Remarks on Philosophy

 Remarks on Philosophy

Many people say the same thing about Hegel, Husserl, and others: how difficult they are to understand. If you look at Husserl’s early work, Logical Investigations and Ideas, or even his late work, the Crisis and/or Experience and Judgment ( my favorite), Husserl’s writing is quite plain and lends itself to imagery and comprehension.

Perhaps the difficulty with Husserl is that he expects his reader to suspend their usual thinking processes and to think about consciousness, to bracket their natural attitudes, and opinions!

Both Heidegger and Sartre worked from the foundations that Husserl established.

It is important to read the secondary literature on Husserl, but few get at his key insights or his many, many pointers about what is going on in the mind, similar to Hegel who might be said to have noticed that the ideas in our minds fit a pattern and these notions might make sense but that their actual sequence is both random and thus structured by the entities of the state and Geist!!

Recommend reading Adorno’s critique of both. Although Adorno has also been said to be difficult to read, his constant criticism of Husserl’s use of the term ‘reduction’ sheds light on Husserl’s method!

When I consider particular passages as I read them, I think to myself whether it is good or difficult. But this is different from drawing a conclusion after a reading or after completing a text.

So, Sartre in B&N (Being and Nothingness, 1944) says quite a few questionable things, especially about the sexual relation, and in CDR (Critique of Dialectical Reason, 1960) does not really get at what is happening in consciousness during either the queue or events during the French Revolution. He surely makes us wonder but does not literally connect consciousnesses together, but this seems to be his intent!

Is there something practically relevant in these writers that clearly emerges from a reading, or are there obviously incoherent passages? I would say no to both but I do acquire a new and deeper awareness of existence and thought, especially in contrast to the emotional and reified tone of most social contexts and feelings!

I think it is important to give and interpret specific passages to make points on whether a philosopher is relevant. But, when we are discussing the majors, it should be taken for granted that they are! 

The Responsibilities of the Public Intellectuals

 The Responsibilities of the Public Intellectuals

If you are going to assert that there is some foundation to our moral sense, minimally defined as drawing a right-wrong distinction, you might want to assert that there is some foundation to the social judgments of ingroups and outgroups. Some criticisms of morality claim that moralisms are simply convenient categories for classifying your enemies as evil, and therefore have no validity. If morality is substance, what is it? 

Why is argument, the pen, superior to the sword, violence? The issue is normativity, or why we are supposed to act or not act in certain ways, that is, why we must perform certain obligations. Concealed in the normativity question that we must do certain things and not others is the problem of illegitimate norms. Illegitimate norms are the untrue myths as false stories which we learn in childhood and have an inscribing and imprinting effect during our life. What makes a norm legitimate? This question is rarely asked or answered but it is often at the heart of social confrontations. The practice of reaction, of taking action come what may in public as a protest to a perceived insult or wrong, is considered the only effective way to produce social change, or change in policy, since the authorities, or those with power in terms of authorized and designated powers, police force/legal representation or majority opinion, will not adjust their views unless outrageous action is taken against them. Even though this same strategy of reaction is all too common in our interpersonal lives, on the public stage, reaction and not argument is believed to be the only certain course. 

One should have a certain logical and reasonable attitude to argue which is absent in most persons since most are 'emotional.' The designated persons who construct and disseminate the 'arguments' are called public intellectuals - writers, journalists, think-tank analysts, professors and especially politicians. These persons, there are only around 6000 or so worldwide at any given time, have the responsibility of investigating and reporting what is going on. So, the question of whether the pen is mightier than the sword depends on whether these persons are responsibly doing their job!

Sarocchi’s thoroughly unsympathetic definition of the intellectual provides the frame for “Julian Benda, Portrait of the Intellectual,” (1968) “In these days when every twenty-year-old who has read Marcuse or Mao confers upon himself the title of intellectual, it is pleasant to read someone who has not been taken in and who recognizes the contemporary intellectual for what he too often is, a destructive and unappeasable critic of the whole current of human culture and modern Western society, usually to the benefit of some undefined form of totalitarianism.”

Social media pundits project into the public consciousness reactionary cherry picked socio-cultural binary issues that are for/against something. Their motifs are supported by an aggressive concoction of westernized cultural malaise and armchair activism. The public becomes a set of audiences accommodate gratuitous cultural biases. The true motivation of the pundit’s positions, I hesitate to call them intellectuals, is the financial interests in getting published or attention in the media.

The modern public intellectual utilizes contemporary issues to promote their own individual agenda; it is self-promotion and marketing of the pop public intellectual.

For example, darling of hard right American polemists, Ann coulter is a prolific public speaker and author that possesses an adept understanding of how to exploit the very sentiments which appeal to her target audience within the parameters of Republican America. Her readers range from confederate flag waving, gun-loving, rednecks to the educated blue-blooded nationalist. If she attempted to write literary fiction or romantic literature, she would not be as successful as an author. Her formula aligns with FOX, Breibart, etc. She has made statements such as "we should bomb Islamic countries and Christianize them," it is obviously meant to provoke her target audience. However, it would be more helpful for everyone’s understanding if she, or anyone, would address the Islamic-Christian conflicts in the Middle East, the Maghreb and Africa generally.

Slavoj Zizek claims that "911 is the political fantasy America has always wanted.” Zizek attacks neo-conservative capitalism. Jordan Peterson attacks political correctness and LGBTQ rights especially. Saad attacks the neo- Marxists academia. Coulter attacks immigration. They all share the penchant for presenting their personal viewpoint which is too often unrelated to any facts or evidence or statistics.

What are the steps the public are supposed to take after they have understood these pressing issues? Can these problems be resolved? There is no intention to proactively resolve any issues only to publicly address, as Zizek said in an interview regarding his thoughts on utopian revolution, “The second step never comes” - it is not their responsibility.

The public is lured into watching debates which will supposedly resolve the issue one way or the other, but these debates, like the Zizek-Peterson debate, or the many debates involving Christopher Hitchens, the weekly William Buckley show, are mere hype and entertainment, like a reality show or a sports event. Does the audience learn anything?

Instead of William Buckley and Noam Chomsky, or Taibbi on ‘Useful Idiots,’ or ’60 Minutes’ having an in depth, animated conversation for the world to see we now have Ben Shapiro, Gad Saad, Tucker Carlson spewing shameless politically motivated versions of public intellectualism for fanboys and subscribers.

Journalists who report on events and reconstruct the identities, positions and statements of leaders and movements around the world. There are a handful of magazines: The Atlantic, Harpers, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Mother Jones, The Republic, time, Newsweek, etc., that report on events along with the major newspapers: NYT, WSJ, WaPo, etc. There is also You Tube which provides a venue for pundits, professors, and politicians. In the Zizek-Peterson debate, Peterson does not impress. Zizek won his debate in the first few minutes. Others have slammed Peterson who does not respond. Peterson is too obscure in his writing: Rules and Meanings. Noam Chomsky is the best. Ann Coulter speaks merely to draw attention to identity issues - binary wedge issues. The entire field of right-wing talk show hosts lack explanation and self-criticism. These shows amplify identity, and identicide. The real issues are interest positions, social position or rank and status, and power relations-structures, all of which are analogues of capitalism.

Zizek and Chomsky have one thing in common, they have serious written work that supports their position, but they are on opposite sides of the coin: Chomsky addresses realpolitik and political -historical events, in detail. Zizek addresses psychological and phenomenological theories and tries to apply them to social structures, groups, and current events.

The controversy between Anna Freud and Melania Klein

 The Controversy between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein

Where Melanie Klein surveyed Freud’s concepts, Anna Freud calmed that Freud’s concepts were misunderstood and distorted by critics. Melanie Klein posited unconscious fantasy, which is spelled ‘phantasy,’ as the symptom to be uncovered by analytic techniques. Anna Freud posited the interplay of environment and innate competencies as one world, body and mind as a singularity. Mind in this case is the combination of perceptual consciousness, memory and internal sensations, not a distinction between consciousness and a social mind. 



Perhaps, the main difference was that Anna Freud emphasized the pleasure principle and instinctual gratification as the essence of the child whereas Melanie Klein emphasized aggression and mourning. Klein discusses the infant’s representation of the mother-infant interaction whereas Anna Freud discusses the mother’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the infant’s narcissism and autoeroticism.



Anna Freud represents the US psychotherapeutic community’s research focus as conventional: the analysts are reasoning scientists who consider their critics as power seekers and manipulators who think ‘deep analysis’ is a trojan horse, an ad to lure analysands. Klein represents the British psychoanalytic community’s aggressive attack and defense culture: the analysts are crusaders, the critics are authoritarians unwilling to offer challenging views.

Anna Freud brought the International Psychoanalytic Association to the US but the British Psychoanalytic Training Society declared Anna Freud to be an ideological extremist. This intergroup conflict between theoretical approaches to psychoanalysis reflects the anti-American and anti-Europeans biases.

Inspiring Raskolnikov

 Inspiring Raskolnikov

In chapter 6 of 'Crime and Punishment' Dostoyevsky stages the scene where Raskolnikov learns about his landlady Alyona Ivanovna from strangers in a tavern who discuss the women and exclaim about whether to kill her!  The novel opens with the interaction between Alyona and Raskolnikov where she is demanding the rent and he is offering his belongings in exchange, a watch, a ring from his father, etc. He leaves this interaction enraged. Chapters 2-5 set the scene by describing tavern life through one character, Marmeladov, who is an officer and a drunkard with three children and a wife.  The wife, Sonia, scolds him constantly but also takes the beatings from the landlord for rent! Marmeladov represents the impoverished people who crowd into the taverns and comment on each other's confessions and character - a sympathetic lot! In chapter 6, Raskolnikov observes two strangers meet each other and converse about none other than his landlady, Alyona Ivanovna.

The naming of the characters by Dostoyevsky is quite clever and comes through easily in translation: rascal, Al Ivan the land 'lady,' Marm the drunk, son, etc. There is certain resonance between the name and the character which is all but deniable in today's signification discourse where the name is not supposed to have any meaning but a designation!

""She is first‐rate," he said. "You can always get money from her. She is as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousand roubles at a time and she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have had dealings with her. But she is an awful old harpy...."

And he began describing how spiteful and uncertain she was, how if you were only a day late with your interest the pledge was lost; how she gave a quarter of the value of an article and took five and even seven percent a month on it and so on. The student chattered on, saying that she had a sister Lizaveta, whom the wretched little creature was continually beating, and kept in complete bondage like a small child, though Lizaveta was at least six feet high.

"There's a phenomenon for you," cried the student and he laughed.

They began talking about Lizaveta. The student spoke about her with a peculiar relish and was continually laughing and the officer listened with great interest and asked him to send Lizaveta to do some mending for him. Raskolnikov did not miss a word and learned everything about her. Lizaveta was younger than the old woman and was her half‐sister, being the child of a different mother. She was thirty‐five. She worked day and night for her sister, and besides doing the cooking and the washing, she did sewing and worked as a charwoman and gave her sister all she earned. She did not dare to accept an order or job of any kind without her sister's permission. The old woman had already made her will, and Lizaveta knew of it, and by this will she would not get a farthing; nothing but the movables, chairs and so on; all the money was left to a monastery in the province of N——, that prayers might be said for her in perpetuity. Lizaveta was of lower rank than her sister, unmarried and awfully uncouth in appearance, remarkably tall with long feet that looked as if they were bent outwards. She always wore battered goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person. What the student expressed most surprise and amusement about was the fact that Lizaveta was continually with child.

"But you say she is hideous?" observed the officer.

"Yes, she is so dark‐skinned and looks like a soldier dressed up, but you know she is not at all hideous. She has such a good‐natured face and eyes. Strikingly so. And the proof of it is that lots of people are attracted by her. She is such a soft, gentle creature, ready to put up with anything, always willing, willing to do anything. And her smile is really very sweet."

"You seem to find her attractive yourself," laughed the officer.

"From her queerness. No, I'll tell you what. I could kill that damned old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the faintest conscience‐prick," the student added with warmth. The officer laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was!

"Listen, I want to ask you a serious question," the student said hotly. "I was joking of course, but look here; on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You understand? You understand?"

"Yes, yes, I understand," answered the officer, watching his excited companion attentively.

"Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman's money which will be buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock hospitals—and all with her money. Kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a hundred lives in exchange—it's simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill‐natured old woman in the balance of existence! No more than the life of a louse, of a black‐beetle, less in fact because the old woman is doing harm. She is wearing out the lives of others; the other day

she bit Lizaveta's finger out of spite; it almost had to be amputated."

"Of course she does not deserve to live," remarked the officer, "but there it is, it's nature."

"Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature, and, but for that, we should drown in an ocean of prejudice. But for that, there would never have been a single great man. They talk of duty, conscience—I don't want to say anything against duty and conscience;—but the point is, what do we mean by them. Stay, I have another question to ask you. Listen!"

"No, you stay, I'll ask you a question. Listen!"

"Well?"

"You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me,

would you kill the old woman yourself?"

"Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it.... It's

nothing to do with me...."

"But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there's no

justice about it.... Let us have another game."

Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it was all

ordinary youthful talk and thought, such as he had often heard before in different forms and on different themes. But why had he happened to hear such a discussion and such ideas at the very moment when his own brain was just conceiving... the very same ideas? And why, just at the moment when he had brought away the embryo of his idea from the old woman had he dropped at once upon a conversation about her? This coincidence always seemed strange to him. This trivial talk in a tavern had an immense influence on him in his later action; as though there had really been in it something preordained, some guiding hint...."