint, worldview, perspective, understanding, feelings and attitudes is accepted without too much violence. The opposite is despotism which is too common in work organizations, family arrangements and relationships.

Individual autonomy should be recognized as the goal of development in our life.

Generally speaking, most people are only concerned with rules, laws and regulations, not with right or wrong and why.

Moral development also demonstrates a gap between moral judgment and moral action. Persons who can state what is right or wrong do not necessarily act morally. This is most obvious in racism and sexism which Gordon Allport discusses in “Prejudice.” Specifically, he investigated cases where people act prejudicially but admit in interview that prejudice is immoral. I don’t think Allport got at the reasons for the covert prejudice, eg mating practices and legal marriage laws, cultural pride and family pride, but he does point to this problem.

Hegel critiqued Kant over Kant’s natural law theory of rights which established the antimony between duty and inclination. Hegel and Kant however both point to the problem of the lack of control over thinking - psychological havoc and the wish to harm being so common!

Without going into the bush, the problem is that the inclination to conform overrides the duty to be fair, in many cases.

Usually people are not giving reasons or justifying themselves. They are giving orders and taking advantage of any legal loopholes they can find; the only venue or context of justification - explanation and reasoning - is in a court of law, and even then perjury occurs.

For example, parents make up superficial reasons for children during their why-phase otherwise it’s discipline and psychological control. Organizations and kinship structures are bastions of coercion completely eclipsing any concept of autonomy, by any definition of the term.

If freedom means anything, we only experience its loss.

People see themselves as out for number one, themselves. The only way they accept being a subordinate is by contract - the rules and regulation way - this is not morally acceptable to them but merely a condition of the “natural social reality.” Incentives are used for their cooperation but strict disciplining also lurks begins their backs and over their heads.

“Good” is not a clear standard and rather immature at that - responsibility and honesty as well as practicality are the missing factors.

To believe that people think of themselves as good yet cannot explain conflict means that good is just an appearance!

Some conflicts are misunderstandings, most are mistreatments by one against another: superfluous domination.

The issue is whether an inequality is required for practical and technical reasons or whether the behavior and or psychological interaction is superfluous, unnecessary and/or based on false beliefs, habits or alienation, eg prejudice, status, pride, etc.

This bit about being good, a good boy or good man or good wife or whatever conceals the effects a person has, and the degrees of affect that a person has to others and experiences from others are needs, drives or feelings. The problem is their compulsiveness and rigidity. Some people never change, they want others to kow tow to them and they mistreat others, induce emotional blackmail, and of course never show any respect.

Respect was the basis of the moral law; that cannot be said today bc even if another shows behavioral candor and expresses apparent honesty, their psychological attitude of resentment is often just as transparent as their speech!

So, I don’t buy anyone's “good” self attributions - one must be lacking in certain experiences of learning what is right and wrong, or forgetting, to think they are good in a moral sense which is really nothing but an impression that you conform and without awareness of the laws and rules you unconsciously follow which you might question and even resist. It’s a long way to the boundary of conventions which can just as quickly bite you whether you follow them or not!

Without being naive about introspection, reflection, self-knowledge and moral awareness, there are multiple meanings of good, and none are very significant - people think of themselves as mediocre, blasé and stereotyped.

People in conflict think they are right but these are not moral judgments, reasons are not given, descriptions are not reflected upon, the desired outcomes and consequences are not moral outcomes. Each believes they represent the common good and thus are justified in exploiting and dominating the other. The feelings and affects are not moral feelings, often they are clearly immoral: sadistic and contemptuous! Force and the desire to harm lie behind any claims to care, or love. There is no self-sacrifice, no patience, and no real discussion. The rights of the other are trammeled by one’s own sense of “being right.” The degree of disrespect, of blatant immoral responses if any real responses are even proffered, is even considered normal and justified in their self-righteousness.

When we consider our impressions or what stimulates us,  consider epidemiology and sociological statistics, then the perception of human motives and feelings will turn.

When people in certain groups characterize their self-understanding, as good and yet engage in terrorism, or sadism, or despisement and contempt, certain terms like macho, chivalry and patriarchal authoritarianism come to mind. For example, ISIS is a cult that practices sharia law - stoning, chopping off of limbs and heads, sadistic murder, and has been fighting a war against its own people and several nations! So, it looks like they think they are very very "badass." But, whatever vocabulary characterizes their self-understanding, and it is not "good!"
If they reflect and they hold any moral standards, they would immediately recognize their self as bad!

So either they are deceiving or they have a false conscience.

STRAIGHT UP AND QUEER

The problem is that queer politics does not occur only in upper middle class settings, it is that so-called heterosexuals engage in homosexual behaviors and do not then align their identity with their behavior, and vice versa, especially among the working classes.  Heterosexuals label others identities as homosexuals, gay, lgbtq, whatever, regardless of the lack of any homosexual behaviors, and even under conditions where the person being labeled is conforming to heteronormative lifestyles: successful transition from loser virgin to married cuck!  Identity becomes a linguistic object distinct from any behavior and the labeling process of the other as gay-queer is a substitute for racism (in both directions: by the majority character against the minority character, and by the minority character against the majority character - racism is not simply a one-way process), classism and ageism.

The issue is not the number of lgbtqs in the population. The problem is that all sexual expressions are restricted. People are socialized in a sex repressive manner and then there are the legal issues related to sexual behavior, e.g. harassment, abuse, rape, assault, etc.  Heteronormativity is not merely the restriction of sexual expressions to the minimal sexual behaviors needed to form a family and the family roles of husband, wife, father, mother where all other family roles are prohibited from sexual activity or expressions, and then the legal framework of the State which orders the marital regulations in a doubly binding Family x State dualism.

Heteronormativity also involves the perverted form of heterosexual identity as engaging in abusive homosexual behaviors, including labeling of others as homosexual in order to dominate, but not changing their identity to align with their behaviors. So, many straight people engage in homosexual behaviors, especially homosocial behaviors, while maintaining a heterosexual identity. The problem is that identity and behavior are differentiated for some people who have the social capital to reject the naming of their behavior as implicating their identity while at the same time forcing others to embody an identity which is not established by their behaviors or sticking some of the people with labels that align with their behaviors. Some people are seeking surgery for sexual reassignment because they are completely unable to reconcile the social power that has labeled their identity with their gender!

RACE

The real issue is that race is the representative sign for mate selection. In anthropology it is called exogamy and there is a demarcation line, called race. The practice is endogamy or marry-in your own race. There is some miscegenation but this is usually mediated by class. The ""NORM"" is anti-miscegenation. Since all of the so-called races, even ethnicities practice these marriage rules, interbreeding or cross-cultural relationships or interfaith marriages become controversial.  Race is not realized at the genetic level since all humans can interbreed, but race is realized at the cultural and political levels. Today, we are experiencing increasing integration of the "races," that is, organizations are wiling to hire individuals of varied racial backgrounds if their social capital, e.g. education, is appropriate. But, we are not experiencing an increase in "assimilation" or intermarriage. Some groups intermarry more than others, but the White-Black intermarriage rate is low, whereas, the Asian-any other group is the highest.

Great  Philosophers Never Marry because they develop Libido towards ideas.  They are spiosexual. 

Once Nietzsche’s remark that true philosophers never marry and that Socrates did so only ironically.  The number of philosophers who never married is startling: Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, John Locke, Benedict Spinoza, Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Arthur Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Ludwig Wittgenstein are some of the other prominent names that could be added to the list. 

FALSIFICATION VS VERIFICATION OR WHY POPPER BEAT AYER?

The difference between verification and falsification is that verification looks merely for the evidence stated in the hypothesis. If the hypothesis is 'all swans are white,' and the scientist looks out and observes only white swans then he takes this evidence as verifying the hypothesis. Falsification however is the event where the hypothesis is refuted by evidence of a black swan. Now, the scientists know that the hypothesis is false. In effect, Popper is saying that we cannot know by induction whether an hypothesis is truth, but we can know if it false and therefore we should set up falsification experiments or sincerity and severity tests.

The definition of corroboration is messy: an observation statement supports an hypothesis when it follows from, agrees with, or is an instance of the hyp. However, for Popper this is not a severe test which attempts to refute the hypothesis and searches for counter instances.  Also, Popper stated that the term, 'degree of confirmation or corroboration' seems to reduce induction to probability which he thought was wrong because 'a degree of' does not lead to practical results.

Where Carnap posited a degree of confirmation, Popper claimed that degree of corroboration meant in terms of 'logical content' and not 'amount of evidence.' Also, he claimed that corroboration of an hyp. could increase if rival theories were falsified or refuted and where evidence emerged which was completely unexpected given the original conditions and background knowledge of the hyp. and test statements. Popper was trying to differentiate inductive logic from probability logic.

_Critique of Pure Reason_

Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of our mind the first is to receive representations (receptivity of impressions), the second is the faculty of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity of concepts). Through the first an object is *given* to us, through the second the object is *thought* in relation to that representation (which is a mere determination of the mind). Intuition and concepts constitute, therefore, the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts can yield knowledge. Both are either pure or empirical. They are empirical when they contain sensation (sensation presupposes the actual presence of the object). They are *pure* when no sensation is mixed in with the representation. Sensation may be called the matter of sensible knowledge. Pure intuition, therefore, contains only the form under which something is intuited, and the pure concept contains only the form of thinking an object in general. Pure intuitions and pure concepts alone are possible *a priori*, empirical intuitions and empirical concepts only *a posteriori*.

We call sensibility the receptivity of our mind to receive representations insofar as it is in some wise affected, while the *understanding*, on the other hand, is our faculty of producing representations by ourselves, or the *spontaneity* of knowledge. We are so constituted that our intuition can never be other than *sensible*; that is, it contains only the mode in which we are affected by objects. The faculty, on the contrary, which enables us to *think* the object of sensible intuition is the *understanding*. Neither of these properties is to be preferred to the other. Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. It is, therefore, just as necessary to make our concepts sensible (i.e., to add the object to them in intuition) as to make our intuitions understandable (i.e., to bring them under concepts). These two faculties or capacities cannot exchange their functions. The understanding cannot intuit anything, the senses cannot think anything. Only from their union can knowledge arise. But this is no reason for confounding their respective contributions; rather, it gives us a strong reason for carefully separating and distinguishing the one from the other. We therefore distinguish the science of the rules of sensibility in general, i.e., aesthetic, from the science of the rules of the understanding in general, i.e., logic."

―Immanuel Kant, from_Critique of Pure Reason_. Transcendental Doctrine of Elements. Transcendental Logic

   Fundamental Philosophical Issues




I.  Introduction
II. Mind-Body relationship
III.Determinism vs indeterminism
IV. Value-free science
V.  Mental health and morality
VI. Autonomy vs conformity
VII.Conclusions

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

I. Introduction:
     Adherents to the different theoretical orientations take sides on
numerous philosophical issues concerning the nature of humanity.  These
issues lie at the heart of some theoretical controversies and the
conflicts between professionals.  These controversies and conflicts
reflect implicit, unexamined, gut-felt metaphysical beliefs, in addition
to scientific knowledge.  To understand the various theoretical
paradigms and why there are different paradigms, we must understand
these beliefs.  As we progress in this course, these issues will arise
again and again in our discussions.  By way of introduction, we will
make them explicit now.  (This discussion is based in part on Weckowicz,
1984)

II. Mind - Body Relationship

A. Overview: Philosophy of Mind

     Numerous positions have historically been held and perhaps
just as many positions are currently held, regarding the
relationship of the mind to the body.  These include dualism,
materialism, identity theory, and others (Churchland, 1984).

1. Dualism (eg: Descartes): The mental and the physical are
two distinct realities, composed of fundamentally different
"stuffs" - irreducibility.  The real you is not your
physical/material body, but a nonspatial, ghostly, perhaps
spiritual thinking substance: "mind stuff" (Churchland, 1984).
(Descartes: "I think, therefore I am").  This does not
necessarily mean that the physical world and the mental world
do not interact.  But it does commit you to the position that
the mental can not be explained or understood by reference to
the physical.  This position is certainly consistent with
various religious beliefs regarding the existence of a soul.
There is no way to understand the soul by looking at nerve
cells and the organs of the body.  Cells and organs are
something utterly different from a soul - as such, they
certainly can't explain how the soul works or even what a soul
is.

2. Materialism (eg: Paul and Pat Churchland):  In contrast to
dualism, this approach states that there is only one reality:
the physical.  No matter how much we believe there is a soul
or an otherwise nonphysical-something-about-us, there is not.
This position sees the only reality as that of the nerve cell,
the organ, and other physical (ie: "material") things.  There
are variations on this idea (eg: Classical (Skinnerian)
behaviorism, where all that is actually real is the
observable/physical behaviors of an organism); but they all
argue that there is no purely mental, mystical or spiritual
reality existing alongside the physical world.  Thus,
psychological theories that talk about mental-type things
(like beliefs, desires, love, unconscious conflicts, etc) are
wrong - these things (beliefs, desires, etc) do not actually
exist!  Some of the evidence for this position comes from the
fact that theories that attempt to explain human behavior
using these mental concepts often do a really poor job of
predicting, let alone explaining, that behavior.  Materialists
argue that this poor showing is because these theories are
using concepts that have nothing to do with the real world.

3. Identity Theory (eg: J.J.C. Smart):  Each and every type of
mental state is identical with some type of physical/
neurochemical state.  Eg: Just like "light" is identical to
electromagnetic waves, "pain" (a mental state) is identical to
stimulation of nociceptive fibers of the hippocampus (physical
state).  NB: This is claiming more than mere correlation of
states; there is an identity.  The identity theory is similar
to eliminative materialism in its emphasis on the physical
side of things, but here there is no need to throw out all our
mental terms and theories that refer to them.  These theories
and concepts can still be scientifically very useful.  In
other words, mental terms can be "translated" into physical
phenomena ("love" is actually the firing of these neurons).

B. Abnormal Psychology

1. Basic Question: Is the cause of mental illness in the mind
or in the body?

2. The Body: Medical Models of psychopathology.
        a) disease models - an altered state of the organism, a break
           with its natural state caused by some etiological agent.

        b) constitutional models - inherited disorder, an inborn
           characteristic.

        c) diathesis-stress models - a constitutional/inborn
           vulnerability plus environmental factors (ie: general or
           specific stress) (Meehl, 1962).

        d) combination - some combination of (a), (b) and (c).

        Sum: Psychopathology is caused by physiological and biochemical
             activities of the body and especially the brain.  Mental
             phenomena are a) symptoms, and b) epiphenomenal (for the
             most part).

3. The Mind:
The causal factors are in the mind: desires, conflicts,
motives, attributions, delusions, dreams, plans, implicit
theories; whether conscious or unconscious.  Thus,
psychological phenomena are meaningful (causal) in their
own right.  These inner experiences are necessary to
explain psychopathology.

There are various theoretical orientations that see the
mind as important:  eg - psychodynamic theories (Freud and
others), where it is argued that unconscious psychological
conflicts and the various psychological processes we engage
in to deal with these conflicts accounts for who we are and
what we do.

Note: There are also theories that focus on neither the mindnor
the body:

4. The Environment: Behavioral models.
The cause of psychopathology is unique sequences of
environmental events: contingencies and conditioning.

5. The Social: Interpersonal approaches.
The roots of this orientation are with the school of
Symbolic Interactionism (eg: G.H. Mead, Cooley).  The
emphasis was on reflected appraisals and the "looking glass
self" - we come to see ourselves as others see us.  Thus,
the Interpersonal approaches today perceive the cause of
psychopathology to be in our interpersonal communications.

III. Determinism vs Indeterminism
A. Basic Question: Do humans have free will?  Is there such thing
as free will, or is it a myth? 

B. Determinism: Medical models, Behavioral approaches.
     Events have causes, and by altering the things that caused the
events you can influence the course of future events.  Behavior is
predictable and controllable.  Typically, this position is
expressed thusly: A combination of heredity and environment causes
human behavior. (ie: Nature and nurture make us do what we do).
Therapy is therefore directed at discovering the underlying causes
and changing them: through drugs, surgery, or behavioral
engineering.

C. Indeterminism:  Humanistic and Existential approaches.
     Human beings possess the capacity for free will and they are
responsible for their acts - this is the essence of our humanness
and dignity. (Sartre: "I am my choices".  Weckowicz (1984): "We are
the architects of our own lives").  This emphasis on freedom and
choice means people are unpredictable, and therefore
uncontrollable.  Indeed, to control someone is to deny them what is
essential to their humanness - their free will.

D. Intermediate positions: Psychodynamic, Cognitive, Interpersonal.
     Behavior is caused by various events, but also their is to
some extent a degree of indeterminism.

eg: Freud:  On the one hand, there is determinism:
psychological determinism (unconscious drives, motives,
conflicts).  We experience this when we feel compelled by our
compulsions and fears - our free will feels restricted.  On
the other hand, psychoanalysis allows more conscious control
and the ability to make free(er) choices.  The patient moves
from being a slave to his/her passions to being a rational
free individual.  However, Freud does admit that we are rarely
completely free of the unconscious forces. 

IV. Value-Free Science
     Abnormal psychology is a branch of Scientific psychology.  A
science strives to be value-free so as to provide veridical accounts and
explanations of reality.  However, it is increasingly recognized that
values do influence the scientific process (Howard, 1985; Kuhn, 19  ;
Weckowicz, 1984).  Different values are espoused by the various theories
of psychopathology, either explicitly or implicitly.  This is especially
important when the science is an applied one, such as Abnormal
Psychology (Weckowicz, 1984). 

The role of values in the science of psychology  George Howard, in
American Psychologist, 1985:

A. Making value judgments is an essential part of the work of
science.  The question is not whether but how values are embedded
in and shape science, and what that means in fields like Psychology
where the subject matter is human beings.  Current beliefs,
assumptions and values influence what you choose to study, the
findings you expect, the results you actually obtain, and how you
interpret the results.  For example: Shields (1975) reviewed sex
difference research of the past century and found that instead of
correcting society's misperceptions, the research findings
reflected the dominant values of the period.  Howard is not arguing
that science is actually just values in disguise.  But he is
arguing that values play a part in the scientific process, even
though scientist rightly control them as much as possible.

B. Traditionally, the scientist is supposed to just observe nature.
Nature is not supposed to react to being observed.  However, as
quantum physics has taught us, it isn't always so:  the nature of
what the physicist observes depends on being observed and how it is
observed - depending on the physicist's assumptions and methods of
observation, he/she will either see a particle atomic phenomenon or
a wave atomic phenomenon.  Or let's look at an example of this in
the field of psychology:  Why do psychologists like to observe
people through one-way mirrors?  Obviously it's because if the
person being observed is aware of the observer, his/her behavior is
likely to be altered.  [Of course, it's not so certain that the
presence of the mirror and the person's knowledge that someone is
behind it watching them doesn't also effect the person's
behavior!].  So, when the "things" being observed are people, it is
very possible that the mere act of observing them will influence
them. 
     The role of values becomes particularly salient given the
unique nature of psychology's subject matter - human beings.
Humans, argues Howard, are active agents in the world; as we watch
them, they are watching, deciding and acting based on their own
models, scripts, and implicit theories which they construct.  Given
this unique nature of the human being (the watcher/actor/theory-
maker), an interesting thing may be happening in our science:
There is a reciprocal relationship or interaction between the
scientist-observer and the individual-object. 
     Analogous to the observations the physicist made of atomic
phenomena, the observations psychologists make of humans and the
theories psychologists construct will affect humans.  For example,
humans may come to believe the results, the models and the theories
and act accordingly.  If I'm observing you, and you are aware of
that, and if you also know that I believe you are mentally ill or
that I think being emotionally expressive is the best way to be,
then after awhile you may come to act accordingly, especially if
you believe me to be an Expert a scientist, psychologist, etc).  My
beliefs and values can influence you.

C. The issue is this:  If human nature is influenced by how science
views it, not only should we consider whether values can be removed
from psychological research (which is unlikely), but we must also
consider if they should be removed.  There are many who argue that
"yes, we must remove values from any science".  However, to do away
with values (what's good/bad, the shoulds/oughts, ideals) we may
run the risk, argues Howard, of constructing an impoverished,
overly rigid vision of humanity, ignoring what humanity could
become.

D. Howard's solution:  Because values and thus theoretical
orientations inevitably influence our findings, psychological
research findings should be looked at not as demonstrating what
necessarily occurs in the world (some objective reality), but what
is possible if human beings are considered from a particular
perspective.  Each perspective has something to offer; no one is
the correct perspective.

E.  The theoretical controversies we will confront in this course
arise largely because each perspective is claiming itself to be the
model of objective reality.  The controversies and debates are seen
in a different light, perhaps less hot, when viewed from Howard's
position.

V. Mental Health and Morality
A. The terms "mental health" and "mental illness" are entangled in
moral and legal issues.  Can mental illness/abnormality be
distinguished from sin, crime, and immorality?  "Mad or Bad?"  Here
is the dark side of the humanist's coin: if people have free will
and are responsible agents, then are they not accountable for all
their actions?

B. The Insanity Defense:  Freedom of choice/free will is
constrained and distorted by mental illness - the person acts under
duress and is therefore not responsible.  With most crimes,
conviction requires proof of the particular act (actus reus) plus
proof of a particular mental state (mens rea = culpable mind)
(Ennis, 1982).  In other words, in addition to showing that the
person did the crime, it must also be shown that the person had a
conscious objective to commit the act.  This is the heart of the
Insanity Defense used with people like John Hinckley, Jr. (Hinckley
tried to assassinate President Reagan on March 30, 1981 - he
succeeded in wounding both Reagan and an aide.  He was tried and
found not guilty by reason of insanity.  He was confined to a
mental hospital).
     The controversy is concerned with how you tell whether an
adult has free will?  It is a highly subjective judgement - there
is no clear criterion.  Expert witnesses contradict each other.
"One person's delusion may be another's religion" (Cohen, 1982); or
in the words of Lily Tomlin: "If you speak to God, it's a prayer,
if God speaks to you it's schizophrenia".  The question is: does
mental illness impair free will?  This is an unresolved, inherently
philosophical question.

VI. Autonomy vs Conformity
A. The basic question: What is the basis of mental health?
Autonomy of the individual or conformity to society?

B. Conformity: A model of humankind and society which argues that
the best world is one in which there are few disruptions, where
conflict is rare or even nonexistent.  The best way to achieve this
is for people to conform to particular ideals or ways of acting,
etc.  The goal is for smooth, undisrupted functioning.

C. Autonomy:  An "open system model", with a goal of growth,
development and change.  (eg: humanistic psychology's emphasis on
self-actualization; conformity leads to mental illness).

D. A Combination:  Some people claim (C) is the "best" - especially
in the U.S. where so much value is placed on individualism.  But
imagine what life would be like if there was no conformity?
Imagine what your life would be like if you never attempted to
conform.  Most theories of mental health (explicitly) take the
position that a combination of conformity and autonomy is important
for mental health.  However in practice (ie: implicitly) there is
still much debate whether the various theoretical orientations are
taking a combination approach (Rappaport, 1977).

This leads us to the issue of the rights of individuals (especially
mental patients) vs the rights of society.  Sometimes these may be
incompatible.  What choice the clinician makes is crucial for defining
his/her role as clinician.

VII. Conclusions
     We have discussed 5 philosophical issues that are fundamentally
intertwined in the topic of Abnormal Psychology: The relationship
between the mind and body, determinism vs indeterminism, the place of
values in psychology, mental health and morality, and autonomy vs
conformity.  These issues will arise repeatedly throughout this course
and it will be important to explore them as they do.  Such explorations
may help us clarify some of the confusion across the different
theoretical orientations.