A history of philosophical pessimism, concentrating on Leopardi, Camus, Schopenhauer, Freud, Nietzsche and Cervantes. Philosophical pessimism results from consideration of the human condition, stuck in time, with everything eventually disappearing. The author says philosophical pessimism can be life-affirming, at least for Nietzsche and Cervantes. (1/14/10)
Category Archives: Philosophy
George Eliot and Gary Larson Knew Something About Life
From The Far Side, by the consistently brilliant Gary Larson:
From Daniel Deronda, by the often brilliant George Eliot:
[Note: Daniel is now immersed in the the question whether a Jewish state should be established (the novel is set around 1875). Gwendolen has married a controlling, unlovable aristocrat.]
“And Gwendolen? She was thinking of Deronda much more than he was thinking of her — often wondering what were his ideas ‘about things’, and how his life was occupied.
But … it was as far from Gwendolen’s conception that Deronda’s life could be determined by the historical destiny of the Jews, as that he could rise into the air on a brazen horse, and so vanish from her horizon in the form of a twinkling star.
With all the sense of inferiority that had been forced upon her, it was inevitable that she should imagine a larger place for herself in his thoughts than she actually possessed. They must be rather old and wise persons who are not apt to see their own anxiety or elation about themselves reflected in other minds.”
How often are relationships symmetrical? Is it even a goal worth seeking? Maybe it’s a cosmic joke.
Is it too cynical to believe that we only become old and wise after it hardly matters?
Worlds Upon Worlds, According to George Eliot
Coincidentally, after writing this morning about the great philosopher David Lewis’s strange position concerning possible worlds, I read the following in George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda:
“Suppose he had introduced himself as one of the strictest reasoners. Do they form a body of men hitherto free from false conclusions and illusory speculations? The driest argument has its hallucinations, too hastily concluding that its net will now at last be large enough to hold the universe. Men may dream in demonstrations, and cut out an illusory world in the shape of axioms, definitions and propositions, with a final exclusion of fact signed Q.E.D. No formulas for thinking will save us mortals from mistake in our imperfect apprehension of the matter to be thought about….the unemotional intellect may carry us into a mathematical dreamland where nothing is but what is not….”
Eliot (born Mary Anne Evans) was no mean philosopher herself. And she could certainly turn a phrase.
Worlds Upon Worlds, According to David Lewis
David Lewis, who spent most of his career at Princeton, was one of the most respected philosophers of the 20th century. Yet he is most famous for advocating a philosophical view that almost everyone else rejects.
In his 1986 book On the Plurality of Worlds, Lewis argued for a position he called “modal realism”. This is the idea that there are an infinite number of possible worlds (i.e. self-contained universes) different from our own, and that all of these possible worlds are as real as the world we live in. The only fact that sets our world apart from the rest of them is that it is ours.
Saying, therefore, that our world is the “actual” world is no different from saying that I am “here” and the time is “now”. There are people just like us and as real as you and me existing in other worlds who believe that their world is the only “actual” world. They are just as correct in their belief as we are in ours.
Most philosophers are comfortable with talking about possible worlds. They use this terminology to explain, for example, the nature of necessity and what it means to say that something could have happened but didn’t. A statement is necessarily true if it is true in every possible world. An event could have happened if it happened in some possible world, especially one similar to our own. Yet philosophers almost all deny that other possible worlds are as concretely real as this one.
Lewis knew, of course, that modal realism is very hard to accept. It clearly conflicts with common sense and ordinary language. He described the natural response to his position as the “incredulous stare” (as in “You can’t be serious, Professor Lewis!”). But he argued that there are excellent theoretical reasons for accepting modal realism. He thought that it best explains what it is to be a possible world.
It takes some education and intelligence to appreciate Lewis’s reasons for adopting modal realism and his arguments against competing views. Personally, I’m tempted to say that modal realism is self-contradictory. To claim that possible worlds exist in the same way that the actual world exists sounds like a contradiction in terms. (Which might explain why Lewis found modal realism to be such a useful view. Logic says that if you start with a contradiction, you can prove anything at all.)
On the other hand, many physicists believe that there are a multitude of universes, completely separate from each other, yet equally real. That might seem to be what Lewis had in mind, but it’s really not. For philosophers, there is a possible world for each possibility, every single one (although only one of them, contra Lewis, is real). For physicists, there might be many, many real worlds, just as real as ours, but they don’t reflect every single possibility. They are merely the result of whatever natural processes result in the creation of new universes.
In the philosophical sense, therefore, there is a possible world in which donkeys do calculus, since very bright donkeys could conceivably do that. Physicists don’t go that far, since there is no reason to believe that animals like donkeys (no offense, donkeys) would ever develop an interest in advanced mathematics.
Flora, Fauna and Ethics
Having spent many hours hacking away at vines and thorn bushes recently, I was especially interested in a recent TV program called What Plants Talk About. It turns out that plants behave like animals in many respects. For example, they hunt for food, although much more slowly than most animals. They also respond to injuries, sometimes by summoning assistance (for example, by releasing chemicals that attract predators who eat the bugs who are eating the plant). They even nurture their offspring in some cases.
This doesn’t mean that the plants do these things “on purpose”. They behave in ways that have been beneficial to their species. Of course, we believe that we do things “on purpose”. But we‘re products of evolution too. We might not be so very different from plants and other animals.
Coincidentally, after watching What Plants Talk About, I came across a review of a book called Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life. The author of the book apparently believes that plants have suffered from “ethical neglect” at the hands of us humans. The reviewer congratulates the author for “forcefully inserting the question of vegetable life into the mix of contemporary ethical discourse in philosophy”.
The idea that plants deserve ethical consideration sounds odd. Some philosophers would say that plants don’t need to be treated ethically, since they aren’t conscious. They don’t have nervous systems like us and presumably don’t feel pain. Yet they are living things. Should we avoid cutting down redwood trees or rose bushes simply because we appreciate their beauty or because they are part of the ecosystem? Or do they have the right to be left alone?
Nobody, even the author of Plant-Thinking, thinks that we shouldn’t eat plants. But perhaps we are obliged to treat them with respect. Maybe I shouldn’t have cut down all those vines and thorn bushes. I certainly don’t like the idea that they were calling for help as I cut them to pieces.
What Plants Talk About is here:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/what-plants-talk-about/preview/8228/
The book review is here (although I don’t recommend reading it — there is too much philosophical jargon):
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/39002-plant-thinking-a-philosophy-of-vegetal-life/
Whereof One Can Speak 🇺🇦 
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