Denis asked:

I am interested in the study of Stoicism, especially their attitudes towards the emotions. Lieutenant Castillo of the TV program Miami Vice is portrayed as the classic Stoic. My question is, Is it possible for one to accomplish such an indifference towards external circumstances? Also, do you agree with my belief that the more inner strength a person has, the more likely he or she will be able to control their emotions?

This is a great question, especially since it's so thoroughly philosophical while lying at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. Stoicism, or at least some interpretations of it, has informed Aaron Beck's Cognitive Therapy and, perhaps to an even greater extent, Albert Ellis's Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Both therapeutic techniques explicitly embrace the Stoic principle that our own thoughts determine our emotions. This would seem to be true in some trivial sense. If I don't learn of a loved-one's death until two days after the event then I don't feel grief until two days after she's died. Similarly, if I am misinformed that a loved-one has died whereas, in reality, she's alive and well and shopping at the mall, I will grieve for her just as though she were really dead. In some sense, then, my grief is caused by my belief that my loved-one has died and not by the actual death itself. Evaluations are even more emotively influential than beliefs, and, in fact, beliefs probably couldn't generate emotions without them. Suppose, for example, that I believe a traffic jam is going to make me late for an appointment. This belief won't lead me to feel frustrated unless I attach to it a certain evaluative judgement like "It's bad to be late for appointments in general" or "It will be awful for me if I'm late for this appointment in particular." As a first pass, then, we can say that emotions are generated and probably partially constituted by beliefs and evaluations — both cognitive things.

Of course, all of this is a far cry from saying, with the Stoics, that we can exercise control over our emotions. From our previous observations, it follows that we can control our emotions to the extent that we can control our beliefs and evaluations. Epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge and belief) is divided over the extent to which we can determine what we believe. I think that our control over our beliefs is limited. I suppose I could retain my belief that my loved one is alive, despite being informed of her death, seeing her body, performing medical tests on her to check for signs of life and witnessing her cremation. I could believe that the body I'm seeing is actually a clone of my loved-one, for instance, but I doubt that I could willfully carry out a program of such profound self-deception. Instead, I'm willing to bet that to a large extent our beliefs are the natural outcome of the evidence, the evidence is a natural product of our senses, and our senses automatically pick up on external facts in the world. Many beliefs, then, probably come upon us from the outside (if we're physically and psychologically healthy, at any rate) so controlling our emotions by controlling our beliefs might hold only limited promise.

What's needed, probably, is control over the other cognitive element of emotion: evaluation. Judgments of good and bad seem more "internal" than judgements of fact. The Truth, as Fox Mulder says, may be out there, but the Good might not be. If my loved-one is dead, for example, that's a state of the world external to me. But the badness of my loved-one's death? Is that a state of the world external to me, too? It doesn't seem to be. Instead, that appears to be a judgement I make. If states of the world color our minds with belief from the outside in, our minds seem to color the world with evaluations from the inside out. Evaluation seems to be in our control, and since evaluation generates and constitutes emotion, if there were some way to change our evaluative patterns then we could control our emotions as well.

Which brings me (finally!) to your question. (Bet you thought I forgot it.) "Is it possible for one to accomplish such an indifference towards external circumstances?" In other words, is it possible to form correct beliefs while draining those beliefs of their evaluative significance? Since this is a matter of psychological fact, a psychologist might be more equipped to answer this part of your question than I am. Nevertheless, I'd say that it's possible. Buddhists, from what I understand, claim to have done it. More crudely, I suspect that certain kinds brain surgery could do it. Perhaps, after engaging in a program of meditation to resign myself to the impermance of all things, or after checking into the hospital to have certain parts of my cerebral cortex removed, I could accept the news of a love-one's death with complete equanimity.

Philosophically, the interesting question is should I do this? (At least that's the question that most vexes me at the moment and since I'm writing this, I can preemptorily declare this to be the philosophically most interesting question.) As you can probably tell from the tone of the previous paragraph, I don't think that we should cultivate such emotional indifferance. My reasons for this are evolving, and I might change my mind, but at the moment psychological and philosophical considerations are leading me to decry indifference. Psychologically, there are good reasons to suppose that our emotions have evolved to serve useful purposes and to believe that cultivating indifference, or even effecting a significant blunting of our emotions, in order to avoid painful or excessive feelings may be like removing a lung to cure a case of asthma. Fear helps to keep us alive. Anger helps to keep people from treating us like objects. Love helps us to care for others.

So emotions, I think, are a good thing psychologically. And I think that they're good philosophically, too. Although certain ethical theories (Kant's, for instance) hold that ethical behavior should be motivated entirely by reason, other ethical theories (like Hume's) maintain that emotions are central to moral behavior. It isn't obvious to me that Kant wins out over Hume here, and, in fact, I'm strongly inclined to bet on Hume. If I could really cultivate indifferance to the death of my loved-ones, what impact would this have on my attitudes toward and treatment of them while they are alive?

So, I guess my answer to your first question, "Is it possible for one to accomplish such an indifference towards external circumstances?" is "Yes it's possible, but the Stoics notwithstanding, it isn't necessarily desireable."

Which brings us to your second question of whether or not inner strength enables people to control their emotions. Here I think it depends upon the source of the emotion, because emotions are complicated things and come at us from a lot of different places. If the emotion, like depression, is the result of unbalanced brain chemistry, then I don't think that inner strength has much to do with controlling it. Undoubtedly, when a person is depressed, it takes extraordinary inner strength to get out of bed, to get dressed and to get to work. It takes inner strength to get to a doctor and get help, too, but I doubt that any amount of inner strength will render that help unnecessary. Sometimes people need pills, not pep talks.

There are other times, though, when inner strength is probably quite important to controlling our emotions. If I'm angry at someone, for instance, it takes inner strength to smile and behave civily. It takes even more inner strength to reframe the insult in such a way that I forgive the person and am no longer angry. Nonetheless, it can be done and sometimes, ethically, it should be done. If I feel great compassion for the suffering of others, it takes inner strength to help them. It may take even more inner strength to rid myself of the compassion. Here, however, exercising of such Herculian strength is not a virtue.

Dona Warren
Department of Philosophy
University of Wisconsin — Stevens Point

Wang asked:

How is Nietzsche's notion of will different from Schopenhauer's?

Both have a metaphysical definition of will in common.

Schopenhauer's notion of will is there in the title of his major work The World as Will and Representation. Everything that is, is a representation or manifestation of the will, which is universal and eternal. The world in all its manifoldness is an objectification of the will. Schopenhauer writes, "What the will wills is always life" (WWR.IV.para.54). Will is the (Kantian) thing-in-itself, the inner content (of all that is) and the essence of the world" (ibid.). Human will is a tiny mirror of universal will which is always "the will to life."

Nietzsche's notion of will as "will to power" is also metaphysical. Beware of the commentaries that treat "will to power" merely as a species of self-interest; certainly that enters into it, but it is hardly the crux. As in Schopenhauer, for Nietzsche, the words of Schelling are true: "In the final and highest instance, there is no being other than willing. Willing is primal being." (Philosophical Investigation Concerning the Nature of Human Freedom and Its Object, 1809).

Nietzsche's will to power concerns the problem of time. Nietzsche does not see time as the moving image of eternity. Starting with the notion of primal being as will, he sees time past as resisting the will, for the will is helpless before what was. "This, yes, this alone is revenge itself: the will's revulsion against time and its 'It was'" (Thus Spake Zarathustra Part II, On Deliverance).

What Nietzsche didn't like about Schopenhauer's world as will and representation was that it was world-denying. Schopenhauer thought that the world as representation and objectification was a world of illusion and instead of getting wrapped up in it, we should withdraw from it as fast as we can. If we deny our own will and discover will-lessness we will find the quietude that "alone redeems the world." (IV.65). Like Nietzsche's philosophy, Schopenhauer's demands a direct, intuitive knowledge. Unlike Schopenhauer, Nietzsche's will to power leads away from all asceticism or otherworldliness.

Nietzsche's metaphysical problem then is, how can the will redeem time? Faced with "it was", the slipping away of time, will is useless. The answer for Nietzsche is to will the eternal recurrence of the same. Zarathustra is a figure who lives the eternal recurrence and that is the 'good news' he brings mankind. Instead of repenting over the past like a Christian or turning one's back on the world as merely a realm of manifestation like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche redeems the time by willing its return and recurrence. This will to power he saw as this-world affirming. (See, The Gay Science sections, "The Greatest Stress" and "Incipit tragedia" and Thus Spake Zarathustra "On the Vision and the Riddle" and "The Stillest Hour".)

Dean asked:

Could there ever be — or, one might say, is there — any external meaning to human existence? Even if God exists in the traditional sense, would we not be merely his/her play things?

How can purpose be quantified?

I can't imagine how, in general, purpose could be quantified. If a particular purpose were to achieve something or acquire something which could be quantified, e.g. to visit all the cathedrals in Britain before I die, then, I suppose, I could be said to have realised a certain percentage of that purpose.

An "after life" could be, or could contain the meaning of human existence only if it is of an entirely different order from our present experience. It would have to be such that (a) it did not give rise to the questions which generate the alleged need for a meaning in the first place (b) the answer it provided would have to be satisfactory to us; if it turned out that the purpose of this life was to fatten us up for consumption by some greedy alien in the next, or to be the toy of some frisky God, our search for meaning would not be satisfied.

The Beatific Vision, as conceived in the Christian tradition, in which all our dynamism and desires are satisfied, would be such an existence. If it turns out, on the other hand, that we are merely the playthings of God, then our aspirations would be unfulfilled and Sporty God would not be our God.

As your question implies, there may be an internal meaning to life, if there is no external meaning. There are numerous things we enjoy doing and find meaningful, even though they fill no further purpose. We do them for their own sake: talking to friends, listening to music, walking in the country, to give a few, high-minded examples. The built-in meaningfulness which we experience, if we are lucky, in certain activities in life, or sections of our lives, could, conceivably, be experienced over the whole of a life. Perhaps one might feel this if one had a strong sense of mission or a highly developed aesthetic sense of the unity of life. Whatever generates this sense, it would have to be something strong enough to overcome the depressing thought that life is just one damned thing after another.

Even if we come to believe that life does not need a purpose external to itself to be meaningful, death may remain a matter of regret. The meaninglessness of life and the awfulness of death are two ideas that have often been run together, but they should be uncoupled. Finding life meaningful does not necessarily reconcile me to its termination. There may be, as Thomas Nagel suggests in Mortal Questions, a bad end in store for us all.

Michael Bavidge
Deputy Director
Centre for Lifelong Learning
University of Newcastle

Andrea asked:

I would like to know why a philosopher like Heidegger motivated such controversial opinions like the one of Carnap and others. Which are the most important advances in his thought?

The statement by Heidegger most frequently paraded around by logical positivists such as Carnap and Ayer, as the supreme example of metaphysical nonsense, is 'Nothing Nuths' Das Nichts Nichtet, taken from his Introduction to Metaphysics. I doubt whether any of them bothered themselves to actually read the work.

David Farrell Krell gives a judicious summing up of Heidegger's contribution to philosophy in his article for the Routledge Concise Encyclopaedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers edited by Urmson and Ree, 2nd Edn 1975:

Heidegger is without doubt the most powerfully original and influential philosopher of the century in the Continental tradition. Phenomenology, existentialism and deconstruction are unthinkable without him, but so are philosophy of literature and many social-critical or neo-Marxian strands of thought. His importance in the English-speaking world is also growing steadily, because no other contemporary thinker so unsettles the analytic enterprise. While convinced analytical philosophers fulminate against him, or try to ignore him, their students have long been reading him.

For me, the most important advance in Heidegger's thought was his discovery of a new way of doing metaphysics. Being and Time, published in 1927, ranks alongside the greatest works of twentieth century metaphysics. It may not be easy going, but it is still a lot more readable than, say, Whitehead's Process and Reality or McTaggart's Nature of Existence. In the phenomenological tradition, Emmanuel Levinas Totality and Infinity is the only work of equal stature.

While Whitehead and McTaggart follow the traditional route of constructing a 'theory' of existence, delineating the true structure of reality hidden behind, or only dimly perceived through the distorting screen of ordinary language, Heidegger sees our actual everyday existence in the world, rather than merely the things we say, or the concepts we use to categorize the things around us, as implicitly involving a certain relation to reality, or 'Being'.

In Heidegger's picture, you and I do not merely hold a false view of reality, as Whitehead or McTaggart would claim. Rather, we live a false, 'inauthentic' existence. This is not moralizing, nor is it theorizing. It would be more correct to say that what Heidegger is looking for is a change of attitude that would halt, and then reverse the process of the ever-increasing concealment of 'Being'. Being is at least partially revealed when we rediscover the question of our own existence, in facing up to the absolute inevitability of our own death. Therein lies the clue to the metaphysics of time. Just where one goes from there, however, is not entirely clear. One gains the sense that Heidegger remains absorbed with clearing away the obstacles in the way of Being, without a thought to what we would actually see when the last obstacle is removed.

Geoffrey Klempner

Nick asked:

Can we hold a criminal responsible for his actions when he was either born predisposed to these actions or conditioned to do so? When I ask religious authorities this question, a third element is often added — something called 'free will'. This is never given much explanation and therefore I do not see how this fits in. I'd appreciate any help on this topic.

They say that to understand is to forgive. If we understood Hitler, could we forgive him? Imagine that you are the recording angel, watching ever stage of Hitler's life from the moment of conception, through birth, childhood, adolescence to adulthood. The formation of Hitler's character, the decisions he made or the events that influenced him become transparent to the angel's gaze. Each step along the way is either fully intelligible in the light of what went before, or else a result of mere chance, a roll of the dice.

From the angel's perspective, watching Hitler's life is like watching the formation and process of a natural disaster. There is no point in the attitude of moral condemnation, any more than there would be in shaking one's fist at a forest fire, or putting an earthquake on trial.

I don't think that it is enough to say that we don't occupy the angel's perspective, and leave it at that. If we do not see what the angel sees, then surely that is a matter of our ignorance.

Much is usually made at this point about the necessary role of interpersonal attitudes, where individuals are 'held responsible' for what they do, or, more crudely, the necessary function served by punishment or making an example. It doesn't answer your question. You can see through all that. You will say that the trial and execution of Hitler would be a charade, just as every trial and sentence is ultimately a charade. The thing philosophers call the 'moral world' is a reality constituted by its own mere appearance, a world of phantasms that we mistake for substantial things.

I am not ready to make the step of renouncing the moral world, because I am afraid of where it would lead. Call it a fondness for comforting illusions if you like. Ridding ourselves of these so-called illusions would be the first step towards a descent to Hell and the ultimate extinction of humanity. In place of one Hitler, we would have a thousand.

Geoffrey Klempner

Kanokwan asked:

Maybe I must take the course for Philosophy in the University...so I need some suggestions.

How can I learn Philosophy with happiness and make the point so very good?

The first piece of advice I would give is to look very carefully at the Department of Philosophy at the University where you hope to study before accepting the offer of a place. Pay them a visit, or, better still, several visits. Who is going to teach you? Are the lecturers and professors enthusiasts, or do they regard teaching as a necessary chore, and students as a mere inconvenience?

How can you learn philosophy with happiness? So few students even think to ask that question. Their only concern seems to be with success and doing well. Would you still be prepared to carry on even if you did badly, and found yourself at the bottom of the class? The rewards of studying philosophy are not reserved for the high flyers. However, in order to reap those rewards you need to adopt an attitude of humility. In the face of the perennial problems of philosophy we are all ignorant and stupid. Some are slightly less so, that is all.

Take your time, don't bite off more than you can chew. There is no point in toiling away for some possibly future reward, if you can't enjoy what you are doing here and now, in the present. The great moments of illumination will come when they come. But meanwhile every moment contains the possibility for enlightenment if you look for it. Enjoy the journey, because in philosophy you really can't say whether you will ever reach a destination.

Read about the lives of the great philosophers, and gain inspiration from them. Read, not to idolize, nor simply to appropriate ideas for your own use, but to bring the words on the page to life. Every text you pick up is an invitation to dialogue. The greatest joy in reading the classics of philosophy is the feeling of entering into a dialogue that transcends time and space. The great philosophers live on in their works, and that is where we can meet them whenever we choose.

Understandably, you also want to 'make the point so very good' — you want to get good marks for your essays, make a big impression in seminars and discussions. To do that, you need to overcome the fear of failure. Sometimes, the only way to learn is from our mistakes. You must not be afraid to look a fool. That means not getting sucked into to a way of thinking where everyone is in competition with you, where you either win or lose. Let others compete if they want to. Show that your only concern is understanding and learning more, that for you truth is more important than being perceived to be right. That will make the best impression of all.

Geoffrey Klempner

Aimee asked:

In the context of the American Declaration of Independence, the concept of unalienable rights is of course understandable if God is accepted. However, the phrase, 'pursuit of happiness' is giving me a problem. surely, this is not a declaration of Hedonism, but what exactly does this phrase claim? Is it better to say, a right to self-fulfilment or a right or opportunity to resources to make someone happy?

It says in the American Declaration of Independence that,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

Just what does that troublesome phrase, 'the pursuit of happiness' mean?

It is not a declaration of Hedonism. To say that one has a right to the pursuit of happiness does not imply the — in my view, quite implausible — theory that every human action is ultimately motivated by the desire for one's own pleasure or happiness, still less that every action is regarded by the agent as a mere means towards the end of enjoying some pleasure, or feeling happy or contented.

I agree with you that the idea that life and liberty are not enough, that something needs to be added to account for our God-given rights, has something to do with the availability of resources. What use is liberty, the absence of interference or constraint in setting out the plan of your own life, if the lack of resources means that there is no possibility that your plan could ever be brought to fruition? Everyone has the right to a decent chance, that in plain terms is what the Declaration of Independence is saying. We intuitively feel this to be true. A government that allowed a sector of the population to be deprived of a decent chance, would be failing in its duty to its citizens.

Equally, the right to the necessary resources would not make up for the lack of liberty. Suppose a government said, 'We will give you all the resources, all the opportunities for what we deem to be your 'self-fulfilment'. That would be an apt description of the illiberal state described in Plato's Republic. It clearly does not satisfy the conditions laid down by the Declaration of Independence. Before the iron curtain fell, Communist regimes boasted that their citizens' 'economic freedom' more than made up for their lack of political freedom. — But they were wrong.

Geoffrey Klempner

Maria asked:

I have several questions: Is there really a philosophy behind the action of doing research? and if so what kind of a philosophy would it be? Is research a solitary attitude, a need or a conviction? Can research actually be shared with others, thus is interdisciplinary research really possible or is meta-science only a myth?

Certainly, there can be philosophy about the action of doing research. Two books in particular come to mind:

Feyerabend, in Against Method, attacks the notion of a 'scientific method' that can be stated in general principles or rules, a method which if we follow it with care will lead us reliably to our goal. Practical, real-life science throws rules and principles out the window. Habermas, in Knowledge and Human Interests argues against the 'disinterested' view of the researcher, which views human knowledge in abstraction from its social context, and the uses to which knowledge is put. In both cases, what is being radically questioned is Descartes' view of human knowledge as essentially the achievement of a solitary subject, oblivious to everything except its own 'clear and distinct ideas'.

Philosophers in the analytic tradition — for example Michael Dummett in his seminal 1973 book Frege: Philosophy of Language — have laid heavy stress on the way Wittgenstein's later work displaced the theory of knowledge from the central place that it had occupied since Descartes. But it is fair to say that the philosophy of science has been completely ignored in this over-simplified picture. If I have to view myself as an agent in the world, rather than standing outside it, using language, concepts which I share with others and which I could not have invented for myself, then certain consequences for 'the activity of doing research' follow.

Philosophers of science still seem to be obsessed with the question of what is 'good' science or what is 'bad' science, as if the scientific community were waiting for their pearls of advice, the stamp of approval for their activities. More than anything, the philosophical injunction to 'know ourselves' requires that we accept science and research as political and sociological phenomena. We play games. Language games, certainly, but also the historical research game, the literary research game, the chemistry research game. — The philosophy research game.

I had a teacher once at school who was working on his PhD thesis in Physical Chemistry. He was trying to determine the melting point of a delicate crystalline substance, which required elaborate vacuum apparatus and miles of glass tubing. It was his brick that he would one day lay, with great ceremony, on the ever-rising edifice of science. It was also an exercise, to show that he knew how to 'do research'. Apart from occasional meetings with his thesis supervisor, however, he worked alone in the odd hours in between classes. Was he doing research, as he thought? In a way, he wasn't.

Well, maybe you will disagree. If my teacher ever did succeed in determining the melting point of the crystalline substance (I shall never know whether he did or not) then that was a potentially useful result. But there was also something that he was not learning or practising: how to collaborate, how to be part of a research team.

Potentially, all research is inter-disciplinary research. What I mean by that is that research, viewed as a naturally collaborative enterprise, inevitably involves some form of division of labour. The various members of the research team are not necessarily inter-changeable, they could not all do one another's jobs. In that case, you will ask, how can they justify their actions in the face of criticisms from their colleagues. How can I, the non-expert, pass judgements on you, the expert? — If you think about it, the response to this is straight-forward. As a matter of fact, we do, all the time. That is what you are doing now.

Geoffrey Klempner

J. Holder asked:

Is Being a phenomenon?

Possibly.

The question of the Being of the universe is not a question about something that lies behind the phenomena. There is no world of Kantian 'things in themselves', forever beyond the reach of human knowledge, known only to the Diety. Yet nor is the Being of the universe a meaningless question.

Haven't I just exhausted the alternatives?

I would argue that there may, possibly be a third alternative. I say 'possibly' because the jury is still out. The question of the 'Being' of the universe concerns things, or 'beings' as a whole, as a totality. The fundamental question of metaphysics is whether there could possibly be anything meaningful to say about the universe as a whole, or as Aristotle put it, about 'Being qua Being'.

Joan asked:

Does Husserl succeed in refuting psychologism?

What is psychologism, and why should anyone be bothered to refute it?

Edmund Husserl was concerned with psychologism in the account of logic, and logical inference. If you ask an ordinary person what 'logic' is, they will reply that it is something to do with the way we think. To think logically is to think rationally, to think illogically is to think irrationally.

So what are the laws of logic? A person thinks irrationally when their power of reasoning is impaired in some way. For example, people think and act irrationally under the influence of strong emotions, or strong liquor. It seems a natural inference to draw that the laws of logic describe the way people think when their thinking is not impaired.

If that is true, then it follows that the laws of logic are very general laws of psychology. In a similar way, opthalmology is concerned with the way people see when their sight is not impaired. There are tests that determine whether or not a person is colour blind, or whether they are long sighted or short sighted. 20-20 vision is the norm. The fact that our eyes cannot detect ultra-violet radiation, or that we lack the acuity of vision of an eagle, is not an impairment. It is just a natural fact about the way human beings are constructed.

What I have just described is psychologism about logic. In his book Logical Investigations Husserl gave a powerful argument against psychologism, which according to many philosophers laid the ghost of psychologism to rest forever. In order to grasp the point of his argument, we need to take things slowly. Consider the following statement:

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Say you have a delicious portion of Sacher torte. You can either eat it now, or you can keep it for later. I can spend all my money on a holiday, or I can save it up for a rainy day. This is a kind of choice we face many times in life. Parents are all-too aware that young children can't always see this. They want it both ways. The situation has to be patiently explained to them.

Now the saying, 'You can't have your cake and eat it,' is one familiar consequence of the logical law of non-contradiction:

It is not the case that (P and not-P)

Husserl argued that the scope of a logical law, like the one I have just quoted, is unrestricted in a way that could not be explained if the laws of logic were mere laws of psychology. The law applies to all objects, all places, all times. If the law of non-contradiction were merely a psychological law describing the way human beings think when their thinking is unimpaired, then it would be perfectly possible that we might one day encounter aliens (from the planet Hegel) whose thinking, when unimpaired according to their norms, did not obey the law of non-contradiction. Instead, on the planet Hegel, it is a law of logic that:

It is not the case that (P or not-P)

'Isn't that absurd!' you might think. Well, I'm not entirely convinced by that argument. The problem is, that every attempt to justify our belief that the so-called laws of logic are valid for all objects, all places, all times turns out to be blatantly circular. It would never convince a determined sceptic. The bottom line is that we cannot conceive of what it would be to possess the mind of an alien from the planet Hegel. And the reason is that conceiving is thinking, and we can only think the way we think. Round and round you go.

In other words, the situation is exactly as it would be if the laws of logic were merely psychological laws describing the way human beings feel impelled to think.

I don't think it is fair to say that Husserl failed to refute psychologism. He succeeded (with some prompting, some would argue, from the mathematician Gottlob Frege) in the lesser task of laying the foundations for an autonomous discipline of logic, uncontaminated by psychology. And for that he is rightly remembered.

Geoffrey Klempner

Dian asked:

What if someone falls for her mentor? Could Platonic eros be "true" love? What do the "roots" of Empedocles, the Platonic fluids and the Wiccan elements have in common? why is Plotinus described as the last great pagan philosopher? Generally, how is Ancient Greek philosophy related to magick?

What are the principles of religious atheism? If one is too respectful of the world to be an atheist but also too faithless to be a theist or a pantheist, where does one stand?

Are emotions "real"? I'm using myself; meaning that I choose to become depressed and I end up crying, I then command myself to feel enthusiastic or irritated and it happens until I get bored enough to give a new order. Where is my consciousness when I do this? Who is commanding and who's obeying? I can't feel unless I choose to. So is our world an acting stage? Who are we behind the masks we choose to wear? Is there a face at all behind these masks or are we just a big nothing?

Is the soul a part of our brain? Wouldn't that mean when our brain stops functioning,the soul gets lost? Then what in case of severe brain damage?

Why can't I stop the flow of thoughts until I drop from tiredness? Could you quit philosophy? It seems, one can't claim he likes philosophizing; maybe there's something seriously wrong with his mind and he can't do otherwise! Do we find it great because we can't help it?

You should never fall for your mentor. It's always a mistake. The other way round, though, is quite acceptable. Socrates was a better teacher for having fallen for Alcibiades. When you love someone, you have all the more reason to nurture and care for their soul. But Alcibiades was a worse pupil for having fallen for Socrates, as his subsequent behaviour seems to have borne out. — For those who are wondering what I'm talking about, it's all in Plato's dialogue Symposium.

What are the principles of religious atheism? There are various positions you can try to defend. You can say that what you mean by 'God' is simply The Good. In other words, you believe, without being able to offer any further justification for that belief, that there is an objective difference between 'right' and 'wrong'. Not everyone has sufficient faith for that. (For some, doing the right thing is simply the easiest option, it gets us into the least trouble in the long run.) Or you can say that you have a sense of awe at the existence of the world. You experience something that might be called the religious attitude in the absence of any religious belief. Not every would understand what you were talking about. There is a third option:

Respect for other persons is the recognition of their essential otherness, the fact that they occupy a standpoint that I can never attain, a standpoint that gives them the authority to evaluate my judgements. In this sense, all other persons are equal in my eyes, and may indeed be thought of as ultimately one: the Other. If I permit myself to harm this person, say, the leering tramp waving his angry fist at me, if I fail to respect his otherness, then I have in effect committed a crime against the Other as such, a crime against 'the Deity'. We have argued that it is only through my recognition of the Other that there comes to be an objective world for me. In that metaphorical or mythical sense, therefore, that philosophy vindicates the religious view of the world and all the things in it as 'God's creation'.

Mary asked:

Could you give me a brief definition of "ethnophilosophy"?

If you looked at this page earlier, I apologize for having originally rephrased your question — something I don't usually do — as, 'What is "ethnophilosophy"?' I thought it would be too easy just to give a brief definition. I couldn't have been more wrong!

Ethnophilosophy studies the philosophical beliefs and world view of 'the Maori', 'the Azande', 'the Hopi'. I have deliberately chosen peoples from three different Continents, because although the original idea of ethnophilosophy arose within an African context, it would clearly be wrong to define it in such a way that it was impossible to do ethnophilosophy outside of Africa.

The first thing to note is that we are not talking about any individual Maoris, or members of the Azande tribe, or Hopi Indians. The ethnophilosophy of a people does not have a history, in the way that one might speak of the history of Eastern or Western philosophy, or of the Continental or Analytic traditions. Whatever developments may take within an ethnophilosophy are not the result of successive contributions to an on-going debate, but rather follow the vicissitudes in the history of the society which has given rise to it.

Some academic philosophers would argue that what that shows is that ethnophilosophy cannot be 'philosophy' in any recognizable sense. The very idea involves a contradiction. - But then those philosophers first owe us a non-question begging definition of 'philosophy'.

The issue over ethnophilosophy carries strange echoes of an old academic controversy surrounding the beginnings of Greek philosophy, the logos over mythos debate. In one account of the history of Greek thought, the achievements of the Presocratic philosophers represented the 'triumph of logos over mythos'. In the place of uncritically accepted creation myths, there arose the idea of rational inquiry as the source of theories about the universe. According to the rival account, reason did not suddenly appear on the scene, as if from nowhere. There was a gradual development, with mythical elements continuing to play a significant role in the theories of the first 'philosophers'.

My view? Philosophy is about reasoning and argumentation. Philosophy is also about the different ways in which the world can make sense for us. It can be one, without being the other. So I have no difficulty with the thought that ethnophilosophy is philosophy properly so-called.

Geoffrey Klempner

Casibjorn asked:

They say that Plato said everything in Philosophy and everything that follows is but a reflection of what he has written. Currently I'm a student in the Philippines and a seminarian, and I am questioning about the existence of extra-terrestrial life. In cosmology as well as in metaphysics this question is raised but I need a second opinion, especially from a true philosopher not just a master.

Hoping you will answer, God bless and peace.

It was the metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead who said:

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them...

Anthony asked:

To what extent does language obfuscate our vision of ourselves? While it is of undoubted relevance to our interactions with other people, I feel that people rely on it to 'converse' with themselves. Why is it needed when we think to ourselves, given that the act of forming a feeling into words will always lose something in translation. I don't believe it is necessary. Relying on language to explain our own feelings to ourselves will ultimately distance us from our true selves. Often, the first thing we feel is the right thing eventually. Do we not trust our instincts? is this concentration on language a result of modern man's immersion in the physical world?

The question of language is probably the dominant philosophical question of the twentieth century. Heidegger said, "all thinking is experience with language" (On the Nature of Language). There is no thinking about language outside it. Language can never be something merely at hand, like a tool, because we are always in it, like an element or a universe. Objectivity is a stance taken up within the sphere of language, which uses language after a particular prefabricated fashion. In Heidegger's words, one has always already been "claimed" by language, by the very questions we ask, which reflect our experience of language (as far as it goes). Our relation to language is the same as our relation to all that is. "No matter how we put our questions to language about its nature, first of all it is needful that language vouchsafe itself to us. If it does, the nature of language becomes the grant of its essential being, that is, the being of language become the language of being" (ibid.).

The idea here is a bit like that of the later Wittgenstein, who came to see that "the meaning of a word is its use in language," (Philosophical Investigations) and that the use of language belongs to whole "forms of life". For instance, scientists derive the meaning of their words from the way that they are used within their professional world. Moreover, this world bespeaks a stance to beings as a whole, that of the methodologist. 'Things' therefore show up in a scientific light. The same things may be quite otherwise for the poet. Our stance in language is language's "claim" upon us. Language grants itself to us in different ways according to our stance.

The great danger with questions of language, and I fear your questions reflect this, is the fallacy of subjectivism on one hand and logic (in the positivistic sense) on the other. Language is not words which form a 'picture' of the world, or which stand for 'things' in that world or in oneself. Language is not a matter of the first person singular (the ego). Then language falls out of its own element (which is the Being of beings according to Heidegger or forms of life according to Wittgenstein) and becomes conceived in terms of psychology and subjectivism. Language remains a matter in question and any straightforward answers, especially of an analytical nature, would be preemptive.

John asked:

What do you consider to be the most important questions of metaphysics?

According the Heidegger in his Introduction to Metaphysics (1953) the first question is: "Why are there things that are, rather than nothing?" Heidegger means 'first' in a metaphysical sense not a chronological sense; he thinks that this is the most underlying of all questions. This is not just his idea, it comes from (his interpretation of) Aristotle. All our answers to every other philosophical question presuppose the way in which we have resolved the Seinsfrage (question of the Being of beings). The question of being is the most important question of metaphysics.

Noah asked:

Without evil, how would we know what "good" was? Don't we need "evil" to achieve balance, just as we need winter to appreciate the summer?

In the Nichomachean Ethics — a document which is formative for Western culture — Aristotle noticed that the desire for happiness was universal. It didn't matter who you were, what your background was or what you did for a living, everyone seeks to be happy. Happiness is the good. He went on to observe that false consciousness is almost a norm. This is when people seek happiness by ways and means that will only lead in the opposite direction, towards unhappiness and even self-destruction. He distinguished therefore between two types of good: the true good which will lead to happiness and the false good, which glitters like the real thing, but which will lead us away from the happiness we seek. Aristotle argued that happiness was to be sought for in oneself. Those who have found peace of heart are happy. To find peace of heart there are the practical arrangements of our existence which need taking care of first of all. Expensive food, fine houses, servants and possessions will not make us happy in and of themselves. Happiness is a matter of the heart. Aristotle recommended moderation with respect to our physical lot in life, else it distract us from the happiness we desire. Once we have sufficient to meet our physical needs then the real search begins. Aristotle argued that those who are happiest in themselves are the virtuous. Virtue is an aid to happiness. Our good lies in our virtue.

The balance, Aristotle taught, was between different ways of finding the good. Good government required balancing conflicting individual goods to find the common good.

You can see that we do not need 'evil' to know what good is. We know good naturally, we know ill by default, Aristotle thought.

It was Christianity which moralised and polarised the concept of the good. Suddenly the good was equated with God (and His earthly representatives) and evil with Godlessness or lack of faith. Classic Christianity taught that evil is a privation (absence) of God's holy presence in our lives and in our world. This presence alone is good. 'Evil' is not native to philosophy, it is a religious judgement. To the extent to which, philosophically, the world is Christianised, we can hardly do without evil, as it were. Yet evil is a thorn in the side of Christianism as well, since the question as to why a loving all-knowing and all-powerful God allows evil to exist is unanswerable. Either God is not all-loving or He is not all-knowing and all-powerful. Yet neither of these answers are acceptable to Christian religion. To answer your question directly: good and evil are not a yin-yang thing. Good is native to the human spirit, evil arises when virtue is wanting. Evil is good gone wrong, sometimes very wrong.