Latent Emotions In Philosophical Writing

In his Autobiography Collingwood calls philosophy 'a poem of the intellect'. Nietzsche is known to have called philosophy a form of personal confession. And Foucault once said that all of his books were parts of his autobiography. How interesting. I find this relationship between philosophy and personal expression to be really cool, really worthwhile, really curious.

I ask myself about my own attempts at philosophical writing. I wouldn't dare really think of myself as a genuine philosopher. But I read a lot of philosophy. I think about a lot of philosophy. I try to write on it. And I don't feel comfortable with mere analysis of other writers. I strive for synthesis. And I think that this pushes me towards the new.

In the last two months or so the Art, Zen, Insurrection project has fizzled out. For the most part I think I'm okay with it. The truth, I think, is that the project should have ended with Part III.3. Well, but at the same time that isn't true, there is a continuity to pursue all the way to the end of Part IV. It just involves such a large detour to bring it all together. And I don't feel equipped to do it. To write coherently on the relationship between politics and culture seems too difficult, my reading not supporting it enough.

I don't know if I'll ever finish the project. I have no clue.

But I do feel super pleased with the writing that I did leading up to my fizzling out. It was personally valuable stuff. I did a lot of it. It was super fun. I think I stretched myself and came up with lots of new ideas. But now I don't know what to do.

And this is what I really want to talk about: the way that AZI expressed emotions that I was experiencing. At the time I wasn't completely aware of the things I was expressing. My life was changing a lot. I was living in a new city, working a new job, doing all kinds of new things, getting super confused. I was reading tons of new things, pushing myself to write in new ways. I was having all kinds of unreflective experiences that were strange and all over the place.

Only in hindsight can I say that AZI was one of my ways of expressing this confusion. I was baffled by my entry into the working world, I was trying to make sense of how to live in it and to still maintain my sense of myself as an expressive person. How am I to do high paced cafe work that encourages me to be robotic and still be expressive, fun, imaginative? Hard questions. And ones that I was living on a daily basis. I lashed out at first. In particular, I am thinking of this essay and this one too. That first piece, 'In Defense Of Small Talk', was such a desperate attempt to philosophically ground the emotions I was feeling, to intellectualize the pain that my new situation was causing me. I think I was just so wrapped in my emotions that I had to clarify them in some way. And that second piece, 'Bottled Water And Irresponsible Metaphors', was also me trying to get a grip on the emotions that my work was causing me. While in the first piece I was grappling with how people were regarding me in my economically defined role, the second piece focused on how my job forced me to do things that I mentally disapproved of (i.e. stocking bottled water). All of my other philosophical writing, I think, is expressive of my emotions and my experience in some way. But those two pieces and all of AZI are absolutely all about the experiences I have been having for the last year. Oh, the emotion.

In any case, I am pleased that I am starting to understand the ways that my philosophical writing expresses my emotions. And further, how that writing then changes my emotions. This is the phenomenon of 'reflexivity' that I am currently reading about in Roger Smith's Being Human. The bottom line with the humanities and social sciences is that we cannot study humans completely objectively. Any type of study of humanity inevitably changes the thing it is studying. By studying society or by studying minds we change them. When I study my own mind through this writing I change it. And that is the point (duh).

Given all this interaction between my emotions, my writing, my expression, my change, all that business, I have been feeling quite determined to come up with a new bit of writing. I have been having a lot of experiences that I need to grapple with. I have feelings that I need to convert to the intellectual level. This new writing is going to be on relationships, taking the term in its absolute broadest sense. Every person I have ever met I have had a relationship with. All of you coworkers I walk past, all of you regular customers, all of you. We all have relationships. But why do we relate in these particular ways?

I came on this idea of relationships recently. I said to myself at some point, what the hell have we been thinking about? All this jim jam about theory of mind, about philosophy of history, about education, about the imagination, about synthetic experience, about this and that. What the hell am I talking about at the bottom of it all? It occurred to me that the core issue might be that of relationships in general. Framing all of my thinking in terms of relationships might be for the best. This would be a way to deal with a lot of it.

So anyways, the new essay is tentatively titled 'Of Relationships: Bringing The Macro To Bear On The Micro'.

So far I have decided I will have four sections which roughly move from a micro perspective to a macro perspective:

1. Minds

2. Habits

3. Mediums

4. History

I'll begin with theory of mind so that I can establish the tendencies of individual minds. I'll then move to habit to talk about minds from a different angle. Then the issue of mediums and how they create habits. And finally philosophy of history as a way to gain perspective on this stuff.

I envision the structure something like a series of baskets. > > > >.

They will flow. They will fit in. I might have to reverse habits and mediums. But I hope to start filling in the outline a bit more in the next few days.

I think the crucial issue in a way is freedom. I have never felt free. I guess I'm free. But at the same time I've always been aware of all the things determining me or holding me back.

I want the issue to be freedom.

Over and out.

Reading This Roger Smith Fellow

I'm reading a new book. Roger Smith's Being Human: Historical Knowledge And The Creation Of Human Nature.

I will say a few things. First about the author. The second thing about my impression of the arguments. The third thing about my reason for turning to this book.

So, the thing that concerns me about Mr. Smith is that I know very little about his credentials. He is a historian of science, and the human sciences in particular. He lives in Russia and is affiliated with a couple universities including Durham University, and a institute in Moscow. I have no idea who he is. Hayden White has a very intense blurb on the dust jacket and so it seems to be legit. His bibliography is most interesting. Collingwood, Foucault, Ian Hacking, Hegel, many others. He seems to have earned his chops as a historian, but n this work he is pursuing an expressly philosophical. But he still seems to be using history as his major point of reference. So, the first problem is this: Mr. Smith is a mystery to me. I worry about his credentials. And I find his personal life to be a mystery. I don't know who he is, and I seem to be having a hard time finding information about him. The book, however, was published by Columbia University Press, and so that gives me a little bit of hope about its quality.

The last book I finished was Edward Hallett Carr's What Is History?. In that book Mr. Carr says that to study history you must also study the historian and the situation in which that history was being written. So I am eager to approach books in that way.

So, the second part, the arguments: Mr. Smith wants to make sure that history as a form of knowledge is properly understood. In particular, he thinks that the discourse around the issue of 'human nature' needs to have historical and philosophical perspective if it is to be valid. In the English speaking world, Smith claims, we are apt to think of science and specifically biology as the most important source of knowledge about what it means to be human. Smith claims, on the contrary, that biology cannot provide us with the information that we need to understand what it means to be human, what it means to be both the subject and object of knowledge about human nature. He claims that Ian Hacking's work in the field of historical ontology is the foundation of his work. This pleases me because I have read much of Hacking's book Historical Ontology. He quotes Hacking when he says that "Categories of people come into existence at the same time as kinds of people come into being to fit those categories, and there is a two-way interaction between these processes" (Smith, 12). Foucault is one of Hacking's major influences (if not his most important influence). Indeed, Foucault provided the phrase 'historical ontology' in his fascinating essay from 1984 "What Is Enlightenment." Furthermore, this idea of the interaction of behavior and categories is implicit in much of Foucault's work, most notably in Discpline & Punish and Volume I of The History Of Sexuality. Moreover, this notion is explicitly corroborated by John Searle's work in Making The Social World. So, having read only the introduction and a little bit of Mr. Smith's book I see a sort picture forming: a picture in which human nature is something that can be self-consciously created by reference to the ability of language to constitute certain experiences and forms of behavior. I suspect that my journey through the whole of the book will give me a much more nuanced view of the way that these issues relate to the natural and human sciences, and to history.

The reasons I have turned to this book are many. For one thing, I have been personally invested in the union of Foucault, Collingwood, Hacking, Searle, and others for the last few years. I care a lot about the philosophy of history, I think it has been largely ignored, and I suspect that its implications are quite significant. Further, my (very) recent realization that the issue of relationships is at the core of my thought has pushed me to think about humans, history, human nature, technology, etc., has pushed me towards it.

I have a lot of thinking left to do (as usual). But I am pleased to be reading this book. Richard Restak's Think Smart turned out to be too dry. And Roberta Wohlstetter's Pearl Harbor: Warning And Decision turned out to be too difficult for me right now. So this book will be a wonderful way to continue my philosophical reading while maintaining a historical orientation.

I wonder sometimes, especially with me frustration with Wohlstetter, if history is the discipline for me. I feel so much more inclined to be a philosophical thinker. I thrive so much in terms of philosophical reading. That doesn't mean that I can't become a powerful historical thinker, or that I couldn't become a good historian. It just means that my reading over the last year has been devoted to this kind of philosophical reading. I just have so much work to do to become a historical thinker.

But I suspect it to be of the highest importance.

Hopefully Mr. Smith can take me somewhere.

Over and out.

Relationships and Concepts

I recently left myself a note on my ipod. I wanted to write about something. I wrote to myself:

'Customer service and conceptual interaction. Relationships fascinate me. That is what it is all about in a way for me. How we relate, how we interact, what the mediums are that we use. I resent my conceptual self. Contacts? Glasses? Aprons? Suits? So on.'

I don't know exactly what I was thinking.

I know that I had an idea. I had a way of phrasing something that I have previously put in very abstract terms. I've talked a lot about the dangers of theory-theory, about the tension between language and empathy, about the importance of simulation theory, so on. I've run around these topics in different ways.

But I think that what I'm really getting at is the issue of relationships and how they happen. What are the properties of the human mind that allow us to engage with other people? Are there tendencies of the mind that conflict with one another? What is unique about relationships in our time?

There is one thing in particular that I think I have been able to identify that is unique about relationships in our time: we live in a world that has been depersonalized. I think that there are two things that contribute to this. First, technology and the internet make it so that we interact with people in very distant ways, we see people on screens, so on. Second, I think that categorization and generalization has become a more common feature of our culture. These two things are related. Technology, science, the internet, all of that, has made it possible for people to communicate rapidly and in large amounts, and therefore for concepts and labels to become ubiquitous. We now share a common vocabulary. And unfortunately I think it traps us in certain patterns of relationships sometimes.

It reminds me of Walter Benjamin's essay on the work of art in the age of its mechanical reproduction. Frankly, I don't understand the essay very well. But he talks about how the reproducibility of art has something to do with the reproducibility of people's consciousnesses. We can produce art and culture mechanically. And somehow this also implies that we can produce people's perceptual apparatuses mechanically.

Think about it, with the way that our language and our perception our intertwined, the formalization and mechanization of language must have something to do with the mechanization of perception.

Benjamin seems to be concerned with people's cognitive and sensory apparatuses. So did Foucault. So does Collingwood.

I think that even my recent reading on the relationship between politics and culture has pushed me towards this issue of relationships and their parameters.

I don't know what to think. I don't want to continue writing.

But I will say this: I think that relationships are at the core of what I think about. And I would probably benefit from honing in on this issue of relationships.

I suspect that relationships (of all kinds) are the most important thing, and that history, philosophy, other things, are merely ways of investigating, understanding, exploring relationships.

Who knows.

Writing About Not Wanting To Write

I feel kind of confused about how to write these days. I don't know what to write about. I don't know what to do with myself.

So I'm writing about how I don't want to write. Seems funny.

I need to shower. I should probably clean and do things like that.

I should also be reading. I think reading would be the best thing for me to do. Or maybe not reading. Maybe just relaxing would be better.

Freedom Within The Absolute Mind

So I need to write an essay at some point. Just for fun, just to explore things.

I think I can write something about the issue of freedom and choice and free will.

I think I can write about Collingwood and Foucault and Zizek.

It will cover some stuff like this:

1. The Absolute Mind And Determinism

2. Culture, Foucault, And Determinism

3. Retroactive Freedom

I don't think that is a very good outline. I'm not sure what I think.

It fascinates me how I used to just pump out little essays. I have become less satisfied with just a 15-20 page analysis of a very specific idea. I feel myself compelled to try to form larger pictures, longer pieces.

I dunno.

Notes

There is a compatibility that I felt emerging between Collingwood, Foucault, Zizek, Claxton, and some others. The problem was with Collingwood's notion of the absolute mind, and of absolute ethics. It implies determinism and it is hard to know where free will goes with an idea like that. But it makes sense.

It makes sense in light of Zizek's notion of retroactive freedom, on choosing one's destiny.

Ummmm. In some ways I see a picture developing in my mind. My recent reading on politics, culture, habit, etc., has been pushing me towards something. It might be coming together.

Also, Elaine Scarry has a book called Thinking In An Emergency that looks fascinating. The crux of the book is a philosophical investigation into the nature of habit. Habit in politics, in society, in emergencies. Looks fascinating. Doesn't cite Zizek or Collingwood or anyone I know on habit. So, yeah. Interesting stuff.

I was looking at that vague outline I posted last time (which isn't even a real outline). But just mulling over those issues of culture, politics, habit, choice, history, etc..

Just a lot of pieces that are floating around in my mind that don't make sense right now.

But that is okay. I just wonder how long it'll take. A long time i bet.

June? June?!: Still Hung Up On Culture And Habit

June first, eh?

I have a hard time believing that it is June.

For one thing, my friend was right in that the weather is still pretty lame.

But I mean I guess that is fine.

But it seems weird. Just strange.

I haven't been doing serious writing, still.

Still taking a break from all of that. It feels nice to be relaxing a bit.

I'm reading though. Currently halfway through Edward Hallett Carr's book What Is History? Is definitely right up my alley. Philosophy of history is such a fascinating field. I need to read more of it. Much more!

I was reflecting on how some of my shorter pieces of writing are just about flash, quick analyses of certain things. I frame things, and I explore small interconnections between different things.

If I wanted to write on habit (which I do), for example, I would just figure out what kinds of things I'd want to talk about in order to talk about habit. I would talk about Zizek and Gray and their work on culture and habit. I would then talk about how culture happens, how culture is created. For that I could use Foucault and Claxton and others. Then I would talk about theories of mind (cause that is something I always do) and how habit would effect us at that level of mindreading.

So, to write an essay on habit would look something like this.

1. Culture and Habit in general

2. On the How Of Culture: On The Creation And Maintenance of Culture

3. Culture and Mental Habits: Theory of Mind, etc..

4. On Changing Personal Habits

5. On Changing Social Habits, Or, On Creating Cultures

Lol. Bogus stuff.

But at the same time very interesting stuff.

One of the main claims of Zizek's In Defense Of Lost Causes was that past political revolutions were not radical enough in that they were not truly social or cultural revolutions: they did not succeed in so radically restructuring the social world so as to create a new set of habits for people to live by. The morning after political power is seized we are still left with the reality of our existing economic and cultural institutions.

These are ideas I have been sitting with for a few months now. I once saw an article that accused the US military of allowing a masculine and sexist culture to thrive. But the question I had was this: did the US military ever work at cultivating its culture? Did they ever think that they could perhaps create a culture? Or was that military culture something that just sort of happened?

I just feel like these issues of politics, culture, habit, education, etc., are very fascinating. And the idea I have been pondering, which Zizek also explores, is the need to create new cultures and new habits in order to create new political institutions. Errr. I wonder if that is the best way to put it.

But politics, culture, and habit. What things.

I was thinking about how I wrote a little while ago about Foucault and Claxton. I still that it makes. Foucault believes disciplinary society, disciplinary culture, was created through the control of very basic things like space, time, movement, etc.. Claxton, too, thinks that culture is created (in schools) through the control of those basic things. So, then, looks like city planners and other people would be really valuable people to know. Those that control our sense of space and time. Yup.

I'll have to talk to some people.