der Gott der Philosophen, 2

I’ve realized that some of the terms I’m using may not be the same as you’ve heard before. I’m translating my notes as literally as possible to try and stick to Prof. Halfwassen’s version of this story. I’m also trying to concentrate on the thread that connects the philosophers and not really making much effort to elucidate the details of the philosophies.

Part 2

Xenophanes separated god from the world and Parmenides took away the world, leaving god (Being).

Enter Plato. Plato brings an idea of “change” or “becoming” back to our history of metaphysics. “Change” bridges the gap between the “Oneness” of Parmenides and the indeterminate duality or multiplicity of daily experience. Plato places a “One”, or a “Good” as being beyond existence and this “One” is responsible for all knowledge. Knowledge is then a level of understanding between “oneness” and “duality” – true knowledge lying closer to oneness and opinion lying closer to duality.

[I'm very proud of this diagram that I just made, is it not beautiful?]

Xenophanes took god away from the world, Parmenides took away the world and Plato returned it to us as a changing, moving substance.

Enter Aristotle. The cause for change and movement in the world was, for Aristotle, the most important principle (not the “Good” or the “One” as is the case with Plato). Instead of levels of knowledge we are given levels of movement:

3. finite moved substances (humans, things in the world, etc.)
2. infinite moved substances (planets, moons, etc.)
1. eternally unmoved substance (the unmoved mover)

Substance 1 causes substance 2 to move but is itself unmoved – substance 2 then has a role in the movement of substance 3. [On a side note, I recently depicted substance 1, the unmoved mover, as a creepy girl.]

Xenophanes took god away from the world, Parmenides took the world away, Plato returned it to us as a changing substance and Aristotle gave us the god of change, the unmoved mover. I suppose it might make even more sense if we leave Parmenides out of our line of thought:

For the first time Xenophanes removed god from the world turning him/her/it into an otherworldly entity. Plato showed us that knowledge was looking past the fleeting quality of objects and towards the forms of life. The forms were entities most similar to god because they resembled the unity of god (as opposed to the multiplicity of mere appearances). Aristotle then tied this god to the world through a cause and effect relationship.

I’m not sure if I’ll continue in elucidating this project – let me know if there is actually any interest.

 

der Gott der Philosophen, 1

Part 1

Der Gott der Philosophen (the God of the Philosophers), was a project and year and a half long lecture series by Professor Jens Halfwassen (link is in German) of Uni. Heidelberg. This lecture series took a look at the Western tradition of philosophy using God, or an idea of an absolute, as its theme. I was able to attend the lectures for a year and listened to Prof. Halfwassen make it up to Meister Eckhart (in the last semester he ended with Kant). Prof. Halfwassen was sketching not the whole philosophy of the Western tradition but the history of metaphysics, connecting one system of metaphysic to the next.

Step 1 was to discuss polytheism, henotheism and monotheism in terms of a metamorphosis from poly- to monotheism.

• Polytheism: gods are part of the world and include one god that is stronger, more powerful than the others.
• Henotheism: being devoted to one god but recognizing the existence of lesser gods (a proto-Monotheism).
• Monotheism: accepting the existence of a God that is distinct from this world.

Enter Xenophanes. Xenophanes critiqued the anthropomorphic view of the Homeric gods. If the gods of the humans look human and act like humans than the gods of the horses are horses and act like horses. As a consequence of this critique he argued that god must be distinct and beyond the world (neither human or horse) – leaving him with a view of god that was more powerful than Zeus and larger than all gods that had been thought of. The world, for Xenophanes, represented change and multiplicity and God represented the absolute and unchangeable, indivisible oneness. He also argued that the idea of an all-powerful god necessitated the existence of only one god. Prof. Halfwassen declared Xenophanes, in being the first to separate god from the world, as our first monotheist.

Enter Parmenides. Parmenides followed Xenophanes’ idea of an absolute God and followed through on what he thought were the consequences. If there is an absolute and indivisible oneness, than there can be no such thing as multiplicity. Something absolute cannot be separated from something else because it implies a negation. That which is absolute cannot be divided or separated. Everything is existence (or absolute) without the possibility of changing. Xenophanes’ God turned into Parmenides’ Being (something cannot arise out of nothing, that which exists has always existed and is one, the world as we know it is a delusion). Xenophanes took God away from the world and Parmenides took the world away, leaving God (which he called “Being”).

What happens to this absolute Being? Part two will discuss Plato and Aristotle and how they moved forward from Parmenides.

 

17th month

My third semester here in Germany has come to a close. I’ll be working full-time at the excavation until the end of February. Unfortunately, after a day at work, I am exhausted and my creative powers drop by 95%. I’ll be tuning down my reading for the next couple of weeks for practical concerns. I’ll start working my way through a collection of lyrical and critical essays by Albert Camus and hopefully post a review/response/analysis of the essays I find interesting. I never find it hard to respond to Camus’ work so this should be a feasible goal for the next couple of weeks. Forgive me, however, if I seem to be only working with 5% of my creative powers :)

 

Rorty and philosophy in America

I’ve mentioned before Rorty’s sentiments on philosophy in America and thought I would go a little more in depth. The following is from an essay he wrote, Philosophy in America Today, written in 1981. Even though the article is 27 years old, his analysis fits with my impression of philosophy departments in the US from my perspective in Germany (his more current work not only affirms what he wrote at this time but is even more critical).

A quip by Quine helps explain the direction American philosophy has taken – namely, “that people go into philosophy for one of two reasons: some are interested in the history of philosophy, and some in philosophy.” Being interested in “philosophy” means being interested in solving a set of identifiable problems (Quine is giving credence to the American tradition). Here in Germany the problems of philosophy are problems in writing the history of philosophy (something less valued by the mighty Quine). That is mainly why my current research on Karl Löwith is accepted as doing philosophical work in Germany but would less likely be accepted by American universities since I am not addressing a specific philosophic “problem” or entering into a specific philosophic debate.

Rorty continues on to describe the scientific, argumentative American style of philosophy in contrast to a “literary” Continental style:

The former style asks that premises be explicitly spelled out rather than guessed at, that terms be introduced by definitions rather than by allusion. The latter style may involve argumentation, but that is not essential; what is essential is telling a new story, suggesting a new language-game, in hope of a new form of intellectual life.

Training in analytic philosophy has become akin to the training done in law schools. Arguments and problems are treated with standard casebook procedures in attempts to find objections or weaknesses.

Students’ wits were sharpened by reading preprints of articles by currently fashionable figures, and finding objections to them. The students so trained began to think of themselves neither as continuing a tradition nor as participating in the solution of the “outstanding problems” at the frontiers of a science. Rather, they took their self-image from a style and quality of argumentation. They became quasi-lawyers rather than quasi-scientists – hoping an interesting new case would turn up.

This description fits my experience as a Masters student in California. The most “lawyer style” of philosophy done at my department was in the form of an Ethic’s Bowl (see detailed description here). Undergraduate students are asked to prepare cases in the field of ethics and be able to debate these cases against other teams. Philosophers and philosophies are invoked much like a lawyer invokes past cases to support their claim (bringing utilitarianism to bear on a problem is a small step from bringing Engel Et Al vs. V. Vitale Et Al to bear on a court case).

On the other hand, popular philosophers of Continental philosophy (Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault) were encouraging their readers to give up notions of “system”, “method” and “science” – notions that find central importance in Analytic philosophy. They wanted to “blur the lines between disciplines” and were against the idea of philosophy having a set of problems that were foreign to other departments.

While in California there were also talks about bridging the divide between Continental and Analytic philosophy. For Rorty, such a “project would make sense if, as is sometimes said, the two sides were attacking common problems with different “methods”. But in the first place, there are no such common problems…”

For those living in America and interested in Continental philosophy comparative literature departments, where a literary style is accepted, are the departments to turn to. Popular philosophical projects here in Heidelberg are akin to projects done in comparative literature courses in the US – one such project, “The God of the Philosophers”, I will hopefully address in the future.

Rorty describes the problem as such:

Although philosophy is not something which once was whole and now is sundered, something else is – namely, the secular intellectual’s conception of himself.

and later:

It is the contrast between the “scientific culture” and the “literary culture.” It is the antagonism which begins to become explicit when analytic philosophers mutter about the “irrationalism” which rages in literature departments and when Continental philosophers become shrill about the lack of “human significance” in the works of the analysts.

Saying that philosophy is on its deathbed comes from the Rorty interview that I’ve mentioned all too often on this blog. He claims that the argumentative Analytic philosophy has lost substance, that the problems they are fascinated with go out of style within a generation and that they produce a body of literature that is forgotten within 10 to 20 years.  He said this, of course, as a Professor of Comparative Literature.

 

happy super Tuesday

Happy super Tuesday. I hope you are all doing the voting thing. Being the only American around, I don’t really get to bug people to go vote. That is until I realized that I have a blog and that Americans read this blog – so you Americans, consider yourself reminded of your voting responsibility :)

Super Tuesday is just starting in America while my normal Tuesday is coming to a close. Sometimes, living on this side of the world, I feel like I’m living in the future.

Fellow Americans – I can tell you who won the most votes on Super Tuesday because I’m living 9 hours in the future!

Unfortunately time doesn’t work like that – I will just have to wait for you slow-pokes to catch up. I can tell you, however, that Tuesday night will be a mellow night. Trust me, it got here first.

 

messing with Aristotle

This is the third installment of my weekly “messing with philosophers” series. Today I’m messing with Aristotle’s idea of the Unmoved Mover and am throwing in a Platonic counter-argument that apparently went wrong – I’m taking more liberties with my subjects this time than before. I was thinking about naming the “Friends” – should I?

It’s a normal weekend as you lounge around with your friends and think about the party you have planned for tonight. Everyone is being lazy and unmotivated but you finally get around to dividing up the tasks for the day. Friend 1 and Friend 4 have to go to the store and buy food and drinks. Friend 2 must clean the yard. Friend 3 and you have to clean the inside of the house. Everyone leaves to begin their chores.
Friends 1 and 4 come back in the house and complain that the car won’t start. You tell them to deal with it themselves. They go back outside and find the car started and a girl standing not far from it. “Who is she?” She disappears without anyone seeing her move or disappear.

Friend 2 is cleaning the yard when a ball comes bouncing down the street. He sees a girl in the direction from which the ball came and yells, “don’t worry, I’ll get it!” He tries to catch the ball but it knocks him over, sending him rolling down the street until he hits a trash can – a cat runs out of the trash can.

After cleaning the house for a while you get tired and put your head down on your desk. You look up and see a cup of coffee and a girl standing beside you. You scream. “Who are you?” She doesn’t answer or move. You look for Friend 3 but when you both return she is gone. Friend 3 thinks you are being foolish and you drink the coffee.

Friend 3 looks at the dirty stove and isn’t sure how she’ll ever be able to get it clean. She goes to the closet to get some cleaning supplies. Inside the closet stands a girl with an awesome degreaser at her feet. Friend 3 takes the degreaser and runs back screaming to the kitchen.

Friend 2 comes walking up the street holding his ribs and sees the girl again, “sorry about your ball, I couldn’t find it.” The girl doesn’t respond, doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything.

The party has started and you are there with your friends and all of your friend’s friends. The party is incredibly dull and few people look like they are having a good time. Music starts playing and people start dancing – you look over to the stereo and see the girl. Friends 1-4 and yourself point in her direction and gasp, “its her!”.

While still pointing and gasping Plato, in uniform, kicks the door open and is followed by Aristotle. The music stops, the dancing stops, the gasping stops and is replaced by shrieking. Aristotle warns the uniformed Plato, “don’t get too close!” Aristotle is not wearing a uniform and, therefore, cannot restrain Plato from doing what he wants. “I will prove you wrong, Aristotle!” belts Plato. “But you mustn’t, it is too dangerous.” Aristotle weeps.

Stunned, you watch with your friends as Plato approaches the girl. He asks her to move, paces back and forth in front of her, waves his hand in front of her eyes and becomes noticeably agitated. Plato grabs her by the shoulders and pushes – Aristotle’s weeping gets louder. The girl is forced to take a step backwards and Plato smiles. At that moment a hole in reality appears between the girl and Plato. Plato and the girl are sucked into the hole and you start to feel a pulling. Aristotle yells, “I’m so sorry. I tried to protect you from him!”

Friend 3 asks, “what is that hole?” Aristotle answers, “an infinite regress.”

 

the archaeology experience

My job at the excavation is a couple weeks from being over and I’m currently looking for work. I didn’t actually think I learned much until I was working with people who were new. Here is a short list of the things I learned, a short list of more useless knowledge I’ve gained:

• I can place pieces of ceramic within three broad time sets; prehistory, Roman and modern (we didn’t come across ceramic from any other time period.
• I can tell the difference between colorations in the dirt that are merely geological and those that were caused by humans (most of the time).
• I can dig you the prettiest, squarest, cleanest hole you could wish for (with clean, rectangular steps if necessary).
• I can tell you if there was an animal eating the leftovers that the Germanic tribes/Romans buried.
• I can color with the orange and red colored pencils to capture that orange-red dirt glow (the findings need to be drawn and colored).
• A hole can never be too deep but is almost always too shallow.

A short list of things I personally dug up:

• Roman nails! 15 to be exact – most of them terribly deformed but one glorious nail looked brand spanking new.
• Teeth and bones from someone’s delicious meal – mostly rabbit and pig.
• An almost complete (but still broken) Roman jug.
• More Roman brick and ceramic than is necessary and a ton of ceramic from prehistory (we’re talking about the Stone Age).
• Some prehistorical ceramic with designs etched on the surface.
• Roman bowls – at least the bottom part.
• Flint
• A Roman key – yeah, a key – awesome, no?

A short list of things that were found at our excavation (but not by me :( ):

• 3 baby skeletons.
• 2 horse skeletons.
• Stoves from prehistory – really funky looking things.
• Bowls with Latin written on them. They were signatures from the craftsmen – “made by person x”.
• A large piece of marble that most definitely came from a rich Roman family.
• More to come…

There were plenty of times at work where I would find something and need to take a minute to appreciate the fact that somebody left it there thousands of years ago. I would run my finger over the designs in the ceramic and try to imagine how it was done and when I found the perfect nail I had to run my finger over the head and feel the different hammer strikes. I really enjoy physical labor and it becomes even more fun when there are a bunch of archeology geeks standing around who get really excited when your efforts uncover something interesting. For this last month we were split up into teams and each member of the team has a niche. My niche is dirt destroyer, conqueror of soil and rock, wielder of pick ax and shovel, slayer of sanity.

I’ll miss working outside in the freezing German winter, stomping through the mud, riding the train a dirty, dirty man and I’ll also miss the stress relieving nature of working my muscles to their shoveling capacity.

I’ll take my camera next week and see if I can’t get some interesting pictures.

 

Kant attack ad

I don’t want YouTube videos to take over this blog but this gem was sent my way and I was laughing pretty dang hard by the end. Apparently there is a Nietzsche attack ad but it isn’t nearly as funny.

Kant is wrong for America!

 

theology on its deathbed?

During this semester two fliers from the Theology department have crossed my hand. One was advertising a colloquium that was to discuss the question, “is Theology on its deathbed?” The second was a typical science versus religion discussion where the theologians were to do battle against the theories of Richard Dawkins (the flier asked the question, “has science finally disproved religion?”).

Here I thought that it was 19th century German philosophy that scooted theology out of the land of academics – but here is 21st century Germany asking if theology is still a healthy academic discipline. I’m amazed until I remember that this is officially a Christian nation.

Somehow public American Universities got the hint and left the study of Theology out of their course books and instituted Religious Studies (an area of study that doesn’t rise and fall with the interpretation of one book) as a replacement. The true heir to theology, however, thanks to the mighty influence of Hegel, has been philosophy.

Philosophy could also be on its deathbed – at least the late Richard Rorty thought so and at least in the US (Germany is a little behind in sending academic disciplines floating away on their fiery caskets). The scary thing is that I agree with Rorty’s sentiments. Philosophy won’t stop being a subject in the US anymore than theology has stopped being a subject in Germany. But maybe, somewhere, comparative literature departments will consume philosophy more and more, taking what’s necessary and leaving behind what’s stale. Kind of like scraping off the burnt part of toast… Then the people from those departments can pick up fliers from the people over in philosophy and scoff.

 

Žižek and toilets

The video is apparently pretty old but I’ve just come across it myself. If you play the video be prepared to watch a hip philosopher talk about the structure of toilets in America, France and Germany and how this structure relates to their respective ideologies. I think Žižek is making a false assumption in this claim. It isn’t that we see evidence of American, French and German ideologies by looking at their toilets – it is that we finally have evidence pointing to toilet engineers as the most influential thinkers of our time. The ideologies are not found in the toilet, the toilet creates the ideologies.