Preface
This is my honors thesis, written in 1979 for my degree in psychology at the University of Waterloo. It was written for one of my professors, a cognitive-behavioral psychologist, who shared my interest at the time of the research I had already been exposed to, and started to do from high school, in the area of General Semantics. At the time, I wanted to take my studies in General Semantics to a higher level, integrating it with my studies in cognitive therapy and psychotherapy in general on one side of things, and with my studies in humanism (Erich Fromm mainly), which was just starting to lead me in the direction of existentialism -- and humanistic-existentialism, on the other side of things.
At this point in time, I had not yet been seriously exposed to Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy, nor Alfred Adler and Adlerian Psychology, nor Freud and Psychoanalysis, nor Carl Jungand Jungian Psychology, nor Eric Berne and Transactional Analysis, nor Friedrich Nietzsche -- nor the primary integrator of all these great psychologist-philosopohers -- Georg Hegel.
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The value judgments we make determine our actions, and upon their validity rests our mental health and happiness. -- Erich From
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Words and Their Meaning/Depression
Hi Dave,
Words and their Meaning: An excellent topic for an essay. So often in conversations, you wonder if the other person received the gist of what you were trying to communicate. Many times, it's clear that they did not. There is also the case where an explanation is given and even though the other person says that they understand you, you know clearly that they could not possibly fully understand, because they have not walked in your shoes.
No matter what descriptive words you try to draw upon...The meanings of your words don't match up with the other persons experience's, or, simply fall short, expressing an emotion, feeling or thought. Then along comes someone who has walked in your shoes, and they can actually complete your sentences, as they know first hand the feelings, the words, the intention of your thoughts and communication. Or, maybe, you find another who you just click with, they have the ability to lay the foundation of easy back and forth flow. It's Amazing!
Words, meanings, communication, the willingness to engage in dialectic, and the acceptance that sometimes the other person doesn't get our meaning, for many reasons - they just don't have the same understanding.
***Narcissism was a great example for your essay. Over the past few days, I have thought about your entry on 'Depression.' I like it a lot. I think back on some of my experiences and awareness's. I recognize that depression can sometimes be chemical but most often, it boils down to choices and /or decisions, eventually, even in the case of grief. The choice/decision to live or die. The choice/decision to be negative,sad, angry etc.. OR, not, and PUSH towards a life with happiness, joy, intrigue etc.
It doesn't matter what hardship has put you in the emotional gutter - The decision needs to be made to climb out. The 'push'...towards more existential awareness, contact, meaning, and value... as you've stated. Different issues take various amounts of time landing at the same conclusion - as long as we always end up landing in the best place...
Noreen.
Words and their Meaning: An excellent topic for an essay. So often in conversations, you wonder if the other person received the gist of what you were trying to communicate. Many times, it's clear that they did not. There is also the case where an explanation is given and even though the other person says that they understand you, you know clearly that they could not possibly fully understand, because they have not walked in your shoes.
No matter what descriptive words you try to draw upon...The meanings of your words don't match up with the other persons experience's, or, simply fall short, expressing an emotion, feeling or thought. Then along comes someone who has walked in your shoes, and they can actually complete your sentences, as they know first hand the feelings, the words, the intention of your thoughts and communication. Or, maybe, you find another who you just click with, they have the ability to lay the foundation of easy back and forth flow. It's Amazing!
Words, meanings, communication, the willingness to engage in dialectic, and the acceptance that sometimes the other person doesn't get our meaning, for many reasons - they just don't have the same understanding.
***Narcissism was a great example for your essay. Over the past few days, I have thought about your entry on 'Depression.' I like it a lot. I think back on some of my experiences and awareness's. I recognize that depression can sometimes be chemical but most often, it boils down to choices and /or decisions, eventually, even in the case of grief. The choice/decision to live or die. The choice/decision to be negative,sad, angry etc.. OR, not, and PUSH towards a life with happiness, joy, intrigue etc.
It doesn't matter what hardship has put you in the emotional gutter - The decision needs to be made to climb out. The 'push'...towards more existential awareness, contact, meaning, and value... as you've stated. Different issues take various amounts of time landing at the same conclusion - as long as we always end up landing in the best place...
Noreen.
Words and Their Meaning: Example -- 'Narcissism'
I don't think anyone has ever really looked at words from this light before but words are an ongoing process of 'dialectical negotiations, integrations, and compromises'. In this regard, words evolve too -- just like animals, people, cultures, and ideas... Indeed, words have to evolve to keep up with a constantly changing world.
In this regard, words have both a 'narcissistic' and a 'social' function -- and they are 'compromise-formations' aimed at meeting both functions at the same time. In this regard also, words have both a range and focus of different 'narcissistic meanings' for the same and different people; and at the same time, they have a range and focus of different 'social meanings' that are used within a particular 'social context' depending on the particular culture and/or sub-culture, the country, the region, the municipality, the community, the sub-community, the school of kids, the gang, etc. Meanings can change significantly within all of these different social contexts -- and within the context of one particular person using one particular word in one particular sentence and paragraph at one particular time. When it comes to the meaning of words -- narcissistic and social context means everything. Words -- and their meaning -- are very slippery things.
This is why you have politicians, sports athletes, entertainers, public speakers and the like constantly complaining about 'sound bites' -- and the assertion that they have been taken 'out of context'. The politiciaan, athlete, actor, or public speaker may have a particular message he or she wishes to convey to the community -- the particular journalist may or may not have an 'underhanded agenda to create a provocative, controversial story' -- and the public figure is left 'crying foul' after the story has been written and/or the newsclip is shown on tv, Now partly or mainly, the 'communication problem' may be of the speaker's own making -- a careless use of words, an easy to draw inference from something a speaker seems to be implying (I am thinking about Hillary Clinton's reference to Robert Kennedy's assassination), a 'joke' that is not funny and/or that is alluding to but partly hiding a serious statement beneath it, an abstract word or sentence that can be taken in more than one way..and so on..
Freud may use the word 'narcissism', Kohut may use the word narcissism, I may use the word narcissism -- and it can be practically guaranteed that we will all have a partly similar, partly different, range and focus of meaning for this word -- and again, meaning in each of our individual cases will be 'contextually bound'. We may mean one thing by it in a particular sentence, and something else, slightly or significantly different in a different sentence, a different paragraph, a different essay. There will likely be a particular range of social meaning that will bind all of these individual meanings together into 'one house of social meaning' if you will but within this one house of social menaing it is still very appropriate and relevant to ask the questions: What does Freud mean by 'narcissism'? What does Kohut mena by narcissism? What does Bain mean by 'narcissism'? And what does Freud or Kohut or Bain mean by 'narcissism' in this particular context here? These are all very relevant questions when it comes to the relationship between words and meaning...
Sticking to the same word and its meaning -- narcissism --
we could again quite appropriately and significantly ask the question(s):
Does narcissism include the 'word-concept-phenomenon' (wcp) of 'hedonism'? 'Pleasure'? 'Assertiveness'? 'Aggressiveness'? 'Sensuality'? 'Sexuality'? 'Selfishness'? 'Egotism'? 'Greed'? 'Power'? 'Revenge'? 'Sadism'? The 'pursuit of money'? . 'Survival'?
In every case, I would answer -- 'yes'. But here is the kicker -- Freud and Kohut would probably each answer partly differently.
Is 'altruism' narcissistic? No -- unless it involves 'conditional giving'. Is 'approval-seeking' narcissistic? Perhaps partly. There may be a sense in which we may believe that we 'need' another person's approval in order to 'survive' or in order to get what we want. The same argument can be applied to both 'submission' and 'masochism'. A person may 'submit' because he or she thinks submission is necessary in order to survive -- or to keep one's husband or wife, or to keep one's job. And the same goes at least partly with 'masochism'. Masochism is a complicated subject addressed by Freud. I would have to go back over the material but it is most likely that I will express some agreements with Freud on this subject matter and some disaggrements. I can say right now that I believe that masochism presents a mixture of narcissistic and anti-narcissistic processes. There may be pleasure connected to the masochism. That is narcissistic. There usually involves the 'disownment' of self-assertiveness, self-integrity in masochism. That is 'anti-narcissistic'. Thus, masochism presents a mixture of narcissistic and anti-narcissistic activities.
Obviously, this discussion here is equally relevant to the subject of both 'words and meaning' -- and to the subject of 'narcissism'.
In my opinion, there is a responsibility on the part of both the writer and the reader, the speaker and the listener, to engage in these types of questions -- and their answers in order to clean up the possibility of 'referent confucsion' -- of not knowing what 'phenomenon' a word is referring to, and/or two people having different ideas, different phenomena, in mind when they use the same word.
Coming down the abstraction ladder -- and if necessary -- pointing at the 'real world phenomenon' we are talking about (see Korzybski, Wittgenstein) can significantly reduce this very common type of communication problem.
-- dgb, June 1st, 2008.
In this regard, words have both a 'narcissistic' and a 'social' function -- and they are 'compromise-formations' aimed at meeting both functions at the same time. In this regard also, words have both a range and focus of different 'narcissistic meanings' for the same and different people; and at the same time, they have a range and focus of different 'social meanings' that are used within a particular 'social context' depending on the particular culture and/or sub-culture, the country, the region, the municipality, the community, the sub-community, the school of kids, the gang, etc. Meanings can change significantly within all of these different social contexts -- and within the context of one particular person using one particular word in one particular sentence and paragraph at one particular time. When it comes to the meaning of words -- narcissistic and social context means everything. Words -- and their meaning -- are very slippery things.
This is why you have politicians, sports athletes, entertainers, public speakers and the like constantly complaining about 'sound bites' -- and the assertion that they have been taken 'out of context'. The politiciaan, athlete, actor, or public speaker may have a particular message he or she wishes to convey to the community -- the particular journalist may or may not have an 'underhanded agenda to create a provocative, controversial story' -- and the public figure is left 'crying foul' after the story has been written and/or the newsclip is shown on tv, Now partly or mainly, the 'communication problem' may be of the speaker's own making -- a careless use of words, an easy to draw inference from something a speaker seems to be implying (I am thinking about Hillary Clinton's reference to Robert Kennedy's assassination), a 'joke' that is not funny and/or that is alluding to but partly hiding a serious statement beneath it, an abstract word or sentence that can be taken in more than one way..and so on..
Freud may use the word 'narcissism', Kohut may use the word narcissism, I may use the word narcissism -- and it can be practically guaranteed that we will all have a partly similar, partly different, range and focus of meaning for this word -- and again, meaning in each of our individual cases will be 'contextually bound'. We may mean one thing by it in a particular sentence, and something else, slightly or significantly different in a different sentence, a different paragraph, a different essay. There will likely be a particular range of social meaning that will bind all of these individual meanings together into 'one house of social meaning' if you will but within this one house of social menaing it is still very appropriate and relevant to ask the questions: What does Freud mean by 'narcissism'? What does Kohut mena by narcissism? What does Bain mean by 'narcissism'? And what does Freud or Kohut or Bain mean by 'narcissism' in this particular context here? These are all very relevant questions when it comes to the relationship between words and meaning...
Sticking to the same word and its meaning -- narcissism --
we could again quite appropriately and significantly ask the question(s):
Does narcissism include the 'word-concept-phenomenon' (wcp) of 'hedonism'? 'Pleasure'? 'Assertiveness'? 'Aggressiveness'? 'Sensuality'? 'Sexuality'? 'Selfishness'? 'Egotism'? 'Greed'? 'Power'? 'Revenge'? 'Sadism'? The 'pursuit of money'? . 'Survival'?
In every case, I would answer -- 'yes'. But here is the kicker -- Freud and Kohut would probably each answer partly differently.
Is 'altruism' narcissistic? No -- unless it involves 'conditional giving'. Is 'approval-seeking' narcissistic? Perhaps partly. There may be a sense in which we may believe that we 'need' another person's approval in order to 'survive' or in order to get what we want. The same argument can be applied to both 'submission' and 'masochism'. A person may 'submit' because he or she thinks submission is necessary in order to survive -- or to keep one's husband or wife, or to keep one's job. And the same goes at least partly with 'masochism'. Masochism is a complicated subject addressed by Freud. I would have to go back over the material but it is most likely that I will express some agreements with Freud on this subject matter and some disaggrements. I can say right now that I believe that masochism presents a mixture of narcissistic and anti-narcissistic processes. There may be pleasure connected to the masochism. That is narcissistic. There usually involves the 'disownment' of self-assertiveness, self-integrity in masochism. That is 'anti-narcissistic'. Thus, masochism presents a mixture of narcissistic and anti-narcissistic activities.
Obviously, this discussion here is equally relevant to the subject of both 'words and meaning' -- and to the subject of 'narcissism'.
In my opinion, there is a responsibility on the part of both the writer and the reader, the speaker and the listener, to engage in these types of questions -- and their answers in order to clean up the possibility of 'referent confucsion' -- of not knowing what 'phenomenon' a word is referring to, and/or two people having different ideas, different phenomena, in mind when they use the same word.
Coming down the abstraction ladder -- and if necessary -- pointing at the 'real world phenomenon' we are talking about (see Korzybski, Wittgenstein) can significantly reduce this very common type of communication problem.
-- dgb, June 1st, 2008.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Epistemology, Evaluation, Action, and Health
I've been wanting to do this for quite a while now, and avoiding it because it is a significant task that I have set before myself -- specifically, re-doing my Honours Thesis in Psychology which that I wrote almost 30 years ago.
The essay was primarily a work on language, epistemology, values, and health -- specifically, showing how the first three factors affected -- even largely determined -- the outcome of the fourth factor, mental, emotional, psychological, and physical -- health.
At the same time, my honours thesis was my first or second major swing at what today I am calling 'Hegel's Hotel' and/or 'DGB Philosophy'. In the 1980's, I called it 'Gap Psychology' as I learned and integrated important elements of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, and Transactional Analysis. In the 1990a I started calling it 'Gap Philosophy' or 'Gap Philosophy-Psychology' as I took Gap Psychology into the realm of philosophy and started studying the various philosophers that I viewed as relevant to my evolving work.
In the 1990s, I started calling my work 'DGB Philosophy' or 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' which still covertly retained part of the names of 'Gap Psychology' and 'Gap Philosophy' because the initials 'DGB', as well being the initials of my name, were also an anacronym for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging' Philosophy-Psychology. At one point in my writing, which will see in some of my essays, I even started calling it 'DGBN' Philosophy which stood for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations'.
But Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy all started with this present-day rendition of my original Honours Thesis back in 1979 called 'Evaluation and Health'.
Looking back at it now, I see the work as having been very dry, stale, and mechancial -- I was trying to treat human epistemology and evaluation as an 'objective science' which it partly should be treated as an objective science -- just like what is supposed to happen in a court of law, and/or, for those of you who might be able to remember this far back, like in those old 'FBI' television shows (the 60s, 70s, maybe?) where the one detective would always say something to the extent of: 'Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.' The essay was kind of like science was during the 'Enlightenment Period' of the late 1700s and early 1800s before Nietzsche arrived on the scene and came at the apparently indestructible 'objective arrogancy' of Science and pulverized it with his philosophical wrecking ball -- which building on the work of Schopenhauer -- showed the world just how much every aspect of man's life -- his thinking, his feeling, his actions, and every aspect of his culture including religion and science -- is subjectively biased by by what Freud would later call 'human narcissism'.
That philosophical picture hasn't changed today. We cannot properly approach the study of epistemology without fully realizing that there is a world of difference separatedd by a major 'gap', 'chasm' or 'abys' between what we might want to call 'ideal human epistemology' ('Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.') and 'applied human epistemology' which quickly and quietly gets bent out of shape by the dominating influence and force of human narcissism and the resulting subjectivism and bias. One only has to listen to a 'he said, she said' argument to realize that 'ideal objective epistemology' has just been blown out the door.
It is becoming increasingly apparent to me by the moment that this network of essays to follow on 'Epistemology, Evaluation, Action, and Health' is going to involve a huge re-making, modification and extrapolation of what I originally wrote in 1979. I cannot copy the old thesis, word for word, because I am no longer there. I have to take that old, dry, mechanical thesis and turn it into something more 'human', more interesting, and more relevant to Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology today as it is currently evolving in 2008. And to do that we will start our re-make of this work with a discussion on rationality and irrationality in man.
I think what I am saying here is that we need to move out of the realm of 'epistemology' and examine an overview model of the workings of man's whole psyche before we can properly come back to epistemology and do it full justice. I didn't expect to be doing this, but that's the way it is going to go down. You can find my next segment of essays in my 'Ten Most Recent Essays' section and/or the section on 'From Mythology to Personality Theory'. I hope to see you in either section before I come back here.
-- dgb, April 6th, 2008, modified and updated May 11th, 2008.
The essay was primarily a work on language, epistemology, values, and health -- specifically, showing how the first three factors affected -- even largely determined -- the outcome of the fourth factor, mental, emotional, psychological, and physical -- health.
At the same time, my honours thesis was my first or second major swing at what today I am calling 'Hegel's Hotel' and/or 'DGB Philosophy'. In the 1980's, I called it 'Gap Psychology' as I learned and integrated important elements of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, and Transactional Analysis. In the 1990a I started calling it 'Gap Philosophy' or 'Gap Philosophy-Psychology' as I took Gap Psychology into the realm of philosophy and started studying the various philosophers that I viewed as relevant to my evolving work.
In the 1990s, I started calling my work 'DGB Philosophy' or 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' which still covertly retained part of the names of 'Gap Psychology' and 'Gap Philosophy' because the initials 'DGB', as well being the initials of my name, were also an anacronym for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging' Philosophy-Psychology. At one point in my writing, which will see in some of my essays, I even started calling it 'DGBN' Philosophy which stood for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations'.
But Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy all started with this present-day rendition of my original Honours Thesis back in 1979 called 'Evaluation and Health'.
Looking back at it now, I see the work as having been very dry, stale, and mechancial -- I was trying to treat human epistemology and evaluation as an 'objective science' which it partly should be treated as an objective science -- just like what is supposed to happen in a court of law, and/or, for those of you who might be able to remember this far back, like in those old 'FBI' television shows (the 60s, 70s, maybe?) where the one detective would always say something to the extent of: 'Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.' The essay was kind of like science was during the 'Enlightenment Period' of the late 1700s and early 1800s before Nietzsche arrived on the scene and came at the apparently indestructible 'objective arrogancy' of Science and pulverized it with his philosophical wrecking ball -- which building on the work of Schopenhauer -- showed the world just how much every aspect of man's life -- his thinking, his feeling, his actions, and every aspect of his culture including religion and science -- is subjectively biased by by what Freud would later call 'human narcissism'.
That philosophical picture hasn't changed today. We cannot properly approach the study of epistemology without fully realizing that there is a world of difference separatedd by a major 'gap', 'chasm' or 'abys' between what we might want to call 'ideal human epistemology' ('Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.') and 'applied human epistemology' which quickly and quietly gets bent out of shape by the dominating influence and force of human narcissism and the resulting subjectivism and bias. One only has to listen to a 'he said, she said' argument to realize that 'ideal objective epistemology' has just been blown out the door.
It is becoming increasingly apparent to me by the moment that this network of essays to follow on 'Epistemology, Evaluation, Action, and Health' is going to involve a huge re-making, modification and extrapolation of what I originally wrote in 1979. I cannot copy the old thesis, word for word, because I am no longer there. I have to take that old, dry, mechanical thesis and turn it into something more 'human', more interesting, and more relevant to Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology today as it is currently evolving in 2008. And to do that we will start our re-make of this work with a discussion on rationality and irrationality in man.
I think what I am saying here is that we need to move out of the realm of 'epistemology' and examine an overview model of the workings of man's whole psyche before we can properly come back to epistemology and do it full justice. I didn't expect to be doing this, but that's the way it is going to go down. You can find my next segment of essays in my 'Ten Most Recent Essays' section and/or the section on 'From Mythology to Personality Theory'. I hope to see you in either section before I come back here.
-- dgb, April 6th, 2008, modified and updated May 11th, 2008.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Evaluation and Health Re-visited: Introduction
I've been wanting to do this for quite a while now, and avoiding it because it is a significant task that I have set before myself -- specifically, re-doing my Honours Thesis in Psychology which that I wrote almost 30 years ago.
The essay was primarily a work on language, epistemology, values, and health -- specifically, showing how the first three factors affected -- even largely determined -- the outcome of the fourth factor, mental, emotional, psychological, and physical -- health.
At the same time, my honours thesis was my first or second major swing at what today I am calling 'Hegel's Hotel' and/or 'DGB Philosophy'. In the 1980's, I called it 'Gap Psychology' as I learned and integrated important elements of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, and Transactional Analysis. In the 1990a I started calling it 'Gap Philosophy' or 'Gap Philosophy-Psychology' as I took Gap Psychology into the realm of philosophy and started studying the various philosophers that I viewed as relevant to my evolving work.
In the 1990s, I started calling my work 'DGB Philosophy' or 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' which still covertly retained part of the names of 'Gap Psychology' and 'Gap Philosophy' because the initials 'DGB', as well being the initials of my name, were also an anacronym for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging' Philosophy-Psychology. At one point in my writing, which will see in some of my essays, I even started calling it 'DGBN' Philosophy which stood for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations'.
But Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy all started with this present-day rendition of my original Honours Thesis back in 1979 called 'Evaluation and Health'.
Looking back at it now, I see the work as having been very dry, stale, and mechancial -- I was trying to treat human epistemology and evaluation as an 'objective science' which it partly should be treated as an objective science -- just like what is supposed to happen in a court of law, and/or, for those of you who might be able to remember this far back, like in those old 'FBI' television shows (the 60s, 70s, maybe?) where the one detective would always say something to the extent of: 'Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.' The essay was kind of like science was during the 'Enlightenment Period' of the late 1700s and early 1800s before Nietzsche arrived on the scene and came at the apparently indestructible 'objective arrogancy' of Science and pulverized it with his philosophical wrecking ball -- which building on the work of Schopenhauer -- showed the world just how much every aspect of man's life -- his thinking, his feeling, his actions, and every aspect of his culture including religion and science -- is subjectively biased by by what Freud would later call 'human narcissism'.
That philosophical picture hasn't changed today. We cannot properly approach the study of epistemology without fully realizing that there is a world of difference separatedd by a major 'gap', 'chasm' or 'abys' between what we might want to call 'ideal human epistemology' ('Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.') and 'applied human epistemology' which quickly and quietly gets bent out of shape by the dominating influence and force of human narcissism and the resulting subjectivism and bias. One only has to listen to a 'he said, she said' argument to realize that 'ideal objective epistemology' has just been blown out the door.
It is becoming increasingly apparent to me by the moment that this network of essays to follow on 'Epistemology, Evaluation, Action, and Health' is going to involve a huge re-making, modification and extrapolation of what I originally wrote in 1979. I cannot copy the old thesis, word for word, because I am no longer there. I have to take that old, dry, mechanical thesis and turn it into something more 'human', more interesting, and more relevant to Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology today as it is currently evolving in 2008. And to do that we will start our re-make of this work with a discussion on rationality and irrationality in man.
-- dgb, April 6th, 2008.
The essay was primarily a work on language, epistemology, values, and health -- specifically, showing how the first three factors affected -- even largely determined -- the outcome of the fourth factor, mental, emotional, psychological, and physical -- health.
At the same time, my honours thesis was my first or second major swing at what today I am calling 'Hegel's Hotel' and/or 'DGB Philosophy'. In the 1980's, I called it 'Gap Psychology' as I learned and integrated important elements of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, and Transactional Analysis. In the 1990a I started calling it 'Gap Philosophy' or 'Gap Philosophy-Psychology' as I took Gap Psychology into the realm of philosophy and started studying the various philosophers that I viewed as relevant to my evolving work.
In the 1990s, I started calling my work 'DGB Philosophy' or 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' which still covertly retained part of the names of 'Gap Psychology' and 'Gap Philosophy' because the initials 'DGB', as well being the initials of my name, were also an anacronym for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging' Philosophy-Psychology. At one point in my writing, which will see in some of my essays, I even started calling it 'DGBN' Philosophy which stood for 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations'.
But Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy all started with this present-day rendition of my original Honours Thesis back in 1979 called 'Evaluation and Health'.
Looking back at it now, I see the work as having been very dry, stale, and mechancial -- I was trying to treat human epistemology and evaluation as an 'objective science' which it partly should be treated as an objective science -- just like what is supposed to happen in a court of law, and/or, for those of you who might be able to remember this far back, like in those old 'FBI' television shows (the 60s, 70s, maybe?) where the one detective would always say something to the extent of: 'Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.' The essay was kind of like science was during the 'Enlightenment Period' of the late 1700s and early 1800s before Nietzsche arrived on the scene and came at the apparently indestructible 'objective arrogancy' of Science and pulverized it with his philosophical wrecking ball -- which building on the work of Schopenhauer -- showed the world just how much every aspect of man's life -- his thinking, his feeling, his actions, and every aspect of his culture including religion and science -- is subjectively biased by by what Freud would later call 'human narcissism'.
That philosophical picture hasn't changed today. We cannot properly approach the study of epistemology without fully realizing that there is a world of difference separatedd by a major 'gap', 'chasm' or 'abys' between what we might want to call 'ideal human epistemology' ('Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.') and 'applied human epistemology' which quickly and quietly gets bent out of shape by the dominating influence and force of human narcissism and the resulting subjectivism and bias. One only has to listen to a 'he said, she said' argument to realize that 'ideal objective epistemology' has just been blown out the door.
It is becoming increasingly apparent to me by the moment that this network of essays to follow on 'Epistemology, Evaluation, Action, and Health' is going to involve a huge re-making, modification and extrapolation of what I originally wrote in 1979. I cannot copy the old thesis, word for word, because I am no longer there. I have to take that old, dry, mechanical thesis and turn it into something more 'human', more interesting, and more relevant to Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology today as it is currently evolving in 2008. And to do that we will start our re-make of this work with a discussion on rationality and irrationality in man.
-- dgb, April 6th, 2008.
Rationality and Irrationality in Man
When I was coming to the end of my Honours Thesis in Psychology in 1979, the subject of energy and motivation was just starting to come up as I was winding down. I knew that there was a whole new world that I had to investigate in terms of man's psychology because man is not an 'automaton' or a 'machine' or a 'computer' -- even though in some ways man's mind certainly does function like a computer, or rather visa versa.
The computer operates much like man's brain with a 'processor', 'memory', and so on...But man is not a computer -- he doesn't always think rationally and logically and objectively like a computer -- rather, he is subject to massive motivational and emotional influences and biases that can easily stray him from the path of 'objective epistemology'. My work back in 1979 was largely a work aimed at teaching 'objective epistemology' (even though the word 'epistemology' hadn't really entered my vocabulary and thought process yet. I was studying psychology, not philosophy even though the two I was to find out later are intimately connected to each other and cannot really be talked about 'wholistically' except in the way that they have influenced each other, or primarily that philosophy stimulated the birth of psychology as a more specialized realm of philosophy).
I was an 'Enlightenment' student of philosophy and psychology back in 1979 which means that in my writing I was basically functioning from the neck up. Yes, I knew about man's capability for 'irrationality' but back in 1979 it was all about 'teaching people to be different -- teaching people to be more 'rational' and 'logical'. The writers I was primarily influenced by were 'General Semantic' and 'cognitive' writers like Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Albert Ellis, Nataniel Branden, Aaron Beck, combined with the beginnings of a 'humanistic-existential' influence in the writings of Erich Fromm.
It was easy -- or so I thought -- I was simply going to teach people the lessons and skills of 'General Semantics' and 'Cognitive Therapy' -- and the whole world was going to be a better place for my having taught these lessons and skills.
Not. I was an idealistic university student. What did I know about living in the world of 'reality' -- of trying to make a living, and keeping up with my bills, and raising two kids and dealing with 'emotional-passionate' women. Trying to 'teach' cognitive therapy and General Semantics to either of my two earliest girlfriends in the throes of a 'passionate' and 'irrational' argument was like trying to funnel an ocean backwards into a river. There was a lot of 'emotional spillage and chaos' where 'rationality', 'logic' and 'Enlightenment Philosophy' just did/do not carry the day. After the experiences with my first girlfriend, I didn't even try to teach General Semantics or Cognitve Therapy to any girlfriend after that -- especially in the throes of an argument. It was dangerous. Something more was needed to better understand the full extent of man's propensity for 'narcissistic bias and subjectivity'.
Men and women simply do not function solely from the 'neck up'.
Welcome to the world of Schopenhauer, and Kierkegaard, and Doestevsky, and Nietzsche, and Freud, and Jung, and Perls...(although Perls did add a Korzybski-General Semantic influence to Gestalt Therapy). Welcome to man's 'ocean of irrationality trying to fit within the banks of a river of rationality'. Schopenhauer called man's huge propensity for irrationality and narcissistic bias 'the deterministic will of the universe'. Kierkegaard called it man's 'Aesthetic' influence. Nietzsche called it man's 'Dionysian' influence. Freud called it the 'id'. Jung called it 'the shadow'. Perls called it 'the underdog'.
One could argue that even in the heart of darkness -- even in man's most seeminlgy 'irrational' moments -- that 'reason' and 'logic' is still prevailing. But reason and logic are dancing to the tune of a 'different God'. Reason and logic have tuned out 'Apollo' (in ancient Greek mythology, God of 'ethics', 'morality', 'law' and 'order') and tuned in 'Dionysus' (the ancient Greek God of 'dance, celebration, and hedonistic pleasure). Or you could say that man in the throes of irrationality is still following 'logic' and 'reason' but dancing to the tune of 'Narcissus' (the God of self-interest/self-absorption).
What I am starting to show here -- and to be sure, this is me writing in 2008, not 1979 -- is that there is a very useful connection between the study of ancient mythology (for me so far, mainly Greek mythology), and the study of present day philosophy and psychology. In a similar regard, what I am also starting to show here is the connection between 'energy centres', 'value priorities', 'motivational bias' and epistemology.
There is a huge gap -- once again a chasm or an abyss -- between 'objective, idealistic, Enlightenment epistemology' and 'realistic, motivationally biased epistemology'. Applied human epistemology does not occur in an emotional vacuum. It occurs in a context and a backdrop of different types of human motivational subjectivity. Trying to change a person's epistemology -- or 'style' of epistemology -- without getting to roots of his or her subjective motivational energy centre and bias -- is like trying to get rid of dandelions by pulling out the stems without digging out the roots as well. Without digging out the roots of a dandelion, the dandelion is just going to grow another flower and stem.
Trying to teach rational, objective, Enlightenment epistemology is not going to be very useful or fruitful unless or until you are sure that the person you are working with is dancing to the tune of Apollo and not Dionysus or 'Aprhrodite' (Goddess of love and romance), 'Aries' (God of war) or any of a host of other possible 'energy-centred Gods'.
Carl Jung went much deeper into this subject area than I will ever go. There are two ways of looking at a 'myth': one way is to look at a myth as an 'objective, epistemological falsity'; the second way to look at a myth is as a 'human subjective, motivational truth'. We are more interested in the second way of looking at myths in this context here.
But there is an even larger picture here. What I'm trying to do now -- which I didn't do back in 1979 because I couldn't, I didn't have the knowledge -- is to put the study of epistemology, or at least DGB Epistemology, into the larger context of 'Hegel's Hotel' as an entirely integrated network of 'sub-works'. In this regard, epistemology is not only a division of philosophy but it is also indirectly a division of psychology as well. For example, in Psychoanalysis, the study of epistemology might indirectly be incorporated into the study of 'ego-functioning' or 'Central-Ego-Functioning'.
If 'ego' means basically 'self', then 'ego-functioning' can be defined as all the different functions of the self. 'Epistemology' is one such function -- or actually, a number of 'inter-connected sub-functions' like 'sensory perception', 'association', 'distinction', and 'logical (or illogical) deduction and interpretation', 'feedback'...which I am all including under the name of 'central-ego-functioning'. This was mainly what my 1979 essay -- 'Evaluation and Health' was all about.
However, there are other 'ego-functions' other than 'epistemology' and 'central-ego-functioning. As well, epistemology is not the only function of the 'Central Ego'. 'Conflict-mediation', 'evaluation', 'response-choosing', 'consequence-interpreting', 'and 'executive action' -- within a 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' mindset' -- are five other related sub-functions of 'The Central Ego'. The Central Ego is a metaphysical concept used to help breakdown and better comprehend all the different sub-functions of the 'Self' -- or 'Ego' -- or 'I'. I am my 'Central Ego' and my 'Central Ego' is me. But there are other 'periphery' or 'subsidery' functions of the Ego that are also worth naming, describing, and better understanding. These can be analogized to the 'Parliament', 'Senate', or 'Congress' in a 'State's' political activities relative to the 'President's Office', the 'Prime Minister's Office' -- or in business, the 'CEO's office'. All of these other names that can and will be discussed here in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology are 'metaphysical concepts' used to help understand all the various 'sub-functions' relative to the philosophy, the psychology, and the executive action of the entire 'Ego', 'Self', or 'I'
You see, everything that man thinks and feels and does is 'projected outward into culture' -- politics, religion, mythology, art, music, sports, business, family, medicine, architecture, philosophy, psychology...
Religion is mythology and mythology is religion -- and both are a particular type of 'energy centre' dealing with a particular set of ego-functions and sub-functions that all can be equated to a particular type or brand of 'philosophy-psychology'.
Each part is connected to -- and plays a vital role in the overall functioning of -- the whole -- the Self, the Ego, or the I. In turn, the Self, the Ego, or the I, has a vital 'multi-dialectical relationship' with the functioning of the body -- and all its different part-functions. But we are primarily concerned with 'philosophy-psychology here -- not biology, physics, and chemisry -- although here too, everthing is wholistically connected -- mind and body, subject and object, spirit, senses, and soul...
In Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology everything is wholistically connected -- philosophy-psychology-science-medicine-art-religion-mythology-business-sports-entertainment-hobbies...These are all 'outward projections and reflections of the internal workings of man's multi-dialectical-philosophy-psychology'. They are all different cultural expressions of the many different internal 'energy-centres' and 'subsidiary-ego-functions' that are wholistically connected to the 'central-ego-functioning' of The Self.
This is 'the wholistic context of man's entire philosophy-psychology' that I didn't have back in 1979 when I wrote 'Evaluation and Health'. 'Evaluation and Health' provided the epistemological and the humanistic-existential foundation which is now 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology'.
Epistemology is the pursuit of 'truth and knowledge' in human philosophy-psychology. 'Humanistic-Existentialism' is one particular perspective in the pusuit of 'value, meaning, and action' in human philosophy-psychology. 'Evaluation and Health' was the foundational starting-point for both of these branches in the study of philosophy-psychology as presented through 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology.
For those of you who are interested in the study of 'epistemology' -- and the part language and semantics plays in epistemology -- I invite you to focus on your 'Apollonian energy centre' as we begin to study the interplay between 'truth and ethics' in my 1979 essay: 'Evaluation and Health'. I'm expecting a lot from you here as we focus for a while on man's philosphy-psychology primarily from the 'neck up'. Then after this, we will step away from 'Apollo' for a while and visit other more entertaining and dramatic 'energy-ego-centres': 'Narcissus' (narcissism), 'Dionysus' (sensuality, pleasure, celebration, dancing, sex...), 'Aphrodite' and/or 'Eros' (romance, love, passion, nature..), 'Aries' (war, deconstructionism...), and more...
I probably just made the study of 'Apollo', 'epistemology', and 'ethics' sound so boring that you may want to 'jump ship' on me here in order to 'fast-forward' to some of these other mythological Gods and external projections of internal 'energy-ego-centres'.
Alas, there can be no truth, ethics, justice, peace and harmony on earth if we all ignore 'Apollo'. Apollo is important -- and so too are both 'epistemology' and 'ethics'...So please...follow Apollo...with me...through 'Evaluation and Health'...
dgb, April 8th, 2008; modified and expanded, April 11th, 2008.
The computer operates much like man's brain with a 'processor', 'memory', and so on...But man is not a computer -- he doesn't always think rationally and logically and objectively like a computer -- rather, he is subject to massive motivational and emotional influences and biases that can easily stray him from the path of 'objective epistemology'. My work back in 1979 was largely a work aimed at teaching 'objective epistemology' (even though the word 'epistemology' hadn't really entered my vocabulary and thought process yet. I was studying psychology, not philosophy even though the two I was to find out later are intimately connected to each other and cannot really be talked about 'wholistically' except in the way that they have influenced each other, or primarily that philosophy stimulated the birth of psychology as a more specialized realm of philosophy).
I was an 'Enlightenment' student of philosophy and psychology back in 1979 which means that in my writing I was basically functioning from the neck up. Yes, I knew about man's capability for 'irrationality' but back in 1979 it was all about 'teaching people to be different -- teaching people to be more 'rational' and 'logical'. The writers I was primarily influenced by were 'General Semantic' and 'cognitive' writers like Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Albert Ellis, Nataniel Branden, Aaron Beck, combined with the beginnings of a 'humanistic-existential' influence in the writings of Erich Fromm.
It was easy -- or so I thought -- I was simply going to teach people the lessons and skills of 'General Semantics' and 'Cognitive Therapy' -- and the whole world was going to be a better place for my having taught these lessons and skills.
Not. I was an idealistic university student. What did I know about living in the world of 'reality' -- of trying to make a living, and keeping up with my bills, and raising two kids and dealing with 'emotional-passionate' women. Trying to 'teach' cognitive therapy and General Semantics to either of my two earliest girlfriends in the throes of a 'passionate' and 'irrational' argument was like trying to funnel an ocean backwards into a river. There was a lot of 'emotional spillage and chaos' where 'rationality', 'logic' and 'Enlightenment Philosophy' just did/do not carry the day. After the experiences with my first girlfriend, I didn't even try to teach General Semantics or Cognitve Therapy to any girlfriend after that -- especially in the throes of an argument. It was dangerous. Something more was needed to better understand the full extent of man's propensity for 'narcissistic bias and subjectivity'.
Men and women simply do not function solely from the 'neck up'.
Welcome to the world of Schopenhauer, and Kierkegaard, and Doestevsky, and Nietzsche, and Freud, and Jung, and Perls...(although Perls did add a Korzybski-General Semantic influence to Gestalt Therapy). Welcome to man's 'ocean of irrationality trying to fit within the banks of a river of rationality'. Schopenhauer called man's huge propensity for irrationality and narcissistic bias 'the deterministic will of the universe'. Kierkegaard called it man's 'Aesthetic' influence. Nietzsche called it man's 'Dionysian' influence. Freud called it the 'id'. Jung called it 'the shadow'. Perls called it 'the underdog'.
One could argue that even in the heart of darkness -- even in man's most seeminlgy 'irrational' moments -- that 'reason' and 'logic' is still prevailing. But reason and logic are dancing to the tune of a 'different God'. Reason and logic have tuned out 'Apollo' (in ancient Greek mythology, God of 'ethics', 'morality', 'law' and 'order') and tuned in 'Dionysus' (the ancient Greek God of 'dance, celebration, and hedonistic pleasure). Or you could say that man in the throes of irrationality is still following 'logic' and 'reason' but dancing to the tune of 'Narcissus' (the God of self-interest/self-absorption).
What I am starting to show here -- and to be sure, this is me writing in 2008, not 1979 -- is that there is a very useful connection between the study of ancient mythology (for me so far, mainly Greek mythology), and the study of present day philosophy and psychology. In a similar regard, what I am also starting to show here is the connection between 'energy centres', 'value priorities', 'motivational bias' and epistemology.
There is a huge gap -- once again a chasm or an abyss -- between 'objective, idealistic, Enlightenment epistemology' and 'realistic, motivationally biased epistemology'. Applied human epistemology does not occur in an emotional vacuum. It occurs in a context and a backdrop of different types of human motivational subjectivity. Trying to change a person's epistemology -- or 'style' of epistemology -- without getting to roots of his or her subjective motivational energy centre and bias -- is like trying to get rid of dandelions by pulling out the stems without digging out the roots as well. Without digging out the roots of a dandelion, the dandelion is just going to grow another flower and stem.
Trying to teach rational, objective, Enlightenment epistemology is not going to be very useful or fruitful unless or until you are sure that the person you are working with is dancing to the tune of Apollo and not Dionysus or 'Aprhrodite' (Goddess of love and romance), 'Aries' (God of war) or any of a host of other possible 'energy-centred Gods'.
Carl Jung went much deeper into this subject area than I will ever go. There are two ways of looking at a 'myth': one way is to look at a myth as an 'objective, epistemological falsity'; the second way to look at a myth is as a 'human subjective, motivational truth'. We are more interested in the second way of looking at myths in this context here.
But there is an even larger picture here. What I'm trying to do now -- which I didn't do back in 1979 because I couldn't, I didn't have the knowledge -- is to put the study of epistemology, or at least DGB Epistemology, into the larger context of 'Hegel's Hotel' as an entirely integrated network of 'sub-works'. In this regard, epistemology is not only a division of philosophy but it is also indirectly a division of psychology as well. For example, in Psychoanalysis, the study of epistemology might indirectly be incorporated into the study of 'ego-functioning' or 'Central-Ego-Functioning'.
If 'ego' means basically 'self', then 'ego-functioning' can be defined as all the different functions of the self. 'Epistemology' is one such function -- or actually, a number of 'inter-connected sub-functions' like 'sensory perception', 'association', 'distinction', and 'logical (or illogical) deduction and interpretation', 'feedback'...which I am all including under the name of 'central-ego-functioning'. This was mainly what my 1979 essay -- 'Evaluation and Health' was all about.
However, there are other 'ego-functions' other than 'epistemology' and 'central-ego-functioning. As well, epistemology is not the only function of the 'Central Ego'. 'Conflict-mediation', 'evaluation', 'response-choosing', 'consequence-interpreting', 'and 'executive action' -- within a 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' mindset' -- are five other related sub-functions of 'The Central Ego'. The Central Ego is a metaphysical concept used to help breakdown and better comprehend all the different sub-functions of the 'Self' -- or 'Ego' -- or 'I'. I am my 'Central Ego' and my 'Central Ego' is me. But there are other 'periphery' or 'subsidery' functions of the Ego that are also worth naming, describing, and better understanding. These can be analogized to the 'Parliament', 'Senate', or 'Congress' in a 'State's' political activities relative to the 'President's Office', the 'Prime Minister's Office' -- or in business, the 'CEO's office'. All of these other names that can and will be discussed here in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology are 'metaphysical concepts' used to help understand all the various 'sub-functions' relative to the philosophy, the psychology, and the executive action of the entire 'Ego', 'Self', or 'I'
You see, everything that man thinks and feels and does is 'projected outward into culture' -- politics, religion, mythology, art, music, sports, business, family, medicine, architecture, philosophy, psychology...
Religion is mythology and mythology is religion -- and both are a particular type of 'energy centre' dealing with a particular set of ego-functions and sub-functions that all can be equated to a particular type or brand of 'philosophy-psychology'.
Each part is connected to -- and plays a vital role in the overall functioning of -- the whole -- the Self, the Ego, or the I. In turn, the Self, the Ego, or the I, has a vital 'multi-dialectical relationship' with the functioning of the body -- and all its different part-functions. But we are primarily concerned with 'philosophy-psychology here -- not biology, physics, and chemisry -- although here too, everthing is wholistically connected -- mind and body, subject and object, spirit, senses, and soul...
In Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology everything is wholistically connected -- philosophy-psychology-science-medicine-art-religion-mythology-business-sports-entertainment-hobbies...These are all 'outward projections and reflections of the internal workings of man's multi-dialectical-philosophy-psychology'. They are all different cultural expressions of the many different internal 'energy-centres' and 'subsidiary-ego-functions' that are wholistically connected to the 'central-ego-functioning' of The Self.
This is 'the wholistic context of man's entire philosophy-psychology' that I didn't have back in 1979 when I wrote 'Evaluation and Health'. 'Evaluation and Health' provided the epistemological and the humanistic-existential foundation which is now 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology'.
Epistemology is the pursuit of 'truth and knowledge' in human philosophy-psychology. 'Humanistic-Existentialism' is one particular perspective in the pusuit of 'value, meaning, and action' in human philosophy-psychology. 'Evaluation and Health' was the foundational starting-point for both of these branches in the study of philosophy-psychology as presented through 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology.
For those of you who are interested in the study of 'epistemology' -- and the part language and semantics plays in epistemology -- I invite you to focus on your 'Apollonian energy centre' as we begin to study the interplay between 'truth and ethics' in my 1979 essay: 'Evaluation and Health'. I'm expecting a lot from you here as we focus for a while on man's philosphy-psychology primarily from the 'neck up'. Then after this, we will step away from 'Apollo' for a while and visit other more entertaining and dramatic 'energy-ego-centres': 'Narcissus' (narcissism), 'Dionysus' (sensuality, pleasure, celebration, dancing, sex...), 'Aphrodite' and/or 'Eros' (romance, love, passion, nature..), 'Aries' (war, deconstructionism...), and more...
I probably just made the study of 'Apollo', 'epistemology', and 'ethics' sound so boring that you may want to 'jump ship' on me here in order to 'fast-forward' to some of these other mythological Gods and external projections of internal 'energy-ego-centres'.
Alas, there can be no truth, ethics, justice, peace and harmony on earth if we all ignore 'Apollo'. Apollo is important -- and so too are both 'epistemology' and 'ethics'...So please...follow Apollo...with me...through 'Evaluation and Health'...
dgb, April 8th, 2008; modified and expanded, April 11th, 2008.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Seeking More/New Semantic Clarity and Evolutionary Development in The Area of Epistemological Idealism -- The Pursuit of Truth (Part 2)
This essay is aimed at moving a few steps beyond Part 1 on this same subject matter -- epistemological idealism.
Firstly, to re-summarize from the last essay, the term 'idealism' has two quite different meanings that need to be clarified in order to prevent serious confusion. Idealism in its first sense -- which is its more standard every day meaning -- means something in the ballpark of 'perfection', 'utopoa', etc. Eg. We might say something like: 'That is an ideal house as far as I am concerned.' (Notice the subjectivity involved in that what is ideal for me may not be ideal for you -- and visa versa.) Now we come to the meaning of idealism as it tends to be used in academic philosophical circles. Wikipedia may be able to help us here although it points the way to new potential confusions as well as clarities:
Idealism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the philosophical notion of idealism. For other uses, see Idealism (disambiguation).
Idealism is the doctrine that ideas, or thought, make up either the whole or an indispensable aspect of any full reality, so that a world of material objects containing no thought either could not exist as it is experienced, or would not be fully "real." Idealism is often contrasted with materialism, both belonging to the class of monist as opposed to dualist or pluralist ontologies. (Note that this contrast between idealism and materialism has to do with the question of the nature of reality as such — it has nothing to do with advocating high moral standards, or the like.) Subjective Idealists and Phenomenalists (such as George Berkeley) hold that minds and their experiences constitute existence. Transcendental Idealists (such as Immanuel Kant) argue from the nature of knowledge to the nature of the objects of knowledge--without suggesting that those objects are composed of ideas or located in the knower's mind. Objective Idealists hold either that there is ultimately only one perceiver, who is identical with what is perceived (this is the doctrine of Josiah Royce), or that thought makes possible the highest degree of self-determination and thus the highest degree of reality (this is G.W.F. Hegel's Absolute Idealism). Panpsychists (such as Leibniz) hold that all objects of experience are also subjects. That is, plants and minerals have subjective experiences--though very different from the consciousness of humans.
Idealism in general is the metaphysical doctrine sketched in the previous paragraph. A separate doctrine, epistemological idealism (also known as the "way of ideas"), asserts that minds are aware of or perceive only their own ideas, and not external objects. The basic assumption of epistemological Idealism is that we only know our own ideas (representations or mental images). We can't directly know things in themselves or things as they are other than as a mental appearance. Any data regarding external physical objects must be received through an observer's physiological neural system. The external object is thus presented in accordance with the particular constitution of the observer's brain and nerves. This was held by (for example) John Locke, who was certainly not a metaphysical idealist. Berkeley's argument for his metaphysical idealism was indeed built around the difficulties in Locke's epistemological position. But other influential metaphysical idealisms, such as those of Plotinus, Leibniz, and Hegel, are not based primarily on epistemological considerations. So "idealism" in general--that is, metaphysical idealism--should not be defined in a way that makes it depend on epistemological considerations.
The approach to idealism by Western philosophers has been different from that of Eastern thinkers. In much of Western thought (though not in such major Western thinkers as Plato and Hegel) the ideal relates to direct knowledge of subjective mental ideas, or images. It is then usually juxtaposed with realism in which the real is said to have absolute existence prior to and independent of our knowledge. Epistemological idealists (such as Kant) might insist that the only things which can be directly known for certain are ideas. In Eastern thought, as reflected in Hindu idealism, the concept of idealism takes on the meaning of higher consciousness, essentially the living consciousness of an all-pervading God, as the basis of all phenomena. A type of Asian idealism is Buddhist idealism.
Firstly, to re-summarize from the last essay, the term 'idealism' has two quite different meanings that need to be clarified in order to prevent serious confusion. Idealism in its first sense -- which is its more standard every day meaning -- means something in the ballpark of 'perfection', 'utopoa', etc. Eg. We might say something like: 'That is an ideal house as far as I am concerned.' (Notice the subjectivity involved in that what is ideal for me may not be ideal for you -- and visa versa.) Now we come to the meaning of idealism as it tends to be used in academic philosophical circles. Wikipedia may be able to help us here although it points the way to new potential confusions as well as clarities:
Idealism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the philosophical notion of idealism. For other uses, see Idealism (disambiguation).
Idealism is the doctrine that ideas, or thought, make up either the whole or an indispensable aspect of any full reality, so that a world of material objects containing no thought either could not exist as it is experienced, or would not be fully "real." Idealism is often contrasted with materialism, both belonging to the class of monist as opposed to dualist or pluralist ontologies. (Note that this contrast between idealism and materialism has to do with the question of the nature of reality as such — it has nothing to do with advocating high moral standards, or the like.) Subjective Idealists and Phenomenalists (such as George Berkeley) hold that minds and their experiences constitute existence. Transcendental Idealists (such as Immanuel Kant) argue from the nature of knowledge to the nature of the objects of knowledge--without suggesting that those objects are composed of ideas or located in the knower's mind. Objective Idealists hold either that there is ultimately only one perceiver, who is identical with what is perceived (this is the doctrine of Josiah Royce), or that thought makes possible the highest degree of self-determination and thus the highest degree of reality (this is G.W.F. Hegel's Absolute Idealism). Panpsychists (such as Leibniz) hold that all objects of experience are also subjects. That is, plants and minerals have subjective experiences--though very different from the consciousness of humans.
Idealism in general is the metaphysical doctrine sketched in the previous paragraph. A separate doctrine, epistemological idealism (also known as the "way of ideas"), asserts that minds are aware of or perceive only their own ideas, and not external objects. The basic assumption of epistemological Idealism is that we only know our own ideas (representations or mental images). We can't directly know things in themselves or things as they are other than as a mental appearance. Any data regarding external physical objects must be received through an observer's physiological neural system. The external object is thus presented in accordance with the particular constitution of the observer's brain and nerves. This was held by (for example) John Locke, who was certainly not a metaphysical idealist. Berkeley's argument for his metaphysical idealism was indeed built around the difficulties in Locke's epistemological position. But other influential metaphysical idealisms, such as those of Plotinus, Leibniz, and Hegel, are not based primarily on epistemological considerations. So "idealism" in general--that is, metaphysical idealism--should not be defined in a way that makes it depend on epistemological considerations.
The approach to idealism by Western philosophers has been different from that of Eastern thinkers. In much of Western thought (though not in such major Western thinkers as Plato and Hegel) the ideal relates to direct knowledge of subjective mental ideas, or images. It is then usually juxtaposed with realism in which the real is said to have absolute existence prior to and independent of our knowledge. Epistemological idealists (such as Kant) might insist that the only things which can be directly known for certain are ideas. In Eastern thought, as reflected in Hindu idealism, the concept of idealism takes on the meaning of higher consciousness, essentially the living consciousness of an all-pervading God, as the basis of all phenomena. A type of Asian idealism is Buddhist idealism.
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