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When the storm settles.

February 16, 2010

When the storm settles, though destruction is vast and relentless, there is clarity in sight and the senses adjust with …

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This work by S. R. Kraaijeveld is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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She's so happy when I work from home. 🐱

Reading in the train. || I was going to write something more general about Williams' essay on Egoism and Altruism, but I decided instead to share some thoughts on a particular comment he makes near the end of the essay. The general topic should in any case be familiar, if you've followed my posts about Nagel, Kant, Hume, Smith, etc. The comment follows a discussion about I-desires (desires whose propositional content requires an 'I') and non-I desires (whose P-content doesn’t). Williams remarks: "Rather more difficult, and not yet dealt with by the classification, is the case of desires for such things as posthumous fame, such as that of Herostratus, who, avidus malae famac as it is said, burned down the temple of Artemis at Ephesus to gain a niche in history." He then adds, in a footnote: "It is a nice point in the theory of reference, whether he succeeded; the only identification we have of him, so far as I know, is just this." Williams leaves it at that. Can it rightfully be called fame if all that remains in the annals of history is one's name and a single—albeit memorable—act? Isn't what we seek when we seek posthumous fame something more substantial, perhaps linked to our unique experiences, to our idiosyncratic psychology, to our individuality as a human being who has lived for some time? Ultimately, though, what does it matter? Is Plato better off than Herostratus? What would it even mean to say so? The latter has provided us with an interesting anecdote, shared among others by Williams in 1973 and by me in 2018, while Plato since his passing has consistently taught and inspired generations of people through his writings—yet they're both gone. Neither knows what happened after they left. Value to us is of no value to them. To want to benefit others after you’re gone is a kind of altruism, surely, but wonderful as that sentiment may be, it doesn’t seem to lie at the heart of the desire for posthumous fame. Perhaps what matters is the feeling of being somewhat-sure that someone will remember and continue to remember you, which is of course a very uncertain and fickle prospect; but one can at least try to increase the probability of remembrance, ...

Coffee and Szymborska. || Robert Fogelin opens his book Walking the Tightrope of Reason with a poem by Szymborska called Under A Certain Little Star, which I thought was -so- good that I ordered a collection of her work right away. It arrived, and here I am reading it at the café, not disappointed in the slightest by my impulsive purchase. Here is (part of) the poem: I apologize to coincidence for calling it necessity. I apologize to necessity just in case I'm mistaken. ........................... I apologize to big questions for small answers. O Truth, do not pay me too much heed. O Solemnity, be magnanimous unto me. Endure, mystery of existence, that I pluck out the threads of your train. Accuse me not, O soul, of possessing you but seldom. I apologize to everything that I cannot be everywhere. I apologize to everyone that I cannot be every man and woman. I know that as long as I live nothing can justify me, because I myself am an obstacle to myself. Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light.

That feeling when a professor you befriended over lunchtime discussions about the history and philosophy of medicine and science comes over to your office later in the day to give you some of his books. He said I could keep them because he knew them already anyway. :')

I've wanted to read this for quite a while and finally got my hands on it. 👐🏻 Mark Timmons is professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona; he has written extensively on topics in moral theory, metaethics, and Kant's ethics. In this introduction, he provides a broad overview of moral theories and explores some of the most historically relevant and currently debated theories about the nature of right and good. What drew me to the work was the systematic way in which Timmons categorizes the major moral theories. This second edition includes several new and revised chapters on developments that I find especially interesting and useful for my own research, such as on ethical egoism (the idea that it is necessary and sufficient for an action to be morally right that it maximize one's self-interest), moral particularism (the notion that there are no moral principles as such or the denial that morality is best understood in terms of moral principles—a kind of anti-theory theory that urges us to look at particular moral judgments), moral relativism (the view that moral judgments, beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad, and so on not only vary greatly across time and contexts, but that their correctness is dependent on or relative to individual or cultural perspectives and frameworks), and on work in moral psychology that is making an impact on moral theory.

Coffee and Forsyth. || I picked up Forsyth's The Elements of Eloquence as well as The Etymologicon (not pictured) because they were on sale and seemed promising—I love reading about language. I decided to go for the Elements first, and so far it's sweet. Forsyth argues for a (re-)appreciation of the figures of rhetoric, which are "the techniques for making a single phrase striking and memorable just by altering the wording". He catalogues a bunch of them—from the familiar-from-middle-school-English-class alliteration to the probably less familiar hendiadys, epizeuxis, enallage, and catachresis—using examples from Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde to John Lennon. The book is marketed as a kind of "once you know how they did it, you can do it, too" which I think is utter rubbish. In fact, my girlfriend and I had a rather passionate discussion about the extent to which the great poets and writers actually (that is, explicitly) employed literary devices—and whether someone with extensive knowledge of them could write well without talent, or whether writing well is really a matter of pure/innate ability rather than formal/applied knowledge. Forsyth makes the practice-makes-perfect argument (which he needs to, of course, for the marketability of his book [pardon my cynicism]). That those who have talent will become even better with practice is a truism; whether consciously applying these figures of rhetoric will make an untalented writer a better writer may be true, but that it will make them great is very doubtful. All the same, the figures are fun to learn about, and Forsyth is an entertaining and witty writer.

Waiting for the bus; #throwback to this morning. (I forgot to bring Hopscotch, but thankfully I always have a book in my bag.)

One of the major sources of my love for social psychology—why I decided to pursue a master's degree in it before continuing with philosophy—is the inspiration provided by the classic studies: Milgram's shock experiments (obedience to authority), Festinger's end of the world studies (cognitive dissonance), Asch's line-judgment studies (conformity to the majority), Zimbardo's prison experiment (tyranny and the power of the situation), Latané and Darley's bystander studies (the bystander effect), Triplett's competition studies (social loafing and social facilitation) and so on. There is something very powerful about these experiments that immediately grabbed and continues to speak to the imagination: the notion of going out into the world and setting things up so as to observe how people behave and interact with one another, what kind of influence certain environments, situations, imposed roles, or even the mere presence of other people have on how we act and think. As the field developed, studies like the ones by Milgram and Zimbardo are no longer conducted, perhaps no longer even thinkable—for obvious ethical reasons. The ethical improvements in terms of informed consent, debriefing, avoiding physical and psychological distress, and so on are a very good thing. What is depressing is that many of the classic social psychological studies are not holding up over time; notable failures to replicate warn us that we should not take even the best-known and ostensibly best-established experiments at face value. Thus we end up with a paradox—or at least I think it is. The studies that make the grandest claims, that appear to tell us most about human behavior, that capture the imagination and perhaps motivate us to do (similar) research, are the ones that are probably on shakiest ground, so that, if we are looking for precision, for durability, for *actual knowledge—something we can say is –true-* about the human condition, about our social condition, and so on, we are better off looking at the smaller, more modest, humble, and less imposing studies. We all want to know why we lie, why we love, how to get along better, how to be happier or smarter— ...

Coffee, juice, and book date. ♥️

The current state of my kitchen table. 🙇🏻‍♂️

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