les mots et les choses

We simply have no organ for knowing, for “truth”: we “know” (or believe or imagine)
exactly as much as is useful to the human herd, to the species: and even what
is here called “usefulness” is finally also just a belief, a fiction, and perhaps
just that supremely fatal stupidity of which we some day will perish.
(Nietzsche, Gay Science 354)

Written in 1887 as part of the second, expanded edition of The Gay Science, this quote can very nearly serve as an introduction to Nietzsche’s mature thought. Its sentiments lie at the heart of much of his most important work, and are particularly related to his doctrine of perspectivism. That which we think we know we only merely “know”: what we call knowledge is only that which proves useful, in particular that which promotes life. Our human (all too human) perspective first circumscribes what we are able to experience of the world, and from that subset of possibilities we select that which is useful to count as knowledge.

It follows that our usual ideas about human nature, particularly the notions of “self”, “subject”, and “soul” are similarly chosen for their “herd usefulness” rather than their truth. Throughout a number of his works Nietzsche uses this pragmatic notion of truth[1] to demolish the modern, mistaken view of the self as the unitary res cogitans of Descartes, painting a much different picture as a corrective.

We will first briefly examine Nietzsche’s views on truth and knowledge, then discuss his views on language and its relationship to consciousness, and finally examine the corrective version of the self/subject which Nietzsche feels more accurately represents our reality.

Read the rest of this entry »

Taken on 10 Feb 2008.

The polite notice one finds in Chennai Dosa restaurants in London:

This is objectively true, and please note that this is philosophy we’re talking about here. The owners of Chennai Dosa are very concerned that you get the fullest enjoyment possible out of your meal. That and it’s terribly awkward (bordering on painful) to watch gore log trying to eat their dosas with fork and knife.

Thanks you.

From Daybreak (174):

[...] the question itself remains unanswered whether one is of more use to another by immediately leaping to his side and helping him — which help can in any case be only superficial where it does not become a tyrannical seizing and transforming — or by creating something out of oneself that the other can behold with pleasure: a beautiful, restful, self-enclosed garden perhaps, with high walls against storms and the dust of the roadway but also a hospitable gate.

I’ve never considered law school myself, but happened upon this article today on the Law and Letters blog which is a highly detailed — and highly amusing — argument against going to law school. The main points are as follows:

• The jobs suck. One has three options:
  • The corporate serf.
  • The underpaid do-gooder.
  • The sucker.
• Lawyers are unhappy.
• You’ll be surrounded by jerks.
• The debt incurred is insane.
• The law will make you into the worst kind of person. The negative qualities it instills are:
  • Unintellectualism
  • Arrogance
  • Uninterestingness
  • Impatience
  • Agressiveness

The following brilliant remark is included under the “unintellectualism” section:

The practice of law is the development of a habit of extreme intellectual dishonesty where the routine is to state one’s opponent’s arguments as uncharitably as possible in aid of weakening their impact and conceal every possible fact or principle that is against one’s interest which one isn’t explicitly required to disclose.

And under pettiness:

[...] much of the nastiness in the practice of law is in small-minded disputes about nothing points of procedure and other maneuvering for tactical advantage. Do you really want to practice being the kind of prick who demands that pleadings be thrown out for being one day late?

The “underpaid do-gooder” job option is of course about public interest law. While thanks to the sense of fulfillment from fighting the good fight “public interest lawyers are indeed the happiest among practicing lawyers”, “many public interest careers are practically inaccessible to people with large law school loans and no loan forgiveness program.” Much more is said about the difficult life of the public interest lawyer in later addenda.

Well worth the read even if one is not interesting in pursuing a career in law.

(The following is the introduction to a senior thesis paper currently in progress)

Perhaps no other idea in the course of human history can be implicated in as much misery and destruction as the idea of an ancient white-skinned race of conquerors known as “Aryans”. Inspired by the 18^th century European discovery of a historical connection between the languages of Europe and India, the idea soon took on a life of its own as it became deeply enmeshed with British imperial ambitions as well as developing notions of European national identity. Having since been universally discredited by advancements across the range of human sciences[1] – from biology to philology, from anthropology to simple human decency – and considering the sheer amount of imagination and outright fraud involved in its development, we will henceforth refer to this idea as the Aryan myth.

This paper will examine the development of the Aryan myth as a part of the larger phenomenon of Orientalism as described by Edward Said and others. In a benign sense, Orientalism refers to the epistemological project of Europeans as they worked to interpret and understand “the Orient” and their relation to it. But as a project enabled by and often instituted as a part of European imperialism, it cannot be separated from the needs and designs of the colonial enterprise; indeed, it can be quite instructive to see Orientalism as a highly effective tool in the service of empire. As such, it is a way of seeing “the Orient” as an inferior Other to the superior Self of Europe: an Other that is weak, feminine, and static in contrast to the strong, masculine, dynamic Self of Europe (“the Occident”). Following Foucault, Said highlighted the importance of power in the process of “knowledge production”. The power relation between Occident and Orient was an asymmetric one in which the former had power to dominate the latter: “The relationship between Occident and Orient is a relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony…” (Said, Orientalism, p. 5).

Following Said, we should see “the Orient” as a creation of European minds deeply embedded in the colonial context, and as such it is an idea without any essence: “The Orient is not an inert fact of nature. It is not merely there, just as the Occident itself is not just there either” (ibid., p. 4). In other words, “the Orient” is a socially constructed entity that has no independent existence outside of what is said about it through discourse. As a creation of human minds, it can be taken as an opportunity to better understand its creators, or as Said tells us, “I myself believe that Orientalism is more particularly valuable as a sign of European-American power over the Orient than it is as a veridic discourse about the Orient (which is what, in its academic or scholarly form, it claims to be)” (ibid., p. 6). He takes this further with the view that “Orientalism is – and does not simply represent – a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with ‘our’ world” (ibid., p. 12).

This paper will examine the creation and development of the Aryan myth across three dimensions: 1) as a tool used in the service of European colonialism, more specifically as an intellectual device useful in the legitimation of empire; 2) as a component in the development of varying notions and forms of European national identity; and 3) as the catalyst to the creation and development of several academic disciplines which had an important role in the colonial enterprise, disciplines which still struggle to remove themselves their Orientalist pasts. The period under review is primarily that of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, but some events of the 20^th century as well as contemporary events in India and the United States will also be discussed.

[1] The term “human sciences” is used in the sense of the German word Geisteswissenschaften, a category which includes both the humanities and the social sciences. I also take the liberty of including biology in this term, as it directly relates to the understanding of our own species.

Schopenhauer tells us that the phenomenal world is objectified will, and in referring specifically to human beings that the body is “the objectivity of the will” (World as Will and Representation Vol. 1, p. 100) and more broadly that “man is objectivity of the will” (ibid., p. 287). As such each of us has an “intelligible character” (an idea adopted from Kant) which is a single expression of will that forever determines how we will act and respond to our circumstances. This is what is referred to when Schopenhauer speaks of will in a genitive sense, as in “my will,” “his will,” and so on. Given an identical set of circumstances and knowledge of those circumstances, one’s will would always make the same choice. As we become aware of opportunities and possible courses of action (what Schopenhauer refers to as “motives”) our will decides and our body acts, regardless of what we may think is the reason for our actions. We cannot know our will — our intelligible character — directly, but can only come to learn about it through the actions we take. Deliberation can only help to inform our will, providing it with knowledge through which it will decide a course of action: “the will can be reached from outside only through motives; but these alter merely the way in which it manifests itself, never the will itself” (ibid., p. 369). The unfolding of our character through our actions in the world is known as our “empirical character” – the expression of our inner, intelligible character that has come about through various circumstances, opportunities, and knowledge.

Because teaching, maxims, dogmas and the like cannot change our intelligible character such cannot bring about ethical action: “abstract dogmas are without influence on virtue, i.e. on goodness of disposition” (ibid. p. 368). One performs good deeds “because [one] is good” (ibid., p. 369, original emphasis), that is, the good deed is a result of one’s inner goodness rather than from external prescriptions. To the extent that they provide knowledge the latter can only help the will decide its course of action, and then only if they are in line with its dispositions. One might even believe he is simply acting in accord with a moral dogma of some kind, but Schopenhauer tells us “we must always distinguish whether these dogmas are really the motive for [good deeds], or whether […] they are nothing more than the delusive account by which he tries to satisfy his own faculty of reason about a good deed that flows from quite a different source” (ibid.). Schopenhauer thus describes a deontological ethics by placing disposition and motivation — determined by one’s intelligible character — as the true determiners of ethically good acts. He tells us that “only the disposition that leads to [acts] gives them moral significance” (ibid.), and that acts can be considered “morally wrong, even though […] right according to positive laws” (ibid., p. 371).

Paradoxically, Schopenhauer goes on to tell us that “genuine goodness of disposition, disinterested virtue, and pure nobleness of mind […] do not come from abstract knowledge yet they do come from knowledge” (ibid., pp. 369-70; emphasis added). This knowledge is “a direct and intuitive knowledge” (ibid., p. 370) of the reality that the world is merely expression of the will, the unitary thing-in-itself (“world as will”) which underlies all phenomena (“world as representation”). This awareness is what Schopenhauer (following Vedanta philosophy of India) refers to as “piercing the veil of Maya” and seeing beyond what he calls the principium individuationis. It is a knowledge that “every living thing is just as much our own inner being-in-itself as is our own person [which] extends our interest to all that lives” (ibid., p. 373). Because it requires a direct, intuitive awareness, this knowledge cannot be taught.[1]

The paradox here lies in Schopenhauer’s earlier insistence that our intelligible character — and thus our various dispositions — is both unchanging and unchangeable, and that knowledge can only guide one’s will toward what it is already disposed to do. If, for example, violence and selfishness are intrinsic to one’s intelligible character, how could awareness of the underlying identity of all beings override these dispositions? How could any amount or kind of knowledge bring about “genuine goodness of disposition” if we are to think of goodness (or lack thereof) as an inherent quality? Schopenhauer seems to want to provide a way to uphold the Socratic notion that knowledge (true or highest knowledge) is a guarantor of virtue. For Socrates and Plato it was knowledge of the Good, while for Schopenhauer it is the knowledge that beyond the principium individuationis all is simply will. In both cases it involves seeing beyond the illusory phenomenal world,[2] though for Plato it meant acquiring direct knowledge of the Forms themselves (and thus of the Good, the highest form), while for Schopenhauer even the Forms are part of the illusion.

The paradox deepens when Schopenhauer next tells us that “this seeing through can take place […] in the higher degree that urges a man to positive benevolence and well-doing, to philanthropy,” and further that

this can happen however strong and energetic the will that appears in such an individual may be in itself. Knowledge can always counterbalance it, can teach a man to resist the temptation to do wrong, and can even produce every degree of goodness, indeed of resignation. Therefore the good man is in no way to be regarded as an originally weaker phenomenon of will than the bad, but it is knowledge that masters in him the blind craving of will. (ibid., p. 371)

Suddenly knowledge has been transformed into a force that can override will. How is this possible given Schopenhauer’s earlier description of intelligible character? How is it possible given his description of will in general? He would have us believe that beyond phenomena there is only will, so consciousness itself must be some kind of expression of the will; yet here we see an aspect of consciousness (its acquisition of a special kind of knowledge) which can apparently subvert will. It would appear that will is subverting itself, but how does this “informed will” have priority over the “blind craving” variety? What is it about this act of “seeing through” that can produce such a dramatic reversal of his earlier description of will? Schopenhauer does not seem to provide an answer, and yet this new development is the key factor in his further discussions of ethical matters and in his view of ascetic renunciation as summum bonum.

Beyond the difficulties inherent in Schopenhauer’s position, it is further undermined by a closer look at what he considers direct and immediate knowledge in light of Hegel’s critique of immediate sense-certainty. While Schopenhauer does not intend the “seeing through” to have anything to do with the senses, his characterization of it as “direct and intuitive knowledge” makes it susceptible to Hegel’s critique. Hegel (drawing on Kant) demonstrates that such presumed immediacy is delusional: all experience, whether internal/mental or whether based on external/sensory input, is necessarily mediated. Our senses are the most obvious factors, but others such as time and space mediate what we know in even more fundamental ways. Without immediate experience there can be no immediate knowledge, but Schopenhauer would have us believe that the “seeing through” can somehow attain knowledge which is direct and immediate.

Schopenhauer himself undermines this claim when in an earlier passage he tells us that “the body is the condition of knowledge of my will” (ibid., p. 102). The body is the will’s means of expression and thus is the medium through which any knowledge of one’s own will is acquired. This subset of our intelligible character is our empirical character, which Schopenhauer further describes as being necessarily temporal and spatial (ibid., p. 291). Thus our knowledge of our will by way of our empirical character is not only partial (we only come to know that which is actually expressed) but also mediated by space and time. Given such conditions on our knowledge of will, how could one acquire a direct and immediate (and thus unconditioned) knowledge of anything else?[3]

We appear to be left pondering two paradoxes, or at least two major problems in Schopenhauer’s system: 1) knowledge is mediated by various factors, yet there is a special kind of knowledge which is direct and immediate; and 2) will is thing-in-itself and the driving force behind all that exists – the reality behind all mere representation – yet it can somehow be subverted by this same special kind of knowledge.

[1] How then does such knowledge come about? Does Schopenhauer ever tell us, or does he merely inform us of its possibility?

[2] Strictly speaking we can only ascribe this further elaboration to Plato; we cannot know if it is a one which Socrates himself held, though it is reasonable to believe that he saw knowledge of the Good as paramount.

[3] The picture is further clouded by Schopenhauer’s initial description of will as “what is known immediately to everyone” (WWR, 100) and that as “knowledge that the inner nature of his own phenomenon” it is “a knowledge which everyone possesses directly in the concrete, namely as feeling” (ibid., 109).

In 1776 Adam Smith wrote his famous passage about the invisible hand of the market which, in effect, promoted the greater good of society through the actions of individuals pursuing their own self-interest. This is the foundation of the principle of free market economics, which insists that the best possible outcomes will be produced by the activity of markets unencumbered by government regulation or other interference. In this view, a free market will naturally achieve the best distribution of goods and services through the law of supply and demand. Central planning of any kind is anathema to free market economics: at best the results are considered less efficient than they would be through the natural functioning of the free market, while quite possibly leading to the worst of all possible outcomes.

This view is taken as gospel in our contemporary economic climate, but its extreme myopia is clear to anyone concerned about the long term welfare of humanity and of the world in general. The personal greed which drives the free market has no concern for the long term: the only interest is short-term profit for oneself, with all other considerations brushed aside as externalities. Setting aside the callousness of this idea for the moment, it might make sense if the Earth were not a closed system. We simply cannot (continue to) ignore the fact that negative “externalities” have been occurring on a massive scale which effect the environment that we all share.

But as expected, this is exactly what the market continues to do. As Naomi Klein writes, investment bankers are enthusiastic about weapons manufacturers but not so sanguine about renewable energy:

Anyone tired of lousy news from the markets should talk to Douglas Lloyd, director of Venture Business Research, a company that tracks trends in venture capitalism. “I expect investment activity in this sector to remain buoyant,” he said recently. His bouncy mood was inspired by the money gushing into private security and defense companies. He added, “I also see this as a more attractive sector, as many do, than clean energy.”

Within the limited perspective of free market economics, this makes perfect sense: if you want to make money right now invest in guns and mercenaries rather than clean energy. Many investors will indeed make plenty of money this way, and in the unlikely event that weapons manufacturers start to show declining profits they’ll simply move on to the next hot market sector. It’s hard to imagine a way in which clean energy solutions could be profitable in a strictly economic sense — their real “profit” will be in the survival of the human species, but since that isn’t something that can translate to larger numbers in someone’s checking account it can’t be an incentive in a free market.

Predictably, the chief lemming leading us all off the cliff keeps up the same cheery rhetoric. Continuing with Klein’s article:

The Bush Administration, still roadblocking firm caps on emissions, wants to let the market solve the crisis. “We’re on the threshold of dramatic technological breakthroughs,” Bush assured the world last January, adding, “We’ll leave it to the market to decide the mix of fuels that most effectively and efficiently meet this goal.”

The idea that capitalism can save us from climate catastrophe has powerful appeal. It gives politicians an excuse to subsidize corporations rather than regulate them, and it neatly avoids a discussion about how the core market logic of endless growth landed us here in the first place.

Investors are not completely blind to the coming dangers caused by this assumption of endless growth, as studies of the worst possible scenarios of climate change help the wealthy prepare for a dangerous new world. The dramatic example of the 2003 report titled “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security” (subtitle: “Imagining the Unthinkable”; see also here) commissioned by the Pentagon’s own “Yoda” is a case in point. The possible future envisioned there is dire indeed:

The report explores how such an abrupt climate change scenario could potentially de-stabilize the geo-political environment, leading to skirmishes, battles, and even war due to resource constraints such as:

1. Food shortages due to decreases in net global agricultural production
2. Decreased availability and quality of fresh water in key regions due to shifted precipitation patters, causing more frequent floods and droughts
3. Disrupted access to energy supplies due to extensive sea ice and storminess

As global and local carrying capacities are reduced, tensions could mount around the world, leading to two fundamental strategies: defensive and offensive. Nations with the resources to do so may build virtual fortresses around their countries, preserving resources for themselves. Less fortunate nations especially those with ancient enmities with their neighbors, may initiate in struggles for access to food, clean water, or energy. Unlikely alliances could be formed as defense priorities shift and the goal is resources for survival rather than religion, ideology, or national honor.

The authors of the study do not predict that abrupt climate change will definitely happen, but they believe that it is “quite plausible” and that it is important to “dramatize the impact climate change could have on society if we are unprepared for it.” Ours could become a “world of warring states” in which “nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable” since “nuclear energy will become a critical source of power, and this will accelerate nuclear proliferation as countries develop enrichment and reprocessing capabilities to ensure their national security.” They expect that in addition to the current nuclear-capable states, North and South Korea, Iran, and Egypt would have nuclear weapons capability. Their final pronouncement is that “disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.”

While officials have distanced themselves from the dire scenario envisioned in the report, we can expect that the wealthy — who want to stay that way — are paying close attention to such possibilities. In a world in which “disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life” it makes sense, from a purely self-interested perspective, to invest heavily in “security”, that is, weapons manufacturing and “private military companies” such as the infamous Blackwater Worldwide (née Blackwater USA; business is booming, after all). Returning to Klein:

The market, however, appears to have other ideas about how to meet the challenges of an increasingly disaster-prone world. According to Lloyd, despite all the government incentives, the really big money is turning away from clean energy technologies and banking instead on gadgets promising to seal wealthy countries and individuals into high-tech fortresses. Key growth areas in venture capitalism are private security firms selling surveillance gear and privatized emergency response. Put simply, in the world of venture capitalism, there has been a race going on between greens on the one hand and guns and garrisons on the other — and the guns are winning.

Do mainstream economic theories account for the ability of the super-rich to create their own demand? Those with hundreds of millions and even billions to spare can decide for the rest of us the future course of the economy. They are in effect creating demand that does not exist. As Klein points out:

This trend has nothing to do with real supply and demand, since the demand for clean energy technology could not be higher. With oil reaching $100 a barrel, it is clear that we badly need green alternatives, both as consumers and as a species. The latest report from the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was characterized by Time magazine as “a final warning to humanity,” while a new Oxfam report makes it clear that the recent wave of natural disasters is no fluke: over the past two decades, the number of extreme weather events has quadrupled.

Not only does the vast majority of the world want clean, renewable energy, we need it for our very survival. This is real demand. Not only are we choking to death on the pollution caused by current energy technology, we’re quite possibly producing a scenario in which we may not survive at all. But the super-rich, as the owners of the means of production, can simply decide that it’s more profitable to prepare for the worst possible scenario rather than collectively work for a better future. This is what Klein sees happening in the market economy:

[...] many of the original counterterrorism technologies are being retrofitted as privatized emergency response during natural disasters — Blackwater pitching itself as the new Red Cross, firefighters working for insurance giants (see my last column). By far the biggest market is the fortressing of Europe and North America — Halliburton’s contract to build detention centers for an unspecified immigration influx, Boeing’s “virtual” border fence, biometric ID cards. The primary target for these technologies is not terrorists but immigrants, an increasing number of whom have been displaced by extreme weather events like the recent floods in Tabasco, Mexico, or the cyclone in Bangladesh. As climate change creates more landlessness, the market in fortresses will increase dramatically.

She points out the standard market logic in making this decision:

Of course, there is still money to be made from going green; but there is much more green — at least in the short term — to be made from selling escape and protection. As Lloyd explains, “The failure rate of security businesses is much lower than clean-tech ones and, as important, the capital investment required to build a successful security business is also much lower.” In other words, solving real problems is hard, but turning a profit from those problems is easy.

Bush wants to leave our climate crisis to the ingenuity of the market. Well, the market has spoken: it will not take us off this disastrous course. In fact, the smart money is betting that we will stay on it.

The invisible hand is there at the edge of the cliff, helpfully guiding us over the brink.