Matt Segall provides some interesting comments in relation to our debate about formal and material causes: here.Let me first say that I find it extremely difficult having to grapple with Whitehead’s system at the same time as attempting to remain open to possible points of engagement with Matt’s unique perspective. Right now I cannot detect where Matt’s reading of Whitehead ends and his own thoughts on these issues begins.
To be quite honest (although not intended maliciously), I’m not overly interested in getting too involved in what Whitehead thinks on these matters because, from what I can determine so far, I would have to willfully become entangled in all sorts of categorical disagreements and questionable debates to even begin translating Whitehead’s metaphysics into something I can work with. Not that WH’s system is completely useless, unworthy of exploration, or that it is just plain silliness, because obviously that would be an absurd claim to say the least, but rather that I, personally, find little philosophical use in repurposing concepts and discourses that seem to me to be based on dubious frames of reference (e.g., ancient Greek categories) and faulty premises (e.g., panpsychism).
Now I know such statements might come off as extremely arrogant (which is undoubtedly a fair assessment), but I would suggest that my position is motivated more by important strategic and practical impulses. For example, let us assume that Western philosophy is indeed a series of “footnotes to Plato”. By that logic are we not simply locked into patterns of thought and reference that remain overdetermined by what a single person (or school of people) has imagined? I find the idea that this might be the case extremely terrifying. Do we really want to assume that the limits and heights of human imagination have already been mapped out by a long-dead pre-scientific Greek aristocrat? I’m not convinced. I respect the ‘giants’ we all stand upon but I also think we are at a point in cultural history where we can do much much better.
As an alternative to canonical reinvestment what I suggest is a radical rethinking of human experience, conception and activity via an anarchic re-engagement with contemporary ecologies of practice and knowledge. For me this starts with phenomenological inquiry and involves a rigorous methodological pluralism, but what else this might entail can be left for later discussion. For now I just want “anarchic re-engagement” to signal a disenchantment with institutional discourses and traditional categories that lies at the heart of my discomfort with trying to understand the cosmos in explicitly metaphysical terms.
However, this is not in any way intended as a criticism of Matt, as my impression of him has always been that he possesses a keen intellect and demonstrates an amazing degree of sensitivity. I simply offer the above statements as a prefatory note to let Matt and other readers know where I am coming from AND, more importantly, that my interest in this discussion is squarely on finding out what Matt thinks about these issues. Matt, I am more interested in finding out what you have decided about the nature of reality outside of (or at least beyond) what you have read about in some guy's book.
That said, let me shift gears and address some of Matt’s specific points:
Matt writes:
“Occasions decide which forms will ultimately come to characterize the actual world of their experience. Forms are not ‘imposed’ upon actual occasions from outside. Much of the character of experience, especially for lower grade occasions like electrons and photons, is decided unconsciously through conformal prehension of past decisions. Physical science concerns itself with the general habits of such low grade occasions. But higher grade occasions like ravens, coyotes, and primates, are not so determined by physical prehensions of past actualities, since they have a heightened experience, through conceptual prehension, of future possibilities. In human occasions of experience, this futural perception reaches its near apogee. In Process and Reality, Whitehead discusses our conceptual prehension of eternal objects in terms of consciousness’ capacity for negation–to see the facticity of not only of that grey rock there and to know it could have been otherwise, but to see the whole of the visible universe and know the same.”Setting aside the assumptions about the supposed panpsychic character of such interactions (an assumption I vehemently reject), I'm happy to read Matt accepts that 'form' is generated through actual occasions, but from what is expressed above I still don’t understand ‘eternal objects’ as being anything more than the reification of possibility abstracted from actualities. I don’t have too big a problem with such abstractions, as they are generally helpful with generating innovative responses to complex situations, however reifying them as “eternal” makes no sense to me. We only have limited access to the contingencies of nature as they have unfolded so far and there is nothing that leads me to believe that the so-called “laws of nature” won’t change barring some future cosmic event. So what makes them "eternal"?
Maybe we can work in Meillassoux here a bit with regards to taking contingency to its ultimate conclusion. If there is truly no non-material, external or ‘eternal’ reason for cosmological “laws”, then maybe we should embrace immanent chaos as a positive truth about the world and attempt to build our knowledge from that? Unlike Meillassoux however, I believe that the experience and truth of finitude leads not to the Absolute, but to the resolute – as pragmatic coping flowing from a realist attitude.
Matt continues:
“The contingency of nature is not mere chance, but the result of will--will which leans toward more degrees of freedom as moves through the series of natural kingdoms, at first an unconscious flow of emotion, only later rising to the level of the symbolic and intellectual articulation of emotion.”If Matt would permit me to translate “will” to mean the inherent potency of energy-matter as it has continued to evolve and become expressed as complexity, then I wouldn’t disagree with the claim above. I think the more complex assemblages of energy-matter become (the more depth they have) the more degrees of “freedom” (behavioral plasticity) can be achieved. The capacity for cognitive recursion and symbolic re-mediation of primal impulses in humans allow us to express a unique kind of potency (affectivity) in the wider field of activity (wilderness of being).
Matt writes:
“You argue that 'pure difference' is at the base of materiality, but I am uncertain what you mean. Wouldn't its supposed 'purity' already be a sign of contamination by identity? Its the old ("archaic"?) problem of the one and the many, of cosmos and chaos.”By pure difference I mean the original asymmetry of spatiotemporal distance and elemental diversity inaugurated by the primordial expression of potency in our cosmos, otherwise known as the “big-bang”. I don’t think the issue of the one and the many is much a problem at all - beyond the limitations of hominid brains - but rather a basic fact about the unitas multiplex we all come from. (see also Badiou’s arguments for the “radical originality of the multiple”)
Matt then writes:
"The challenge Plato left for philosophy is how to think the in between. Contemporary physics, so far as I understand it, no longer studies nature as substance, but as interlocking processes of formation. This is not all that different from the Schellingian interpretation of Plato's Timaeus, as unpacked by Iain Hamilton Grant."I would argue that “interlocking processes of formation” are substances. A substance is any composition capable of affecting or being affected in a manner that expresses a temporally consistent structure (what Bryant calls 'endo-structure'). Yet all substances remain intra-active at various scales and vulnerable becoming impinged upon or entangled with a wide range of other material assemblages. Materiality is simply what the cosmos is doing in its anarchistic expansion, diversification and complexification.
To be sure the way I think about “matter” has very little in common with how it may have been conceived in the past. From what I can determine material substances are active, open and implicated in a variety of complicated relationships which make any actual occasion or assemblage a temporal achievement readily vulnerable to destruction (annihilation) and/or further construction (emergence). This is, of course, leads directly to my thesis of precarious causality - as the dynamic flow and differentiation of energy-matter intrinsically capable of generating complex, wild and intra-affective ecologies. To think the "in between", then, is to think about relationaility of inter- and intra-affective substances, and the ways in which particular relationships afford spaces and occasions for possibility and novelty to arise.
One of the reasons why I think OOO is so compelling for a lot of people is because we intuitively sense the importance of thinking ‘the many’ (as substances or “objects”) at the same time as acknowledging ‘the one’ (as immanence or flat ontology). I’m not sure overemphasizing the objectal features (e.g. temporal consistency) of reality at the expense of process, as some versions of OOO seem to do, is the best way forward, but I certainly respect the notion of irreducibility and individuation at play in the work of certain authors.
Matt writes:
“In my prior post, I wasn't referring to sunsets as eternal possibilities, but to a particular shade of red realized in the sunset. "Red" certainly cannot be explained by reference to the physical bodies you've listed, though I would agree about its ecological origins. "Red" is what Whitehead called a subjective eternal object, capable of realization in any number of actual occasions though not reducible to any one in particular or to all in summation.”And what exactly requires us to conceive of the occurrence of “red” as an object, much less an eternal object? To endorse such an interpretation is to sneak Platonism in the back door.
First of all the color red is not an object. Red is merely what happens when you get a particular set of material assemblages together in particular spatiotemporal configurations. When certain onto-specific entities (e.g. humans, suns, earths, hydrogen atoms, H2O molecules, etc) and certain amounts of light are assembled “red” occurs.
Of course this opens all sorts of questions about subjectivity, but I’ll short circuit that debate for now by suggesting that subjectivity itself is a unique activity matter is capable of expressing under certain circumstances. Capacities for imagination, apprehension and intellection are emergent features of complex assemblies of matter.
Matt writes:
“Qualities like redness, and quantities like the number 17, cannot be explained by reference to materiality, since materiality itself would be meaningless without reference to quality and to quantity (which for Whitehead, unlike Kant, are not categories of the human mind, but forms of definiteness characterizing prehension in general).”I’m not sure I follow you here Matt, but I can only respond by saying that I believe the number 17 taken by itself is a mere abstraction – a utilitarian projection of possibility gleaned and tokenized from actual instances and embodied encounters of multiplicity.
In Where Mathematics Come From (2000), George Lakoff and the psychologist Rafael Nunez argue that our inborn ability to distinguish objects, to recognize very small numbers at a glance and to add and subtract numbers up to three, has allowed us to develop mathematics via an ever-growing collection of metaphors. From our common experiences of standing up straight, pushing and pulling objects, and moving about in the world we devise a whole host of abstract ideas and then internalize the associations among them. In this sense, maths are primarily human generated systems of abstraction and symbol manipulation, however useful and important. In fact, Lakoff and Nunez argue that we create and come to use most abstract concepts this way.
“Conceptual metaphor is a cognitive mechanism for allowing us to reason about one kind of thing as if it were another. …It is a grounded, inference preserving cross-domain mapping—a neural mechanism that allows us to use the inferential structure of one conceptual domain (say, geometry) to reason about another (say, arithmetic).” [Lakoff and Núñez 2000: 6]As for "quality", well, again, I don't subscribe to the notion that all existing entities have experience, so that would lead us into a debate about what human consciousness entails and the how we might reject the quality/quantity distinction in favor of more precise ontological categories, and so I will leave that for another discussion.
Posts
50 comments:
I would applaud your move to honesty and practicality. Though this is not supposed to be things that philosophers are supposed to admit. But philosophers are not known for being practical. I do not think that such statements sound arrogant. But then, your post is directed at Matt and not myself. I prefer directness, and I think my own posts show that.
My first impulse is to challenge precisely what frames of reference are being invoked and what faulty premises. I say this because I wonder if there is an allergy to the words used and not to their substance; my impulse leads me to this questioning thought. I doubly wonder because the issues that Matt is wrestling with are common issues in much of American philosophy (the tradition, not “philosophy done in America”) in general and not just Whitehead.
My second thought is to wonder if I am even understanding what the referent of your missive is, since I don’t know why “Plato” keeps coming up. Are you mistaking the use of the word “form” to invoke Plato or Aristotle? That would be to mistake the origin of a term for its contemporary contextual usage, wherein the former has little resemblance to the later. Speaking from my perspective and not Matt’s, I use “form” because few people understand “habit” in its place.
My third thought is again to wonder how the current discussion is not already a radical departure from mainstream views. Last I knew, Whitehead was a mystery to most.
Fourth, I have said all I am going to say about the role of eternal objects and why they are logically necessary. The laws of nature do change, btw, though personally I am not sufficiently familiar with Whitehead’s response to this issue (as opposed to Peirce’s). The whole thing is contingent all the way down, but any statistician would then ask what the probability distribution is. It is neither random nor arbitrary, and just as a given natural phenomena follows a given probability distribution, nature forms patterns of possibilities.
I do, however, get off the train when Matt begins to speak of “will” and “emotion,” as I suspect that Matt’s own contributions (as opposed to historic scholarship) begin there. That said, I would personally affirm that “subjectivity [mind] itself is a unique activity matter [nature] is capable of expressing under certain circumstances” if we place “mind” and “nature” in place of the two indicated words. Nature becomes mind. Should I write “energetic transactive field” rather than “experience?” That can be done too.
Much of the rest of what you write only seems to conflict with Matt in pieces, though again he’s the judge of that. I continue to wonder is language is the barrier, because it leads to misunderstanding the commonalities of the views. Hmmm… Levi gets really upset when I write sentences like the last, and I do hope that you do not take offense and the suggestion that an misinterpretation has occurred. There are real differences that are not such matters.
Finally, I note that you appear to be a nominalist, e.g., “I believe the number 17 take [sic] by itself is a mere abstraction—a utilitarian projection of possibility gleaned and tokenized from actual instances and embodied encounters of multiplicity.” Why, that is practically the definition of nominalism, which is very suggestive of why you find so many of the Whiteheadian moves illegitimate, because Whitehead rejects nominalism.
In conclusion, Matt should stick by his guns (or some less weapon-laden metaphor if one prefers). I would point out that I have mostly asked questions and noted apparent misunderstandings. I am still convinced that most of the voiced disagreements are in fact only appearences and not real disagreements.
Thanks for the gracious and detailed response, Michael.
I'll try my best to respond this evening.
-Matt
@Jason, I'll get back to you re: your comments here and in recent posts tomorrow. Cheers!
"Is it possible to totally bring about a mutation in what is? To go into this question of bringing about a total revolution one must have an extraordinary sense of awareness... The crisis, especially now, is a crisis in consciousness. A crisis that cannot anymore except the old norms." - Jiddu Krishnamurti (1966)
Hey everyone,
Michael, I just wanted to applaud the way you and Matt have been handling this debate. Amidst the terminological difficulties, differences in background, and points of departure in belief, you're both managing a very respectful dialogue. That's real currency as far as I'm concerned and we would all do well to encourage more of it!
Adam, I agree respect is key if all parties what to learn as oppose to just espouse. I'm also working on responding to your comments posted previously, and will post them here for the sake of keeping things tidy. Cheers-
JASON: I would applaud your move to honesty and practicality. Though this is not supposed to be things that philosophers are supposed to admit. But philosophers are not known for being practical. I do not think that such statements sound arrogant. But then, your post is directed at Matt and not myself. I prefer directness, and I think my own posts show that.
MICHAEL: I do appreciate the candor you have shown in our discussions Jason. The problem I run into with professional philosophers and those aspiring to be professionals is how to avoid arguments from authority while still being open to the important ideas of the great thinkers. It’s not that I’m completely uninterested in what, say, Whitehead has to offer, but that my concern is obsessively bent towards the mutation of thought as praxis, so my patience with traditional lines of thinking and argumentation runs extremely thin. As a naturalistic thinker I want to know how the human imagination can be applied critically and positively towards enacting healthier, more just and more creative ecologies.
JASON: My first impulse is to challenge precisely what frames of reference are being invoked and what faulty premises. I say this because I wonder if there is an allergy to the words used and not to their substance; my impulse leads me to this questioning thought. I doubly wonder because the issues that Matt is wrestling with are common issues in much of American philosophy (the tradition, not “philosophy done in America”) in general and not just Whitehead.
MICHAEL: And that is a fair enough question – one which could lead to years worth of discussion. I guess the only short answer I could give would be that I find most categories emanating from the Western canon extremely problematic and awkwardly deployed. My general discontent here can be traced back to numerous sources: 1) the insights of post-structuralism and post-linguistic turn debates suggesting the relativity, openness and undecidability of conceptual life, 2) deeply affecting experiences arising out of my own phenomenological experiments (which include traditional introspection, phenomenological reduction, vipassana meditation and psychedelic technologies), and 3) the difficulties involved in attempting to “intervene” in complex situations involving a wide range of human and non-humans in order to generate positive change.
If I were to sum it all up I would inclined to say that my engagements with the vicissitudes of earthly life and the malleability of human experience have completely eroded my ability to privilege our conceptual phantasies (whether cultural, personal, technical, traditional, etc.) over the determining consequences of material praxis. We can sing whatever song we believe allows us feel good about ourselves but it is what we actually do that matters.
JASON: My second thought is to wonder if I am even understanding what the referent of your missive is, since I don’t know why “Plato” keeps coming up. Are you mistaking the use of the word “form” to invoke Plato or Aristotle? That would be to mistake the origin of a term for its contemporary contextual usage, wherein the former has little resemblance to the later. Speaking from my perspective and not Matt’s, I use “form” because few people understand “habit” in its place.
MICHAEL: I’m rejecting any sort of position arguing that ‘form’ is anything other than the structure expressed by specific entities under particular circumstances. I reject the notion that there are eternal forms external to particular instances. When ducks fly in form-ation it is because their material-energetic bodies are involved with entities and ecological processes which afford such possibilities. Form as compositional arrangement is a result (expression) and not a cause of the material and intensive interactions involved between and among actual occasions.
JASON: My third thought is again to wonder how the current discussion is not already a radical departure from mainstream views. Last I knew, Whitehead was a mystery to most.
MICHAEL: I wouldn’t know. If all this is a departure than so much the better for us!
JASON: Fourth, I have said all I am going to say about the role of eternal objects and why they are logically necessary. The laws of nature do change, btw, though personally I am not sufficiently familiar with Whitehead’s response to this issue (as opposed to Peirce’s). The whole thing is contingent all the way down, but any statistician would then ask what the probability distribution is. It is neither random nor arbitrary, and just as a given natural phenomena follows a given probability distribution, nature forms patterns of possibilities.
MICHAEL: Nature certainly does open up possibility, but only as the absence of form. Possibility is the clearing or abyss or differential structure between actually existing assemblages (material formations) and not some-thing other than that. Reality is Janus faced and possibility is the void between actualities.
JASON: I do, however, get off the train when Matt begins to speak of “will” and “emotion,” as I suspect that Matt’s own contributions (as opposed to historic scholarship) begin there. That said, I would personally affirm that “subjectivity [mind] itself is a unique activity matter [nature] is capable of expressing under certain circumstances” if we place “mind” and “nature” in place of the two indicated words. Nature becomes mind. Should I write “energetic transactive field” rather than “experience?” That can be done too.
MICHAEL: From a certain angle I wouldn’t to be picky about those substitutions Jason, as we both agree on a naturalistic understanding of human consciousness. However, if I were to be completely honest I would tend to reject your suggested switch on the grounds that the concepts “mind” and “nature” are incredibly non-distinct, and by my estimation completely misguided. Which is to say that I have no use for the concept of mind because of a) its implication with dualism and b) the fact that there is no-thing (ontologically speaking) that is a mind. There is no “mind-stuff” as James argued, and I’m not in the habit of promoting analytic notions referring to non-entities. As for the concept of “Nature” I don’t have any specific problems with it unless it is used in opposition to Culture, or evoked to signify only non-human entities and activities because humans and the cultures they express as much a part of Nature as flowers or beavers and the dams they build. In this sense, for me Nature can only come to signify all of reality and therefore loses all meaning whatsoever. But the same could be said for how I apply the term “matter” as well…
JASON: Much of the rest of what you write only seems to conflict with Matt in pieces, though again he’s the judge of that. I continue to wonder is language is the barrier, because it leads to misunderstanding the commonalities of the views. Hmmm… Levi gets really upset when I write sentences like the last, and I do hope that you do not take offense and the suggestion that an misinterpretation has occurred. There are real differences that are not such matters.
MICHAEL: Our world-views are characteristically linguistic and conceptual constructed so I’m not sure I understand the distinction between language as barrier to understand and understanding itself? The terms we deploy and the codes we use are tokens and artifacts used to convey messages and evoke semantic resonances in each other, so words like ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ are not simply masks for some more original meanings, but the very content of thoughts and possible iterations (communications). The medium is the message.
JASON: Finally, I note that you appear to be a nominalist, e.g., “I believe the number 17 take [sic] by itself is a mere abstraction—a utilitarian projection of possibility gleaned and tokenized from actual instances and embodied encounters of multiplicity.” Why, that is practically the definition of nominalism, which is very suggestive of why you find so many of the Whiteheadian moves illegitimate, because Whitehead rejects nominalism.
This all goes back to the conversations of some months ago. Are we to be scholastic realists? To anyone who is not, many of these moves do not make sense. For the materialist who would deny the reality of generals or universals, I ask them to explain how specific characteristics are possible without resorting to nominalism. Put that way, many resort to nominalism, which doesn't explain anything so much as claim that we cannot know or there are no real generals.
MICHAEL: I don’t know what a “scholastic realist” was or is, but I would certainly not dispute the existence of general cosmic tendencies or habits (i.e. the so-called laws of nature). Radical contingency has an immanent consistency that positively contributes to instances of novelty. In other words, all deviations remain derivative to the degree that existent boundary conditions can lead to similar patterns (expressions) in different contexts (occasions).
But let’s frame the issue a little better:
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
“ The word ‘Nominalism’, as used by contemporary philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition, is ambiguous. In one sense, its most traditional sense deriving from the Middle Ages, it implies the rejection of universals. In another, more modern but equally entrenched sense, it implies the rejection of abstract objects. To say that these are distinct senses of the word presupposes that universal and abstract object do not mean the same thing. And in fact they do not. For although different philosophers mean different things by universal, and likewise by abstract object, according to widespread usage a universal is something that can be instantiated by different entities and an abstract object is something that is neither spatial nor temporal.”
Ok, so in this context I would definitely reject “abstract objects”, because without spatiotemporal affects (in a Spinoza’s sense of the term) no-thing can be said to exist. To be is to do. That is to say, for something to exist it has to have the capacity or power (or potency) to act or to affect other entities. To be clear, all entities do not have to have the capacity to affect all other entities to be real, but act-ual entities have to have the capacity to affect some aspect of the universe.
In the case of “universals” it becomes a little trickier. As I indicated above, all deviations remain derivative to the degree that existent boundary conditions can lead to similar patterns in different contexts (situations). These tendencies or “habits” are the chaotic results (expression) of evolving primordial ecological contingencies – or what I call structureality.
JASON: In conclusion, Matt should stick by his guns (or some less weapon-laden metaphor if one prefers). I would point out that I have mostly asked questions and noted apparent misunderstandings. I am still convinced that most of the voiced disagreements are in fact only appearences and not real disagreements.
MICHAEL: I’m not sure sticking to one’s guns is an absolute value if Matt should ever find an alternative view or frame of reference compelling. If I had stuck to my guns as a young man I would have remained completely entrenched in Jungian concepts and may have ultimately adopted some form of idealism! Yikes.
I think Matt and I (and you and I, and Adam and I) do have a few serious disagreements based on real differences in conception, but I suspect we also share some deep convictions about the natural world and human emergence. I think the differences in framing assumptions, terminology and language are significant because then enact, enable and sometimes limit the conceptual milieu within which we can exchange imaginings and communications about the world.
My hope is that we can all get past traditional references and start to develop some sort of discursive space where we might develop together alternative strains of thought with which to design better life praxis.
JASON: Michael, when you write "potencies," you smuggle back in what you deny to Matt.
MICHAEL: I don’t follow. How so? For me potency is the inherent and primordial express-ability of energy-matter: the ‘agency’ or power of things. Existence is intrinsically potent.
MICHAEL: Adam, thank you for such a thoughtful response last week. I continue to find great value in all our exchanges personally or otherwise. I will do my best with responding by as you can probably imagine by now I don’t have much invested in any debate about what Whitehead might have really meant.
ADAM: My understanding of what Whitehead means by eternal objects (which I view as the pivot point of this particular discussion) is as follows. First off, there are no externalities that “form” or “shape” the entities in Whitehead’s cosmology (this would violate his ontological principal). Anything that is, was, or might be, counts as “actual” in Whitehead’s view, but only as part of the prehensive action of some actual entity or society (I’ll just use “entity” for short hereafter).
MICHAEL: If Whitehead is indeed an actualist as you suggest then this is definitely a point of agreement with me. For me there is nothing like “potential”, only existent and emergent actualities differentially sorted through intensive processes.
I’m still not sold on the notion of prehension nor “prehensive action”, but I have a growing sense that some consilience could be obtained between Whitehead’s system and my understanding of the self-sufficient complexity of matter and primordial potency. I don’t know enough to flesh this out just yet.
ADAM: Second, Whitehead argues that what he calls “eternal objects” are not transcendental or pre-existing forms. “Red” is an example of an eternal object that has been brought up already so let’s stick with that. How might we consider red as “eternal” -- certainly not as a form sitting in some heavenly storehouse waiting to be dropped into reality from above. Let’s say you have a red apple; the redness is activated by the prehensive action of the apple itself and once you’ve eaten the apple the red no longer exists; but you have not consumed “redness” in itself, you’ve consumed the apple. Redness-as-such cannot be destroyed and will re-instantiate itself again as soon as the properties of some entity generates redness again. Redness cannot exist as red-in-itself but must be instantiated as the redness-of-some-particular-entity. This why Whitehead is at pains to point out that redness is real but not actual.
MICHAEL: “the prehensive action of the apple itself”?? I’m not sure I even know what that means. I think the physical sciences do a much better job of explaining why red occurs. Red occurs as a result (expression) of specific entities and forces (light, stars, pigments) relating in a particular way. Certain compositions evoke redness, but there is no-thing intrinsically red and there is nothing ‘eternal’ about its occurrence.
From Wikipedia:
”Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light, consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye in the wavelength range of approximately 630–700 nm. Longer wavelengths just past this range are called infrared, or below red, and cannot be seen by human eyes..
ADAM: My basic conclusion is that Whitehead is, at the end of the day, upholding something like what you are calling self-sufficient complexity but he’s got a bit of a Cartesian hangover in his language.
MICHAEL: I can start to see how that might be the case…
ADAM: Now, if I’m wrong about this I say let’s reform it in the very manner that you describe above. However, I have yet to be convinced that Whitehead is one of the people who should be targeted as oppositional to what you are describing. Rather, I think Whitehead is, historically, one of the great allies in thinking through these issues; and I think it’s a strange move to say “Why would I read Whitehead when I’ve already read Deleuze?” (Which people sometimes say). Philosophy works best, I think, in contrasting pluralisms that enrich multiple positions rather than as mutually exclusive principles used to carve out different social groups among philosophers. This is counterproductive and perhaps it’s largely the gravity exerted by the blogging medium but these conversations seem to move way to fast to be productive. Just two cents from somebody who loves thinking with y’all.
MICHAEL: Whitehead certainly interests me but not enough at present to jump headlong into a comprehensive study of his work. The panpsychism is the major obstacle. Maybe I misunderstand the intent maybe not, but I may not have the patience to find out.
But I couldn’t agree more that “[p]hilosophy works best, I think, in contrasting pluralisms that enrich multiple positions rather than as mutually exclusive principles used to carve out different social groups among philosophers.”
Michael,
I don’t think anyone in this discussion has made arguments from authority, but I am with you in my distaste for them. One should note the distinction between invoking a name to explain where one is coming from and taking it as an argument in and of itself. For example, you later talk about “assemblages.” I do not have a good idea of what that means, and if you cite Deleuze, then at least I know who to look up to get an anchor. Among scholars, citing one scholar’s interpretation is as good as giving a book’s worth of information, but only if the audience knows the literature well, and I don’t think all of us have that commonality.
On vocabulary. Given that American philosophy per pragmatism rejects much of the canon, and was post-structuralist and post-linguistic before those terms were invented, this is not a barrier. I am not saying that as some way to parry an argumentative thrust; I’m serious. That said, part of my own work is in extending historically friendly treatments of issues into question posed by later philosophy, e.g., Foucault and Butler or issues in subjectivity in general. None of this need privilege conceptual or technical vocabularies. I could in fact explain more things through stories and actual experiences, but among philosophers that is considered a sign of ineptitude unless one is quite rhetorically gifted, which I am not.
On form. I would concur that form is “expressed by specific entities under particular circumstances .. [and] reject the notion that there are eternal forms external to particular instances.” I cannot safely speak for Whitehead on the precise relation of “eternal objects,” so I will speak for the general Americanist (post-Peircean) notions. In short, there must be a definite though not wholly determinate structure of reality, i.e., the possibilities of nature are not completely random or wide open, exist existence would be chaos. The word “form” is often used to express a determinate structure immanent in a natural complex. “Form” is never-ever a cause, unlike the Aristotelian notion. Form is a “result (expression)”. “Form” is better understood as a real distinction in the structure of possible existence, though we come to learn of this only through abduction and not deduction. So far, I don’t see a difference between us, and I know that Whitehead follows these general outlines as well.
On nature and possibility. There can be no “absence of form” else there can be no persistent, determinate existence. Any natural event must exist in some way and therefore have some structure and express a “form.” There cannot be pure chaos because that is counter-factual; we could never have what we have now if that were true.
Continuing
On “mind” and “nature.” Here I speak entirely from my Dewey-pragmatic view. “Mind” is an event in nature. It designates a particular kind of event that is not special in humans, and perhaps not even in organics. What is mind? First, consciousness (low-level mind) is not a thing, substance, or even discrete event. Something is “conscious” to the extent that some localized natural complex is capable of mediating its temporal relations within its environment. That is, to the extent that it can anticipate the significance of any given action and choose among alternatives. This does not require self-consciousness, and by this definition, plants might be said to have “consciousness.” “Mind” is just the ability to do this linguistically, i.e., not only to be conscious, but to select how it symbolizes its relations with the environment as well as just mediate them. The prime example of “select how it symbolizes” is to communicate or think in language. You might guess that consciousness comes in a very wide span of degrees and begins, for humans, in the body.
Continuing on mind and nature, more about nature. Nature is what is real and what is. It’s an open concept that is not meant to designate anything in particular. It’s primary purpose is to denote “totality” and set some preliminary assumptions about what is “real.” I posted long ago that for me, one of these assumptions is that nature is causally closed, which comes down to saying that there is nothing supernatural. That is not to say that the laws of nature are inviolate, but rather than nature is habit-forming in such a way that anything natural (real) will eventually be bound to some habit. Are there exceptions? Yes. Chance is real too…. Habits are the tendencies of chance events, but they are tendencies and not iron grips, because nothing from without forces anything in nature, which you seem to think “form” means. Not in this case. Nature is not opposed to culture. One of my mentors always writes “cultural naturalism” to help forestall this. Culture is just a particular human subset of semiotics; humans happen to think that these certain sign structures are special and call them “culture;” the rest of nature doesn’t care. There is no severance of nature and culture.
Language as a barrier. Communication and language is always interpretted. What I intend or attempt to communicate in writing is soooooo much less than the living thought. What you interpret from the words can be less or more; I know not. The medium is not the message. The medium is a communication, which may or may not be successful in imparting an intended meaning.
Continuing...... again...
On nominalism and scholastic realism. Maybe we are on the same page. To be is to do, yes. That’s basic Peirce. To be red is to be “redding,” which is to perpetuate a certain energetic pattern that by humans is qualitatively apprehended as “red.” “Redness” is not “in the thing,” but that particular activity/existence within the context of humans is “redness.” Redness is then a transaction, a possibility in the cosmos, and a potentiality when humans are in a situation in which redness may occur—I’m looking around this room…. Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about abstract objects, the principle case of which is mathematics. I am agnostic about the issue, which comes down to asserting or not whether mathematics is real, i.e., part of the structure of reality or some ideality conjured by humans to express reality. I would have to study the issue more.
Any given universal, such as “redness” is a name and real distinction given to the existential-energetic pattern. If there were no humans, there would be no ‘redness’ (the word) or “redness” (the phenomenal qualia), but there would be that energetic pattern as a specific habit.
What you call “structureality” I might call “form.” They are not “eternal” as I use them, and this might be a difference between Peirce and Whitehead; I defer to Matt’s comments on the matter.
On traditional reference. Don’t mistake the map or the signpost for the place. None of us appear to be pure historians (very few are). We do not need to”get past traditional references,” which is like asking me to “get beyond the English grammar.” Perhaps I think the word “tradition” means something different than you. We cannot think outside of structure. The question is whether we can creatively re-invent that structure. Without naming a point of reference, e.g., Whitehead of Peirce, I doubt anyone could achieve a deep understanding through communication.
As for designing better life praxis, I do not think any of these discussions will do that for me. And if they do, it almost certainly will emerge despite anyone’s intentions. This is not the medium for that.
On potencies. “For me potency is the inherent and primordial express-ability of energy-matter.” Yeah. I often call that “form” too. Existence is intrinsically “formed” else it cannot be. It might be real, but not be. (The three modalities of reality: reality as possibility, reality as existence/energy, reality as habit or law.)
On reading Whitehead. Honestly, I see no necessity in reading Whitehead is one does not need to be a scholar and already has many similar ideas. It might not be that productive. That said, one should be extremely careful of critiquing Whitehead then.
Jason,
Thank you for such a great response! Brilliant stuff. I will only have a few things to say in return since I pretty much agree with everything you wrote.
When I use a term like ‘assemblage’ I mean it in a very innocuous, strait-forward way. Certainly Deleuze has had an influence on me, but I only started using the term formally after reading DeLanda on Deleuze. In many ways Merleau-Ponty and DeLanda are the two biggest influences on how I think. But, again, my use of any key word will be as close to its ordinary usage as possible unless otherwise stated - like when I mentioned Spinoza above in relation to the term ‘affect’. And it is a fine line between evoking some author’s body of work and hindering one’s capacity to assert their own thoughts on a particular issue.
Regardless, I’m not too concerned with vocabulary if a person can clarify what they mean and/or translate what they intend without relying on some dead guy’s conceptual system. I don’t want to hear “well if you only read Heidegger you’d know exactly what I’m talking about.” If a persona can’t explain what they are talking about to a lay-person they don’t even now what they are talking about.
But none of that is meant as an accusation. I think you are pretty clear most of the time.
With regards to “form”, I think you and I are share a near identical perspective from what you indicate above. The cosmos has structure and the differential character of existence offers a multitude of forms. I especially liked how you wrote:
“‘Form’ is never-ever a cause, unlike the Aristotelian notion. Form is a ‘result (expression)’.”
...continued...
I would however suggest we stretch your notion of chaos. Chaos is not the absence of form but rather the characteristic malleability and processual nature underpinning form-ation. Chaos for me signifies the wild, anarchic, nonlinear, dynamical, living power and pure affectivity of energy-matter. Rather than the absence of order Chaos is a principle which encompasses cosmic diversification, complexification and transitivity. It is Eros. It is the creep of things.
As for possibility, well, I think its important to point out there is no such ‘thing’ as possibility. There are actualities and the spaces (differences) between them. So possibility is the absence of actuality (forms) in the sense that things can only be otherwise by virtue of space between (absence of) what already is. The possible is simply the topology of difference that exists in between the actual.
You write:
“Something is “conscious” to the extent that some localized natural complex is capable of mediating its temporal relations within its environment. That is, to the extent that it can anticipate the significance of any given action and choose among alternatives. This does not require self-consciousness, and by this definition, plants might be said to have “consciousness.” “Mind” is just the ability to do this linguistically, i.e., not only to be conscious, but to select how it symbolizes its relations with the environment as well as just mediate them.”
This is a brilliant description of mental activity. I agree completely with your position here, but would suggest dropping the term “mind” and replace it with some other term if only because the baggage involved only serves to confuse an otherwise nuanced and incisive model of consciousness. If I can offer a suggestion, I would nominate the word sentience as a bridging concept here. I also tend to use the term phantasy for the human capacity for symbolically mediated imagination.
You write:
“I posted long ago that for me, one of these assumptions is that nature is causally closed, which comes down to saying that there is nothing supernatural... There is no severance of nature and culture.”
Yes, agreed.
On nominalism we are indeed on the same page. Universals are patterns expressed by naturally assembled self-sufficient (immanent) realities.
You write:
“We cannot think outside of structure. The question is whether we can creatively re-invent that structure. Without naming a point of reference, e.g., Whitehead of Peirce, I doubt anyone could achieve a deep understanding through communication.”
Quite right: the activity of thinking is structural (differential, semantic, relational, neuronal). My interest is in evolving new structures through mutations in thought, media and practice.
However, I believe the point of reference shouldn't be a bunch of dead philosophers, nor obsolete schema, but human experience itself (a new phenomenology?) as its operates within the matrix of contemporary life (ecologies of practice?). In order to venture into new territories we need to start from the now, the contemporary, and reject our nostalgia for the past while still remaining sensitive to the inescapable influence the past continues to have.
I would say that “explaining to a lay person” is too low a bar. I have a hard enough time convincing my students that we don’t have radically free will, and I have weeks to drive that point home. Part of the problem that I constantly run into as an Americanist is that few want to take the time to understand the field, especially since just about every concept has been reconfigured in it. Perhaps after our little back-and-forth here you can see that. That said, you’re right. I run into far more people that can only speak a vocabulary but cannot invent or deconstruct that vocabulary. That is truly the sign that one knows what one is talking about. I’ve been using my blogging as practice….
To speak more accurately about my position, which is Peirce-derivative,” whenever we express what something’s “form” is, we are mostly talking about a configuration of potentialities in a locale. Since potentialities emerge through energetic-interaction with other entities (events), none of which are absolutely determinant, contingency and novelty are basic to nature. Thus, a “form,” or “habit” as a term used by a philosopher merely expresses what is likely to happen in the next moment given previously observed habits.
Aside, this view also holds to Einsteinian and relativistic notions of space-time. Time is fundamentally change, and not an absolute unit, which spatializes time. Space is not a distance or simple location, but is the connectedness of entities/events. Space “stretches” as their connectivity does (I mean “connectivity” more in a topological-mathematical sense, and not in the sense of “touching.)
What you call “chaos,” I call “chance.” Chance is real. Law/habit/form is never absolute. “Chaos” is a bad name for it, I would say, because even “chaos” becomes married to habit.
“Possibility” denotes the structure of what might be. Of course there is not such “thing,” because possibility does not exist. But it is real. Yet possibility is not the absence of “actuality,” or at least that’s not a good way to put it, since possibility does not have a binary relation to existence. Don’t be using “possibility” in the strictly logical sense of ‘not necessary” here, but use it more in the ontological-mathematical sense. I have little idea of what you could mean by “the possible is simply the topology of difference that exists in between the actual.”
Concerning “consciousness,” that is exactly what my research is on in pragmatism, I will not drop the term “mind” because it is a technical term in my discipline and tradition, and we shouldn’t invent new terms at the drop of a hat if we want to be understood. I only mentioned it to imply that I distinguish between consciousness and mind. Mind is strictly “cognitive,” whereas consciousness need not be.
On dead philosophers.
Here I fervently disagree, and I might even raise my voice a bit in a face-to-face discussion. So much ill and foolishness has been repeated throughout human history by those who would not study the past. See the past as millions of little experiments in art, culture, politics, thought, etc. from which we may learn. The eagerness to "move forward" often becomes just another repetition of the past.
So much of what I see in the contemporary continental discussions within the orbit of SR is old to my eyes. It is really frustrating for me that few recognize that, and I and my cohorts are left out of the discussion. Whitehead is just one thinker among many, but appears the only one to get sufficient visibility in continental circles.
JASON: I would say that “explaining to a lay person” is too low a bar. I have a hard enough time convincing my students that we don’t have radically free will, and I have weeks to drive that point home. Part of the problem that I constantly run into as an Americanist is that few want to take the time to understand the field, especially since just about every concept has been reconfigured in it. Perhaps after our little back-and-forth here you can see that. That said, you’re right. I run into far more people that can only speak a vocabulary but cannot invent or deconstruct that vocabulary. That is truly the sign that one knows what one is talking about. I’ve been using my blogging as practice…
MICHAEL: If we can’t explain to non-academics what we mean in terms they can understand then we don’t truly understand what we mean ourselves. Understanding a particular field or discursive system as a specialist is only one way to do our thinking. There are other kinds of knowledge and wisdom I would label philosophical outside of academia. True wisdom draws from multiple sources and speaks to people where they are at and refers directly to the human condition.
JASON: “Possibility” denotes the structure of what might be. Of course there is not such “thing,” because possibility does not exist. But it is real. Yet possibility is not the absence of “actuality,” or at least that’s not a good way to put it, since possibility does not have a binary relation to existence. Don’t be using “possibility” in the strictly logical sense of ‘not necessary” here, but use it more in the ontological-mathematical sense. I have little idea of what you could mean by “the possible is simply the topology of difference that exists in between the actual.”
MICHAEL: “What might be” is without structure because it is not yet actual. Only actualities have structure. Only actually existing entities are real. What might be is not what already is the case (being) but the absence (non-being) of what is. It is in this sense that the possible can only be understood as the affording differences or space between actual assemblages. To understand how this is the case is one of the most important tasks of post-metaphysical (pragmatic?) ontography in my opinion. In fact, to think ‘the possible’, rather than the Absolute, is THE main focus of all my theorizing.
JASON: Concerning “consciousness,” that is exactly what my research is on in pragmatism, I will not drop the term “mind” because it is a technical term in my discipline and tradition, and we shouldn’t invent new terms at the drop of a hat if we want to be understood. I only mentioned it to imply that I distinguish between consciousness and mind. Mind is strictly “cognitive,” whereas consciousness need not be.
MICHAEL: If it is a technical term within your discipline then fine, but I can’t imagine what advantage there could be to keeping it. There is no empirical evidence that would support such a vague notion and the term is so encumbered by dualistic (mind/body) connotations that it would only serve to mask your more important points to anyone other than those initiated into your tradition. No one but American pragmatists would know that you use ‘mind’ to refer to an activity. Frankly, I think the term is analytically sloppy and regressive, especially in light of the findings of cognitive neuroscience.
JASON: Here I fervently disagree [with your criticisms of tradition], and I might even raise my voice a bit in a face-to-face discussion. So much ill and foolishness has been repeated throughout human history by those who would not study the past. See the past as millions of little experiments in art, culture, politics, thought, etc. from which we may learn. The eagerness to "move forward" often becomes just another repetition of the past.
MICHAEL: To be sure, I advocate strategic transgression rather than strait-up ignorance. My suggestion is that our point of departure should never be tradition alone. Of course various philosophical traditions have important contributions to make, but so does science, poetry, art, political struggle, etc. I believe we must always start from where we are and work our way backwards from there, rather than pre-shape our experience by indoctrinating ourselves with the past. This does not mean ignoring all those “little experiments” that have come before us but, rather, maintain a critical distance from them. If we conservatively retain the categories and questions of past thinkers we not only provide a frame of reference from which to elaborate, but just as often limit ourselves by becoming dependent upon a web of significations that can determine how and what we are capable of thinking. My point is that authenticity is a product of radical doubt, and to enact this as praxis we need to intentionally mutate philosophical thinking. What is needed now is a punctuated equilibrium and radical diversification of thought and/as practice.
Note, also, that I argue for an “anarchic re-engagement” and not a total rejection of tradition... [stay tuned for comments about my project 'Cults of the Neo-Savages' for further elaboration]
Michael writes: "There is no empirical evidence that would support such a vague notion and the term [mind] is so encumbered by dualistic (mind/body) connotations that it would only serve to mask your more important points to anyone other than those initiated into your tradition. No one but American pragmatists would know that you use ‘mind’ to refer to an activity. Frankly, I think the term is analytically sloppy and regressive, especially in light of the findings of cognitive neuroscience"
My Response: I couldn't disagree more. I'm not in the American pragmatist tradition (despite a fondness for Whitehead and James) but I am quite alright with the term mind, I actually think we could use more of an engagement with it, not less. Perhaps it is your understanding here, Michael, that could use a deeper engagement before assuming that everyone is stuck in the 18th century?
To be sure, there is a move in some circles of cognitive science (or should I say cognitive philosophy?) that supposes we do away with the term mind (and belief, desire etc.) and while I don't reject the insights of cog-sci in anyway, I do reject the conclusions of this particular group (which I argue, with Latour, constitutes an "amputated empiricism"). In my opinion, such claims are made based on ontological commitments, not scientific ones, and here that is 'the difference that makes a difference,' as it were.
I'm after a fuller approach to my research and what you're advocating just won't do if we want to understand the lifeworlds of other beings on their own terms. The out-of-hand suggestive that the term 'mind' is inherently regressive is an entirely contestable matter that we should not gloss over so quickly.
Michael,
You are not making a distinction that I imply if not express. A person can communicate all that they wish, but that does not force the other person to understand. Hence, when limited to a lay person’s understanding, I simply tell “little lies” so that they can grasp a shadow of the idea. We were all initially educated that way. However, we should not insist that everything be reducible to that. I refuse populist overtures, btw. Speaking to the human condition and making lives better does not require that everyone understand it. I have forgotten if I ever knew; do you teach? A mind has to be trained to think through nuance.
On possibility and structure. We just disagree. Actuality is not all of reality; you have absolutized actuality. I’ve already spoken to this, but perhaps you didn’t make the inference when I brought it up. Without some structure to reality, which include possibilities to be, then how can we ever speak of habits? Habits are not actual, but they are real. Habits are always actualized in some concrete existence, but the form or habit (structure of possibility) is independent of any particular instance. We can distinguish merely logical from real possibilities; the former indicate what habits are logically possible—which it terribly uninformative—while the latter indicate what possibilities might pertain to this cosmos.
continuing
If you insist that habits/law/form exist only in particular cases, then you embrace nominalism all over again. I would ask, how do you know that is redness (a particular energetic-existential pattern)? Regardless of human epistemic issues, it cannot be said if only instances are real and not forms/habits/laws. Nothing is red except as a convention for a nominalist, and names refer to nothing in particular. At best they’re pure coping mechanisms without any purchase on reality. But I do not accept that. That’s a Cartesian hold-over we are better off without.
Note that metaphysical and epistemic nominalism are quiet different. So, if you reject what I say about possibility, then how are you a scholastic realist? Or are you a nominalist? The answer doesn’t matter. What matters is that those who are scholastic realists are going to have concepts and logics that you reject, and you should recognize that is what is beyond your hesitance. Case in point: Matt’s discussions of Whitehead’s eternal objects.
On “mind” and vocabulary. You border on the unkind. I didn’t choose the term, and it came about long before any of those contemporary movements you mention. However, if I want to be understood by my peers, I must use it. Since you are not scholars, I did not assume that you knew the special denotation of “mind.” There’s no reason to complain about a faux pas that might occur but never did. I do not find your comments on the subject appropriate, because I do not see them pertaining to any participants. In fact, perhaps I am so radical that you do not even recognize what you see? I do not say that in jest.
Adam and Michael,
There is also the well-known move in "cognitive philosophy" to understand mind as an activity and event. Is that not the hallmark of enactive approaches to the embodied mind?
MICHAEL: There is no empirical evidence that would support such a vague notion and the term [mind] is so encumbered by dualistic (mind/body) connotations that it would only serve to mask your more important points to anyone other than those initiated into your tradition. No one but American pragmatists would know that you use ‘mind’ to refer to an activity. Frankly, I think the term is analytically sloppy and regressive, especially in light of the findings of cognitive neuroscience"
ADAM: I couldn't disagree more [with the rejection of the term ‘mind’]. I'm not in the American pragmatist tradition (despite a fondness for Whitehead and James) but I am quite alright with the term mind, I actually think we could use more of an engagement with it, not less. Perhaps it is your understanding here, Michael, that could use a deeper engagement before assuming that everyone is stuck in the 18th century?
MICHAEL: You mean to tell me that the term mind is automatically intelligible as “an activity of symbolic mediation” across the board?? I have a hard time believing that. My problem with the word is not that it is an 18th century notion, because obviously various conceptions of human awareness have been labeled ‘mind’ over the years, but that the term is much too loaded and malleable to remain useful. That is to say, I’m not accusing Jason of being a “sloppy and regressive” thinker, far from it as he is a very precise and careful philosopher, but that the term itself operates as an obstacle to ontographic exploration and communication, and evokes a wide range of assumptions and misplaced concreteness that hinders philosophical progress. Jason makes a strong case for why he uses it within his tradition, and that makes sense to me. But outside disciplinary structures I don’t see the value.
And it is true that given sufficient motivation I could cram my own thoughts about animal sentience into the notion of “mind” but why would I? Why put new wine in old wine skins? With some concepts, like Nature for example, there would be some practical use in rehabilitation, but ‘mind’ is simply not one of them in my opinion. There is no such thing as mind – something William James argued so convincingly a hundred years ago.
ADAM: To be sure, there is a move in some circles of cognitive science (or should I say cognitive philosophy?) that supposes we do away with the term mind (and belief, desire etc.) and while I don't reject the insights of cog-sci in anyway, I do reject the conclusions of this particular group (which I argue, with Latour, constitutes an "amputated empiricism"). In my opinion, such claims are made based on ontological commitments, not scientific ones, and here that is 'the difference that makes a difference,' as it were.
MICHAEL: Sure, but such conclusions are based on “ontological commitments”, but commitments attached to verifiable and/or falsifiable claims. Doctrines of psyche, soul and mind are purely speculative. If you are so convinced of the efficacy of the term I challenge you to offer us a concise definition of what mind is. I’ll bet you a tuba full of caramel popcorn your definition is non-standard or outside the normal uses of that term.
ADAM: I'm after a fuller approach to my research and what you're advocating just won't do if we want to understand the lifeworlds of other beings on their own terms. The out-of-hand suggestive that the term 'mind' is inherently regressive is an entirely contestable matter that we should not gloss over so quickly.
MICHAEL: Funny you mention ‘life-world’ here, as I have been rereading Husserl for the past month and hope to have something interesting to say about the 'objectivity' of life-worlds and its implication for realism very soon.
I have certainly provided reasons for why I think ‘mind’ is undesirable notion, and you can take them or leave them, despite the fact that Jason and yourself are quite capable of using it in an effective manner. And to be clear I believe that ‘mind’ has become a regressive concept (as opposed to being so intrinsically) even though it may have been very progressive a few thousand years age.
Michael writes: "Doctrines of psyche, soul and mind are purely speculative. If you are so convinced of the efficacy of the term I challenge you to offer us a concise definition of what mind is. I’ll bet you a tuba full of caramel popcorn your definition is non-standard or outside the normal uses of that term. "
I basically follow Thompson and Varela on this question. I'm running on borrowed time (actually avoiding work!) right now, but for now suffice to say that I think Thompson has the best approach in his book Mind in Life. And I don't think this use of "mind" is outside standard, contemporary usage (especially not in the context of some of the terms you are re-purposing, Michael!) More to come as I have the time.
Jason,
I find it very condescending (not necessarily to me) when you write, “when limited to a lay person’s understanding, I simply tell ‘little lies’ so that they can grasp a shadow of the idea. We were all initially educated that way. However, we should not insist that everything be reducible to that. I refuse populist overtures, btw.” I think all of what philosophers say is in some sense “lies”. I like Rorty on this issue. Vocabularies are meant to impress, persuade and provoke us into behavior, or, me for me, create resonance for the coordination of action. Education by way of refined abstraction is only one modality of intelligence. Some of the least educated people I know have the most insightful perspectives.
I taught a little bit when I was a grad student and I have taught to students at the community college level as a professional. I currently teach various training seminars, facilitate psychosocial support groups, and provide professional presentations for primary school educators and healthcare professionals. But I don’t consider myself a teacher by any stretch.
On possibility and structure I don’t think we disagree as much as fail to follow each others emphasis. For me what is real is actual and so possibility is simply the ‘potential’ permutations of actuality afforded by differential relations. That is, possibility is what actuality can do given the space and resources to create alternative events. I realize none of what I say here is strait-forward so I will have to elaborate more as I think through the issues.
...continued...
You write:
“Habits are not actual, but they are real. Habits are always actualized in some concrete existence, but the form or habit (structure of possibility) is independent of any particular instance.”
And so we come back round again. Form is in no way “independent” of the concrete realities in which it is actualized. The patterns we detect are immanently material-energetic. Structure is substance. We reify form by abstracting mathematical models and idolizing them as supposed cosmic habits, but particularity and onto-specific affectability (irreducibility) are expressions of actual assemblages in particular material and intensive circumstances. The habits we detect are abstractions held by the human mind. Also, to say that form is independent of instantiation is to maintain crypto-determinist sentiments. Radical contingency is active (potent) self-sufficient complexity.
You write:
If you insist that habits/law/form exist only in particular cases, then you embrace nominalism all over again. I would ask, how do you know that is redness (a particular energetic-existential pattern)? Regardless of human epistemic issues, it cannot be said if only instances are real and not forms/habits/laws. Nothing is red except as a convention for a nominalist, and names refer to nothing in particular. At best they’re pure coping mechanisms without any purchase on reality. But I do not accept that. That’s a Cartesian hold-over we are better off without.
Perhaps I am a nominalist then? I’m not sure at this point and I’m not sure it matters. Wikipedia tells me that “most nominalists have held that only physical particulars in space and time are real, and that universals exist only post res, that is, subsequent to particular things”, which I strongly certainly agreed with. I know I believe in contingent tendencies inherent to matter-energy within this cosmic niche. But such tendencies are in no way independent of the occasions by which they are expressed. For example, I believe contra Plato (in the Republic 476c) that things can generate aesthetic experiences but that Beauty in and of itself does not exist.
You write:
“What matters is that those who are scholastic realists are going to have concepts and logics that you reject, and you should recognize that is what is [behind] your hesitance. Case in point: Matt’s discussions of Whitehead’s eternal objects.”
Absolutely. Guilty as charged. There are several concepts and logics that I reject and I fully recognize that. Another case in point being my thoughts on the concept “mind” and all its entailments.
You write:
“On ‘mind’ and vocabulary. You border on the unkind. I didn’t choose the term, and it came about long before any of those contemporary movements you mention. However, if I want to be understood by my peers, I must use it. Since you are not scholars, I did not assume that you knew the special denotation of “mind.” There’s no reason to complain about a faux pas that might occur but never did. I do not find your comments on the subject [in]appropriate, because I do not see them pertaining to any participants. In fact, perhaps I am so radical that you do not even recognize what you see? I do not say that in jest.”
I apologize if I was being unkind Jason. Not my intention. I do however stand by my points about the legacy and underwhelming efficacy of the term. And I do understand the necessity of working within your peer group. That is a valid point. But do you really think “mind” is a notion that you folks what to hang on to? I liked your description of what you mean by that term, but can’t we simply use the word ‘cognition’ for what you describe? I grow weary of concepts that refer to no-thing in particular and logically entail so much.
Just my thoughts.
Jason,
Agreed re: the enactive approach. And As I said I fully support the notion that human cognition is a process and activity.
Adam,
Quick thought: considering the context, what you may want to call mind I would call cognition. Why? Because human cognition is a specific material-energetic process, and the term 'mind' evokes a mind/body dualism and contributes nothing to signaling the embodied, processual, enactive and composite (distributed) nature of such capacities.
One way to frame it would be for me to say there is no such thing an ‘ecology of mind’ but rather there are ecologies in which cognition occurs. The nuance here is important for me.
Michael,
I do not like Rorty on this issue, because I do not think that the sole purpose of communication is to produce a behavior in a person. I do not think that philosophers all say "little lies" except in the trivial sense that all humans are always "lying" since no knowledge can be absolutely certain. But that's a foolish standard. Moreover, I never said anything about abstraction, intelligence, or where it came from. Your inferences about my motives, background, and intent are incorrect. But that is not important. Communication can also lead to understanding, and seen from the perspective of truth, any deviation is a "little lie." The ironic thing is that the speaker conceals the bigger lie of supposing that oneself knows the (absolute) truth. Rather, greater understanding allows one to better navigate the inquiry, but not necessarily be "more true," which is a goal but not a certainty. Unlike Rorty, I do not dispense with truth.
On possibility. We are not going around again. We disagree. Trust me. I have told you why form *must* be independent. I reject that habits are "abstractions held by the human mind," because I reject the shadow of Cartesian dualism that feeds modern nominalism. You continue to insist that this leads to determinacy. I have commented and posted enough on this over many months. If you are a nominalist, it's not that big of a deal. I think it's a respectable position.
On Mind. "Mind" is a word. It does not refer to "no thing in particular." It does refer--not that meaning exhausts reference--but not in the modernist way. There is no need to be hung up on it. No, we cannot use "cognition," because the position I describe is avowedly "non-cognitivist." Cognitivists are my intellectual opponents and are likely yours as well.
In closing, I think Adam wrote something that you should take to heart. You do seem to be projecting modernist notions on your interlocutors despite all their protests. You treat "mind" in the modernist sense of the word though none here appear to use it in that fashion. I recommend aiming your words at your actual interlocutors. That said, I have just accused you of a Cartesian hangover, e.g., thinking that mental categories are separate from worldly ones such that all human meaning is "in the head." That's nominalism. Rebuttal?
Small point.
Michael,
The term "mind" sets you off. The term "cognition" sets me off.
I don't think the fact that we intuitive value and react to a term should per se be of moment beyond rhetorical concerns.
Michael,
I feel like we are reaching the inevitable state of diminishing returns on this thread. If this is my final comment it is only because I think it might be time to move on and/or start a fresh discussion at a later date. That said, I’ll respond briefly to some of your final comments re: the use of “mind” vs. “cognition” and then suggest that we regroup and absorb a little bit about what has already transpired here (a very rich discussion indeed!)
You wrote: “Quick thought: considering the context, what you may want to call mind I would call cognition. Why? Because human cognition is a specific material-energetic process, and the term 'mind' evokes a mind/body dualism and contributes nothing to signaling the embodied, processual, enactive and composite (distributed) nature of such capacities.”
I don’t think the term “mind” necessarily imports any kind of a dualism. Rather, I follow Maturana, Valera, Thompson, and Rosch in thinking that the term “mind” is precisely the term we need to understand the unity (and REALITY) of both the material/energetic properties of cognition, and the phenomenological/qualitative experience of being an embodied subject. The material/energetic and the phenomenological/qualitative are not dualistically opposed, nor does the one “emerge” out of the other (as in materialism or idealism); they are simultaneous properties enacted by living systems that are distinguished by analytical means only. Since both are real (I argue), we need an epistemological approach that can adequately handle researching such a system, and we need an ontological approach that can account for why both are real in the first place (…Whitehead has already done this…hence my appeal to him…)
Also, we should note that the primary advocates of the embodied, embedded, enacted paradigms have chosen “mind” as the key concept that needs to be understood. In that sense, I turn the question back on you: if you are operating from an enactive framework, why are you suggesting that we give up on the term “mind” when many of the lead proponents of enactivism use it as the title of their major texts? More importantly, once we understand how a term is employed, and are largely satisfied with the operative framework being developed, is it practical to spend time and energy converting people to one’s preferred vocabulary? Even when the point of view expressed is largely the same? It’s not something I’m going to spend much time on. Plus, mind just sounds fresher.
You wrote: “One way to frame it would be for me to say there is no such thing an ‘ecology of mind’ but rather there are ecologies in which cognition occurs. The nuance here is important for me.”
I disagree; there is very much an ecology of mind. The mind-as-mind is just as real as any of the components, process, or energetics that make it up; the mind-as-mind is also just as real as any of the environments, contexts, or systems of which it is a part; and mind-as-mind constitutes its own ecology of being through its recursive interactions with both. I am rigorously committed to viewing the mind-as-mind within a context that resists both undermining and overmining (my Harman/Latour influence shines strong here). To say that the mind does not exist is an ontological conclusion that is not supported by the empirical data; it’s a judgment call made without, in my opinion, any kind of ontological justification. People say the mind isn’t real because it’s “just” a bundle of processes, interactions, chemicals – whatever – to this I say, of course it is! But none of this leads us to the conclusion that it can be reduced to any of these things, or that “mind” is therefore (1) not real, (2) something supernatural, or (3) an object of which the materials enjoy ontological status over the experience. If you think one is more real than the other, then the dualism rests with you friend.
JASON: I reject the shadow of Cartesian dualism that feeds modern nominalism. You continue to insist that this leads to determinacy. I have commented and posted enough on this over many months. If you are a nominalist, it's not that big of a deal. I think it's a respectable position.
MICHAEL: I have no idea what “the shadow of Cartesian dualism” means in this context. There is no way in which I am a dualist while I appear to be a nominalist, so I don’t see how that follows? I have asserted that there is no mind-stuff. I have also asserted that “only physical particulars in space and time are real, and that universals exist only post res, that is, subsequent to particular things”. We humans “detect” certain tendencies within nature post res and then code them by calling them ‘habits’ and ‘universals’. The cosmos is radically contingent.
JASON: "Mind" is a word. It does not refer to "no thing in particular." It does refer--not that meaning exhausts reference--but not in the modernist way. There is no need to be hung up on it. No, we cannot use "cognition," because the position I describe is avowedly "non-cognitivist." Cognitivists are my intellectual opponents and are likely yours as well.
MICHAEL: Although there is some overlap between term and ‘ism’ here, there are also certain key differences which separate the use of the term ‘cognition’ – as signifying a kind of biological activity - and cognitivism as a specific set of beliefs about cognition and the ways to study it. The word cognition comes from the Latin cognoscere, referring only to ‘knowing’ and ‘information’. This definition has can be activated outside an strict cognitivist belief in positivism and mental reduction in a similar way the term ‘mind’ can be used outside the Cartesian dualist tradition, if pushed far enough.
Conversely, I would urge you to consider how you might be demonstrating with full force what I was arguing earlier about how certain concepts linked to certain traditions and bodies of discourse can lead to determining logical entailments. By this I mean that using just one key word can lock a person into a strict set of references and categories (in the case above the term ‘cognition’ entailing for you cognitiveism, or the term ‘mind’ entailing for me dualism) which preempt alternative usage and conception. ‘Mind’ is primarily a modernist concept, much like Nature, or subject. It is over-loaded.
...continued...
Now, of course, reflexive thinkers can stretch and reformulate or rehabilitate a term in ways they see fit, as Adam and you seem to do, but at what cost? What other logical entailments come along for the ride? What possible thoughts get foreclosed by involving ourselves in such entailments?
I use ‘cognition’ for specific reasons, some of which are detached from strict cognitivist models, relating to my desire to resonate the processual and operative character of the set of capacities which generate thought. Cognition as I use it is a verb to suggest how it is an activity. Mind, on the other hand, is primarily deployed as a noun, and denotes a thing. For example, you might say that John Doe has a mind. This implies that in considering all the parts that go into making John ‘mind’ is one of those parts. But that’s flat out wrong. Humans do not have or possess some-thing called a mind (and if you think we do please explain what that mind-stuff is), rather we have certain biological capacities that allow for cognition to occur. That is, as creatures with cognitive powers (potencies) we are more or less capable of higher order recursive functioning (via memory) and symbolic mediation (via projection) such that we develop a sense of identity. This is nothing like “having a mind”. And if you insist of using such a noun as a verb we should at least agree to say something like “humans have a capacity for mind-ing”, because trying to encapsulate everything that contributes to human consciousness with an archaic noun is simply inadequate from my perspective. We might as well just use the term ‘soul’. And if as a collective we are unable to evolve more complex systems of signification then we may be doomed to remain bogged down in all the major misunderstandings of the past.
JASON: I think Adam wrote something that you should take to heart. You do seem to be projecting modernist notions on your interlocutors despite all their protests. You treat "mind" in the modernist sense of the word though none here appear to use it in that fashion. I recommend aiming your words at your actual interlocutors. That said, I have just accused you of a Cartesian hangover, e.g., thinking that mental categories are separate from worldly ones such that all human meaning is "in the head." That's nominalism. Rebuttal?
MICHAEL: Again, I think you and Adam have very sophisticated models of cognition, some details of which I would dispute, and it is not my intention to suggest otherwise. However, the concepts you and others (including myself) are deploying can act as barriers to a deeper understanding of the actual realties and inter-ontic relations involved. The systems/traditions we all think through afford us possibilities for consideration but they also generate many blind spots. Nagarjuna, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Derrida demonstrated this beyond any doubt. And so my only argument (one which I am now tired of making) is that the concept of ‘mind’ as a token and as a tool is inadequate to the task of post-formal, post-metaphysical ontology (for reasons outlined above, i.e., noun/verb) – and no amount of rehabilitation is going to move us beyond those limitations. Y’all can disagree, and go about developing another 3000 internally referenced permutations of the term, but I’m done with that particular noun and have absolutely no sense of what people mean when they use it.
JASON: The term "mind" [obviously] sets you off. The term "cognition" sets me off. I don't think the fact that we intuitive value and react to a term should per se be of moment beyond rhetorical concerns.
MICHAEL: I don’t know what that means. Rhetoric concerns involve schematic configuration and ultimately suggest thought patterns. The language we use shapes the way we think. On the most basic level, the way I see it is that I advocate using a verb that refers generally to somewhat empirically understood neural functions and you (perhaps for good professional reasons) are content with using a noun embedded in a lengthy history of misplaced concreteness (mind-as-stuff) and metaphysical assumptions (dualisms and neo-dualisms from Aristotle to Descartes to Kant). Each to their own but let’s not kid ourselves that the others conceptual choices have no bearing on the limits of what we can think.
One thing is undeniable guys, we've covered a lot of ground lately. Thank you all so much for being participants in the journey! m-
MICHAEL: Quick thought: considering the context, what you may want to call mind I would call cognition. Why? Because human cognition is a specific material-energetic process, and the term 'mind' evokes a mind/body dualism and contributes nothing to signaling the embodied, processual, enactive and composite (distributed) nature of such capacities.
ADAM: I don’t think the term “mind” necessarily imports any kind of a dualism. Rather, I follow Maturana, Valera, Thompson, and Rosch in thinking that the term “mind” is precisely the term we need to understand the unity (and REALITY) of both the material/energetic properties of cognition, and the phenomenological/qualitative experience of being an embodied subject. The material/energetic and the phenomenological/qualitative are not dualistically opposed, nor does the one “emerge” out of the other (as in materialism or idealism); they are simultaneous properties enacted by living systems that are distinguished by analytical means only. Since both are real (I argue), we need an epistemological approach that can adequately handle researching such a system, and we need an ontological approach that can account for why both are real in the first place (…Whitehead has already done this…hence my appeal to him…)
MICHAEL: SO much to discuss here, but given that we seem to need a breather, I will hold back most of it. I have said all I want to say about the term ‘mind’. It’s bunk and I have no use for it. However, and in a very much related way, I would also suggest we thrown out the qualitative/quantitative, subject/object distinction as well. Phenomenal experience is material/energetic. “Qualia” is a generated expression or activity (occurrence) of active bodies endowed with memory sensing environments. Again: verb not noun. We don’t have qualia, but we do engage in acts of perception within ecological situations.
Now I know that such a position requires full elaboration to be anything like convincing, but let’s just say for now that the only way we will be able to integrate the notions of experience and matter into a coherent non-dualist view is to decide on a terminology capable of signifying the immanent matrix from which both experience and physicality are generated. To truly take non-dualism seriously we have to be able to explain the nature of the One that unities such properties and capacities. The term I usually use matter-energy but pushed far enough I would propose instead offer up the neo_Merleau-Pontyian bnotion of world-flesh or just Flesh.
ADAM: Also, we should note that the primary advocates of the embodied, embedded, enacted paradigms have chosen “mind” as the key concept that needs to be understood. In that sense, I turn the question back on you: if you are operating from an enactive framework, why are you suggesting that we give up on the term “mind” when many of the lead proponents of enactivism use it as the title of their major texts? More importantly, once we understand how a term is employed, and are largely satisfied with the operative framework being developed, is it practical to spend time and energy converting people to one’s preferred vocabulary? Even when the point of view expressed is largely the same? It’s not something I’m going to spend much time on. Plus, mind just sounds fresher.
MICHAEL: Hopefully I have already given you some sense of what I will continue to reject the term? At base my discontent follows from its historical use, logical entailments as a noun, and its l far too liberal use under very different circumstances, making it indistinct and cumbersome.
…continued…
That said, it is true that I can follow the use of that term within a particular discursive field or series of authors or set of theories with relative satisfaction, but usually after pages and pages of fine-grained elaboration and nuanced qualifications. I find most theorists spend far too much time describing what they mean by the term ‘mind’ as opposed to describing and defining the what mental activity in humans actually entails. Hence the cumbersomeness. Still, after a certain the term is sufficiently qualified I tend to agree most with the 4EA crowd about how human awareness operates over most other theories of “mind”. (incidentally, what other field decides definitively on the that which they are studying - i.e., mind as thing, as noun - before they study what is actually the case?)
My project is to forestall all the problems associated with being non-distinct and under-reflective about what is actually the case in order to re-think the terms of our reference and evolve new (mutant) forms of signification better suited to the exchange and cultivation of more adaptive and effective sensibilities.
MICHAEL: One way to frame it would be for me to say there is no such thing an ‘ecology of mind’ but rather there are ecologies in which cognition occurs. The nuance here is important for me.”
ADAM: I disagree; there is very much an ecology of mind. The mind-as-mind is just as real as any of the components, process, or energetics that make it up; the mind-as-mind is also just as real as any of the environments, contexts, or systems of which it is a part; and mind-as-mind constitutes its own ecology of being through its recursive interactions with both.
MICHAEL: Please explain to me how an activity that is enactive (performed) and extended (non-local) can be considered a thing, object, or noun??? I just don’t get how you don’t see the problems inherent with this? “Mind” is not a component, it is a capacity or power embodied, extended and enacted non-locally under certain ecological conditions. The activity of sentient awareness (my terminology) is an expression of living and situated material-energetic bodies.
Again Adam I challenge you to provide, or even a quote, that offers a good definition of “mind” as object.
ADAM: I am rigorously committed to viewing the mind-as-mind within a context that resists both undermining and overmining (my Harman/Latour influence shines strong here). To say that the mind does not exist is an ontological conclusion that is not supported by the empirical data; it’s a judgment call made without, in my opinion, any kind of ontological justification.
MICHAEL: Really? Your position is that “mind” as process (verb) is not empirically justified, but mind as absolutely and independently withdrawn object is? That astounds me. Your commitment to OOP metaphysical proscription notwithstanding, I plead with you to provide any evidence whatsoever that suggests mind as independently existing object (noun)? Do you mean to say that you are committed to describing mental activity in a way that makes it seem independent (and thus not truly enacted or extended [non-local])
ADAM: People say the mind isn’t real because it’s “just” a bundle of processes, interactions, chemicals – whatever – to this I say, of course it is! But none of this leads us to the conclusion that it can be reduced to any of these things, or that “mind” is therefore (1) not real, (2) something supernatural, or (3) an object of which the materials enjoy ontological status over the experience. If you think one is more real than the other, then the dualism rests with you friend.
MICHAEL: “Mind” is a real activity but not a real object. To think and to sense is an ability not its own isolated system or ecosystem. Isn’t this also what the Buddhists say (no-mind, no-self doctrines?)?
Perhaps with the same logic you are using above wouldn’t we be forced to say that capacity to, say, run also be an object? Something like John has a “run component” that allows him to run?
Adam, I'm going to edit and revise my last response to you and work it into it's own post. The topic is huge and I'm interested to know more about how you justify mind as object... And please don't ever mistake my passionate response for ill-will Adam. I am extremely thankful for your time and attention.
Jason, above you mentioned defining 'experience' within the pragmatist tradition as "energetic transactive field”. Can you talk more about why such a move is justifiable (and I think it is)?
Michael,
Can you elaborate on what you are asking about "being justifiable?" Asking for the justification of a definition is odd. Or are you asking about why? If why, then it has something to do with integrating a process metaphysic with a phenomenology. Second, I am tempted to just link one of my blog posts, as I've explained this many times. Apologies, but I don't have huge amounts of time.
I can explain most of this by just emailing you my recent article, but I thought I already did that. There, I explain in much detail, though it's written for a specialist audience.
"There is no ideal existence, the ideal is not a type of existence." — Étienne Souriau
I am about to post a response, Michael, on my blog. We can resume over there.
I am also posting a direct argument. By "direct," I mean a true argument with premises, conclusions, and inferences laid out. It's not strictly formal, but it should do.
“The bait is the means to get the fish where you want it, catch the fish and you forget the bait. The snare is the means to get the rabbit where you want it, catch the rabbit and forget the snare. Words are the means to get the idea where you want it, catch on to the idea and you forget about the words. Where shall I find a man who forgets about words, and have a word with him?” - Chuang Tzu
“Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.” - Niels Bohr
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” – attributed to Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha), 563-483 B.C.
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” -Phillip K. Dick
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