Saint Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, created in either the 11th or 12th century an ontological proof for God's existence. The proof is simple, elegant, and plagued philosophical minds for centuries. It consists of the following simple formula: God is that than which nothing greater can be thought. Because nothing greater than God can be thought, God exists. Any successful attempt to conceive of something greater merely indicates that your previous conception really wasn't all that great to begin with. Simply put, you should try harder.
Well, actually, let me try putting it another way. Anselm defines God, for this argument, as the greatest possible concept available to the mind. If a greater concept, or being, could be imagined, that would take the place of the original. Because the first concept exists exclusively in the mind, it stands to reason that if God existed outside of the mind as well as within it, this God would be greater than a God that existed exclusively in the mind. Starts to get a bit tricky, no? The whole point of the argument is to start getting you to believe in that God-out-there, and as soon as you accept the first term, namely, that God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived, then, logically speaking, you're screwed.
Well, part of the problem with the argument consists in the inherent limitations of the mind, and moreover the mind being something with no constitutive power over the universe. The idea is that the thinker's thought will resolve into a reductio ad absurdum, whereby he will continually cycle back and forth between his mind and the world, and eventually accept the initial premise of the argument as one demanded by logical necessity. All that's really proven here is the susceptibility of some to logical circularity. The simple act of believing that God exists by necessity does not create God. It is no proof, because the argument relies on its own circularity, without reference to the world or anything materially verifiable.
After a while the whole thing starts to sound like a cute, albeit pointless, thought experiment. Of course, you could say something like, "only a God could create an image of perfection in the minds of Men", but anyone who argues that seriously probably also believes that perfection is white, male, about 5'9", bearded, and looks an awful lot like Willem Dafoe (for those of you who miss this reference, you evidently haven't seen the brilliant film "The Last Temptation of Christ").
(Kant also has a nice little critique of the argument, that goes something like this: The argument amounts to an analytic statement, namely that the phrase "God exists" is a tautology, and moreover redundant. God implies existence. This, however, states absolutely nothing about what 'God' actually is, and exists entirely within the boundaries of the rational subject's mind. In other words, it's just a big empty logical paradox with nothing at all to say about the world.)
But, not being the sort satisfied with irreverent declamations of ancient theological proofs (and I mean, who is?), I felt something of a philosophical obligation to refute the ontological proof using my own terms.
The proof takes as a starting premise that God's being, the existence of which we presumably have yet to establish (or else why would we be attempting some ridiculous proof anyway?), is such that it is by its very nature something greater than everything else. Very presumptuous of the old Archbishop, to assume a priori that God is something that possesses the quality of being superior. As well, it's rather peculiar that the thought of God existing in both the mind and the world (as if the two were in fact ultimately separate), should combine (a bit like the power rangers) to form a Greater God than one existing exclusively in either the mind or the world. It suggests, in the case of God existing alone in the world, but not the mind, that His existence would be increased by someone having a mental conception of Him. This whole line of thinking presupposes that God is a quantifiable entity whose greatness can be augmented by some kind of numerical increase, or by the accumulation of divine representations. In other words, God is that which cannot be increased. Any conception of God that CAN be increased by some means is clearly a bit short of the real deal.
So, if God is that which cannot be increased, which sounds like a perfectly devout theological thing to say, doesn't the inverted premise sound equally compelling? That is, "God is that which cannot be decreased." If God is supposed to be this omnipresent, perfect being (again, presumptuous ontological attributes, but let's run with them), then any conception of God that was less than absolutely perfect (in other words, somehow commensurate with the entire quantitative fabric of the universe, as if the universe were in some way quantifiable), wouldn't really be God at all, would it?
But who's to say we should accept this whole business of God being commensurate with the cosmos? We don't even know God exists, and yet we're already describing His nature! If we're going to be presumptuous about what God is, before even proving THAT He is, why not start with a premise that sounds theologically sound, but is in a subtle way totally perverse? What I propose is to start by assuming that God is that than which nothing lesser can be thought. God is the least of all things. I mean, interpret that however you will, but I think it's pretty profound. God is the most immanent, transparent, diffuse, and ineffable of all possible things. Sounds pretty good to me!
So, let's slightly reformulate Anselm's argument, in accordance with our new understanding of God's nature, to read as follows: God is that than which nothing lesser can be thought. If we can conceive of something lesser than God, then that conception must in turn be God. Since a God that exists in both the world and in the mind would be greater than a God that exists in merely one or the other, God cannot logically exist in both. Therefore, God exists in either the mind or the world, but not both.
Since Anselm got to assert than a being existing in both mind and world was something greater than a being existing in only one of the two (whether this presupposes a quantitative or qualitative increase in greatness is utterly beyond me, since the whole thing sounds suspect to begin with), I'm going to take the privilege as well and assert than God's being in the world alone is quantitatively or qualitatively greater than His being in any or even all minds alone. Since being in the world is greater than being in the mind, God must exist only in the mind for Him to be lesser than any other conception. Furthermore, God must exist only in one mind; for Him to exist in more than one mind, he would be ontologically greater than if he existed in one mind alone. Therefore God exists in only one mind.
But God is that than which nothing lesser can be thought, and I can conceive of a God that exists in no mind and no world as being lesser than one that exists in a single mind alone. Therefore, God exists in no mind and no world. I can think of no lesser God; therefore, God exists, and his essence is nil.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Ideology and Philosophy
Taking a brief pause from discussions of pretension, I'd like to address the issue of ideology and philosophy. Althusser defines ideology in an extremely interesting way, in his seminal article "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses": "Ideology is a 'representation' of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence."
I've always found this definition interesting because of the multiple degrees of separation it suggests between the individual and that individual's conditions of existence. Ideology becomes, then, a double-layer of mediation between what is presumably some form of conscious subjectivity, and a material reality that is capable of producing some form of phenomenal appearance.
At one level, individuals have an imaginary relationship to this material plane of existence. I'm not entirely sure what this means, except that it must have something to do with psychoanalysis and Lacan's notion of the imaginary. Let's, uhm, avoid for the moment bringing in Lacan, and focus instead on a brute, somewhat naive interpretation of this sentence. Let's suppose that the imaginary is basically just that, a version of the real world located in the mind of the observer that is somehow less real than the world it refers to.
Okay, so we've got our little eidolon stored comfortably in our minds. This means we can more or less proceed about our daily business, referring from time to time to this imaginary picture of the world to prevent us from bumping into pointy objects like those infuriating crotch-level poles that litter the sidewalks of Paris. No doubt Althusser was quite familiar with these; unless you've got a very good image of the world, you're bound to run into them eventually.
Now, I've hesitated to call this image a representation, but that is precisely what my limited knowledge of phenomenology would incline me to label it. An imaginary representation of the world. The world, at least some phenomenologists have argued, is such that we cannot access it in its pure and complete form. We're always losing information, owing to the limitations of our senses. A Cartesian would likely say at this point, "To hell with the senses! There is only thought!", while an Empiricist would say, "I hate the French!", or perhaps, "This baguette needs more brie." In any event, I have nothing but love for the French, but I definitely think all baguettes always need more brie, and that makes me an Empiricist (for the duration of this sentence, at least). This is all to say, of course, that Rationalists (like Descartes) like to talk about ideas and thought, while Empiricists and Materialists (e.g., Marxists) like to talk about the 'real conditions of existence'. But this is a pretty old, and frankly somewhat limiting binary, so let's do away with it for now!
So if we can't know the so-called 'real' world perfectly, because our glasses are always getting foggy in the winter or something, all we have then is a little internal model of it: a re-presentation. Our brains take what is presented to us, or more precisely whatever their grubby little brain tendrils can get a hold of, and re-project it into the dark theatre of our minds for our personal amusement (inverted to accommodate for the way an image appears on our retina, that is to say upside down). This new image becomes a representation of the world, and is all we ocular-dependent folk have to go on. Of course, I'm emphasizing sight here, but this kind of representation applies equally to worlds constructed entirely in the absence of any one sense (the blind or the deaf, for example, must contend just as much with the limitations of their imaginary representations, but I don't for a moment think MORE so).
But if you go back and re-read Althusser's definition, you'll see that he is very specific in his use of language. At this point you'll probably say, "Wait, Andrew, Althusser doesn't say 'a representation of an imaginary representation'! You're lying to us!" And, well, you'd be perfectly right. About the first part. Because I never lie. Or at least not right now.
No, it is in fact true. Althusser says that ideology is a representation of an imaginary relationship to the real conditions of existence. But the fact remains that in order to have a relationship, we must have something to relate to. Since phenomenologically we can't relate perfectly to the 'real conditions' as they exist in themselves -- sooner or later we'll crash into one of those damn poles -- all we can do is relate to an imaginary representation of those conditions. Our experience of the world is this relationship to an imaginary model. The daily quotidian existence of our lives, before the occurrence of any higher-level values (like truth, or baguettes, or even perhaps notions of what a 'self' is) can be called a relation to the real. This has a very Lacanian feel, but I promised not to go into Lacan, especially since I don't feel qualified to crack that nut right now.
So we're people, presumably conscious and self-aware, relating to this abstract image of a thing we can never really know called the 'real', and for all that we still can't manage to navigate our way through the streets of Paris. All we want to do is find that amazing baguette shop where they bake the brie right into the bread (to be honest, I don't even know if such a thing is possible, but it sounds delicious, and if it were in fact possible I am sure that such a place exists somewhere in Paris, though it is probably damn near impossible to find, and certainly impossible to find twice). Alas, however, we have become hopelessly lost, and for some strange reason our map keeps turning into a white sheet with the cryptic message, "Error 404: Page not found", and just as we're about to start questioning the fundamental nature of perception itself another, more compelling thought strikes us: Let's complain!
Yes, let's chalk this damnable un-navigability up to poor city planning and bureaucratic mismanagement. In fact, let's blame a particular political party for this problem, join an opposing one, and start picketing for straighter, more pedestrian friendly streets (and let's get rid of those damn poles while we're at it). Althusser would call this 'ideology'. In fact, he'd lean out of his window, point at you, and laugh. And then he'd call it ideology, under his breath. And then he'd probably go make coffee.
It's ideology because this whole story about bureaucracy, while compelling perhaps, has very little to do with the 'real conditions of existence', whatever those are. No one knows, and that's precisely the problem. Whenever we start to comment ABOUT our imaginary relationship to those conditions, we're in ideology. Any attempt to assign any kind of order and system to that flickering movie in our minds is ideological. It never gets at the real, but only a representation of the real. Even more than that, it is a representation of a representation of the real. What we've done is taken the image playing in our minds and filtered it through a silk-screen, so that we still get something of the original image (which was nevertheless still a representation), but only now it is distorted. However, the silk-screen makes sense to us. It gives everything in the original image a kind of significance that it didn't have before; a coherence, a narrative perhaps, is created where before there was only a succession of discrete moments in time, lacking any relationship between them.
So, our imaginary relationship to the real, devoid of any meta-narrative, consists of these disparate, unconnected moments. Along comes ideology and re-presents this relationship as something cogent and, dare I say it, 'true'. It's true to those who adhere to a given ideology. Ideology always bespeaks truth. So our silk-screen tells us a story, gives us a satisfying or compelling filter through which to pass all that phenomenological data we were getting before, unfiltered. It's like a Brita filter for the mind: we're getting less stuff, or at least somehow altered, but we're convinced it tastes better.
Of course, there are many ideologies of guilt and resentment, hatred and enmity. These are silk-screens that tell a story of repression and oppression, and they tend to be very compelling indeed. We can't really say, as such, that ideology makes us feel better. It certainly has that potential, but that is not its purpose. Ideology exists in order to superimpose meaning onto something that would otherwise strike us as inherently meaningless, and it is everywhere and in everything.
So in reality, or perhaps I should say in the imaginary, we are always already in ideology. What I said before about us wandering around blithely content with our imaginary representation of the real, before the advent of any higher determining concepts, was by and large a fiction. Even in those moments before we are self-aware of ideology, there is already an ideology implicit in how we see the world. The silk-screen, if you will, is installed at birth, and can never be removed -- only changed, replaced for another.
The question of ideology, after Althusser, becomes "What is outside ideology?" The image I've created, of a projector in the mind, whose lens has a silk-screen transforming the image, was deliberately selected to parallel the Platonic cave metaphor. In that version, the hapless masses sit chained to the floor of a cave (an 'allegorical' cave, in case you weren't paying attention, since sadly even in ancient times caves weren't big enough to fit everyone), and are made to watch an endless procession of shadows dancing across a wall (read: imaginary relationship to/representation of the real). The shadows are puppets, themselves cheap reproductions of things (like men and women, trees and animals; read: silk-screen), dancing in front of a fire (read: primitive projector). The whole story does start to take on a distinctly Platonic feel, and of course no one wants to be a poor sap chained to a cave floor watching the shadows of cheap hand puppets dancing around. We'd want to turn around, grab the hand puppets, and throttle their owners to death with them (or, as Plato puts it, escape into the light of the Sun, but I like my version better).
So how DO we get out of ideology? And, for that matter, cheesy metaphors about caves and movie theatres? For this, I think we need to turn to Deleuze... but more on that later.
To be continued...
I've always found this definition interesting because of the multiple degrees of separation it suggests between the individual and that individual's conditions of existence. Ideology becomes, then, a double-layer of mediation between what is presumably some form of conscious subjectivity, and a material reality that is capable of producing some form of phenomenal appearance.
At one level, individuals have an imaginary relationship to this material plane of existence. I'm not entirely sure what this means, except that it must have something to do with psychoanalysis and Lacan's notion of the imaginary. Let's, uhm, avoid for the moment bringing in Lacan, and focus instead on a brute, somewhat naive interpretation of this sentence. Let's suppose that the imaginary is basically just that, a version of the real world located in the mind of the observer that is somehow less real than the world it refers to.
Okay, so we've got our little eidolon stored comfortably in our minds. This means we can more or less proceed about our daily business, referring from time to time to this imaginary picture of the world to prevent us from bumping into pointy objects like those infuriating crotch-level poles that litter the sidewalks of Paris. No doubt Althusser was quite familiar with these; unless you've got a very good image of the world, you're bound to run into them eventually.
Now, I've hesitated to call this image a representation, but that is precisely what my limited knowledge of phenomenology would incline me to label it. An imaginary representation of the world. The world, at least some phenomenologists have argued, is such that we cannot access it in its pure and complete form. We're always losing information, owing to the limitations of our senses. A Cartesian would likely say at this point, "To hell with the senses! There is only thought!", while an Empiricist would say, "I hate the French!", or perhaps, "This baguette needs more brie." In any event, I have nothing but love for the French, but I definitely think all baguettes always need more brie, and that makes me an Empiricist (for the duration of this sentence, at least). This is all to say, of course, that Rationalists (like Descartes) like to talk about ideas and thought, while Empiricists and Materialists (e.g., Marxists) like to talk about the 'real conditions of existence'. But this is a pretty old, and frankly somewhat limiting binary, so let's do away with it for now!
So if we can't know the so-called 'real' world perfectly, because our glasses are always getting foggy in the winter or something, all we have then is a little internal model of it: a re-presentation. Our brains take what is presented to us, or more precisely whatever their grubby little brain tendrils can get a hold of, and re-project it into the dark theatre of our minds for our personal amusement (inverted to accommodate for the way an image appears on our retina, that is to say upside down). This new image becomes a representation of the world, and is all we ocular-dependent folk have to go on. Of course, I'm emphasizing sight here, but this kind of representation applies equally to worlds constructed entirely in the absence of any one sense (the blind or the deaf, for example, must contend just as much with the limitations of their imaginary representations, but I don't for a moment think MORE so).
But if you go back and re-read Althusser's definition, you'll see that he is very specific in his use of language. At this point you'll probably say, "Wait, Andrew, Althusser doesn't say 'a representation of an imaginary representation'! You're lying to us!" And, well, you'd be perfectly right. About the first part. Because I never lie. Or at least not right now.
No, it is in fact true. Althusser says that ideology is a representation of an imaginary relationship to the real conditions of existence. But the fact remains that in order to have a relationship, we must have something to relate to. Since phenomenologically we can't relate perfectly to the 'real conditions' as they exist in themselves -- sooner or later we'll crash into one of those damn poles -- all we can do is relate to an imaginary representation of those conditions. Our experience of the world is this relationship to an imaginary model. The daily quotidian existence of our lives, before the occurrence of any higher-level values (like truth, or baguettes, or even perhaps notions of what a 'self' is) can be called a relation to the real. This has a very Lacanian feel, but I promised not to go into Lacan, especially since I don't feel qualified to crack that nut right now.
So we're people, presumably conscious and self-aware, relating to this abstract image of a thing we can never really know called the 'real', and for all that we still can't manage to navigate our way through the streets of Paris. All we want to do is find that amazing baguette shop where they bake the brie right into the bread (to be honest, I don't even know if such a thing is possible, but it sounds delicious, and if it were in fact possible I am sure that such a place exists somewhere in Paris, though it is probably damn near impossible to find, and certainly impossible to find twice). Alas, however, we have become hopelessly lost, and for some strange reason our map keeps turning into a white sheet with the cryptic message, "Error 404: Page not found", and just as we're about to start questioning the fundamental nature of perception itself another, more compelling thought strikes us: Let's complain!
Yes, let's chalk this damnable un-navigability up to poor city planning and bureaucratic mismanagement. In fact, let's blame a particular political party for this problem, join an opposing one, and start picketing for straighter, more pedestrian friendly streets (and let's get rid of those damn poles while we're at it). Althusser would call this 'ideology'. In fact, he'd lean out of his window, point at you, and laugh. And then he'd call it ideology, under his breath. And then he'd probably go make coffee.
It's ideology because this whole story about bureaucracy, while compelling perhaps, has very little to do with the 'real conditions of existence', whatever those are. No one knows, and that's precisely the problem. Whenever we start to comment ABOUT our imaginary relationship to those conditions, we're in ideology. Any attempt to assign any kind of order and system to that flickering movie in our minds is ideological. It never gets at the real, but only a representation of the real. Even more than that, it is a representation of a representation of the real. What we've done is taken the image playing in our minds and filtered it through a silk-screen, so that we still get something of the original image (which was nevertheless still a representation), but only now it is distorted. However, the silk-screen makes sense to us. It gives everything in the original image a kind of significance that it didn't have before; a coherence, a narrative perhaps, is created where before there was only a succession of discrete moments in time, lacking any relationship between them.
So, our imaginary relationship to the real, devoid of any meta-narrative, consists of these disparate, unconnected moments. Along comes ideology and re-presents this relationship as something cogent and, dare I say it, 'true'. It's true to those who adhere to a given ideology. Ideology always bespeaks truth. So our silk-screen tells us a story, gives us a satisfying or compelling filter through which to pass all that phenomenological data we were getting before, unfiltered. It's like a Brita filter for the mind: we're getting less stuff, or at least somehow altered, but we're convinced it tastes better.
Of course, there are many ideologies of guilt and resentment, hatred and enmity. These are silk-screens that tell a story of repression and oppression, and they tend to be very compelling indeed. We can't really say, as such, that ideology makes us feel better. It certainly has that potential, but that is not its purpose. Ideology exists in order to superimpose meaning onto something that would otherwise strike us as inherently meaningless, and it is everywhere and in everything.
So in reality, or perhaps I should say in the imaginary, we are always already in ideology. What I said before about us wandering around blithely content with our imaginary representation of the real, before the advent of any higher determining concepts, was by and large a fiction. Even in those moments before we are self-aware of ideology, there is already an ideology implicit in how we see the world. The silk-screen, if you will, is installed at birth, and can never be removed -- only changed, replaced for another.
The question of ideology, after Althusser, becomes "What is outside ideology?" The image I've created, of a projector in the mind, whose lens has a silk-screen transforming the image, was deliberately selected to parallel the Platonic cave metaphor. In that version, the hapless masses sit chained to the floor of a cave (an 'allegorical' cave, in case you weren't paying attention, since sadly even in ancient times caves weren't big enough to fit everyone), and are made to watch an endless procession of shadows dancing across a wall (read: imaginary relationship to/representation of the real). The shadows are puppets, themselves cheap reproductions of things (like men and women, trees and animals; read: silk-screen), dancing in front of a fire (read: primitive projector). The whole story does start to take on a distinctly Platonic feel, and of course no one wants to be a poor sap chained to a cave floor watching the shadows of cheap hand puppets dancing around. We'd want to turn around, grab the hand puppets, and throttle their owners to death with them (or, as Plato puts it, escape into the light of the Sun, but I like my version better).
So how DO we get out of ideology? And, for that matter, cheesy metaphors about caves and movie theatres? For this, I think we need to turn to Deleuze... but more on that later.
To be continued...
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Pretension Pt. 2
The Oxford English Dictionary (which also states that 'pretention' is an out-dated form, I learn this embarassingly after first publishing the previous rant, clearly exposing my own pretense of being able to spell) defines pretension in a number of ways. I'll just skip all but one of the definitions, because most are either obsolete or irrelevant.
"The unwarranted assumption of dignity, merit, etc.; the use of affectation to impress; pretentiousness, ostentation; an instance of this."
Our noble protagonist, Alfonso, previously acquired the great adulation of his peers by demonstrating profound musical talent in the face of overwhelming disbelief. He succeeded, by lending credence to his assertions of musical acumen, in winning from his friends a reprieve from any accusation of pretension, if not perhaps their hearts. What remains in Alfonso's character is something altogether ancillary to the main question of pretension, namely arrogance (and, let's add for good measure, a decent helping of tactlessness). His boasting, however justifiable, is undesired, unsolicited, and unappreciated. Even in the presence of genius, who wants the reputation and abilities of a favorite band sullied and demeaned?
So what, then? We've learned that pretension is not the only cause of social disapprobation. This hardly constitutes an epiphanic truth.
What I will assert, in fact, is that there remains something problematic about the nature of this accusation. For someone to be pretentious, as the above definition points out, the quality or attribute they claim to possess -- whether it be musical skill or spelling proficiency -- must be 'unwarranted'. They are, in effect, pretending to be something or other than they really are, presumably for an ulterior motive like the respect of one's peers or the notice of a prospective mate. Sometimes the motive is nothing more than an unspoken desire for self-aggrandizement (an entirely other can of worms).
Running with this definition, let's look at another example a little closer to home for me. For the sake of argumentation, imagine that Alfonso, having completed his miraculous performance, has succeeded in signing a record contract with Thom Yorke, who happened to be passing by and was somehow transformed into a music producer, when all of a sudden Alfonso finds himself awake in his bed, at home, in the entirely mundane and unmusical world of his ordinary life. He realizes, with some horror, that he doesn't even own a guitar, and the last twelve years of his life were a mere fiction performed on the illusory stage of his unconscious. Damn.
What he does realize, however, is that he has been studying philosophy for a period roughly equivalent, and recalls with a sense of excitement that all is not lost. He sets forth then upon the long and arduous path of a career in scholarship, purchases a wall of books, and begins churning out a mass of doughty and intricate compositions on the finer metaphysical properties of X. Weeks pass. He finds himself yet again (or for the first time?) in a bar at a table with a group of friends. By some stroke of coincidence, they begin discussing the properties of an obscure ontological argument, perhaps Anselm's proof of God's existence, though in this case all entirely based on hearsay (the friends having passed on the way to the bar a huddling group of wizened philosophers, muttering to themselves obscurely), they on their own having no innate or occupational interest in the so-called "love of wisdom".
What then transpires will sound strangely familiar. A lull occurs, as before, and Alfonso happily opines on the real nature of the question of God's existence, and so and on and so forth, and as anyone can clearly see the only tenable position is the following, and therefore such and such can be deduced by necessity, and since anyhow it was a foregone a priori conclusion that such would be the case, one can really only say X, etc. Alfonso's argument comes across so delightfully constructed and lyrically performed as to put the poor deceased Medieval theologian entirely to shame. Glowing from the expenditure of his own intellect, Alfonso sits back and sips his beer in a mild state of euphoria, until his glance happens upon the faces of his friends. Expecting beaming praise and admiration, he is dismayed to discover only scorn, boredom, and poorly disguised irritation. Bewildered, he turns reticent for the remainder of the night, while his friends rather hurriedly change the subject to something completely devoid of any philosophical import (like sex).
We can almost hear the mental refrain cascading through the skulls of Alfonso's friends, "What a pretensious dick!" But this situation has at least two notable differences from the previous, musical scenario, namely that Alfonso's career choice is entirely plausible, and furthermore probably no secret to his friends. Certainly in both instances Alfonso behaved at least in part out of a desire to impress, but never did he act on the basis of a so-called 'affectation' (going back to the OED definition). In the first scenario, Alfonso genuinely was a musical genius (albeit only in the land of dreams); in the second, he was genuinely a well-read and articulate student of philosophy. The latter case doesn't seem to change dramatically in light of the plausibility of being well-read and articulate in philosophy. Many unsuspecting people have been accused of as much in the lengthy course of history.
Why then the entirely predictable accusation of pretension in the second scenario? What, exactly, is Alfonso pretending to be? Everyone at the table knows and probably agrees that he is well-read and articulate; notwithstanding this knowledge, they still probably wish he'd just as soon shut up about metaphysics. It can't be that philosophy is inherently boring or unappealing, because in the latter scenario it was his friends, and not Alfonso, who began philosophizing.
It is, of course, fairly easy to see that Alfonso has, in some way, overstepped his bounds. Perhaps his discourse carried on a bit too long, or his tone had a hint of condescension, or his friends perceived in his speech a distasteful and inflated sense of self-worth. Any one or all of these could easily produce disapproval and even resentment in a group of listeners. Why then, in the peculiar case of philosophical speech, is the term "pretension" bandied around so readily, and not some of the other candidates? The problem, I think, lies in the way this strange word is used (or perhaps misused?)
To be continued...
"The unwarranted assumption of dignity, merit, etc.; the use of affectation to impress; pretentiousness, ostentation; an instance of this."
Our noble protagonist, Alfonso, previously acquired the great adulation of his peers by demonstrating profound musical talent in the face of overwhelming disbelief. He succeeded, by lending credence to his assertions of musical acumen, in winning from his friends a reprieve from any accusation of pretension, if not perhaps their hearts. What remains in Alfonso's character is something altogether ancillary to the main question of pretension, namely arrogance (and, let's add for good measure, a decent helping of tactlessness). His boasting, however justifiable, is undesired, unsolicited, and unappreciated. Even in the presence of genius, who wants the reputation and abilities of a favorite band sullied and demeaned?
So what, then? We've learned that pretension is not the only cause of social disapprobation. This hardly constitutes an epiphanic truth.
What I will assert, in fact, is that there remains something problematic about the nature of this accusation. For someone to be pretentious, as the above definition points out, the quality or attribute they claim to possess -- whether it be musical skill or spelling proficiency -- must be 'unwarranted'. They are, in effect, pretending to be something or other than they really are, presumably for an ulterior motive like the respect of one's peers or the notice of a prospective mate. Sometimes the motive is nothing more than an unspoken desire for self-aggrandizement (an entirely other can of worms).
Running with this definition, let's look at another example a little closer to home for me. For the sake of argumentation, imagine that Alfonso, having completed his miraculous performance, has succeeded in signing a record contract with Thom Yorke, who happened to be passing by and was somehow transformed into a music producer, when all of a sudden Alfonso finds himself awake in his bed, at home, in the entirely mundane and unmusical world of his ordinary life. He realizes, with some horror, that he doesn't even own a guitar, and the last twelve years of his life were a mere fiction performed on the illusory stage of his unconscious. Damn.
What he does realize, however, is that he has been studying philosophy for a period roughly equivalent, and recalls with a sense of excitement that all is not lost. He sets forth then upon the long and arduous path of a career in scholarship, purchases a wall of books, and begins churning out a mass of doughty and intricate compositions on the finer metaphysical properties of X. Weeks pass. He finds himself yet again (or for the first time?) in a bar at a table with a group of friends. By some stroke of coincidence, they begin discussing the properties of an obscure ontological argument, perhaps Anselm's proof of God's existence, though in this case all entirely based on hearsay (the friends having passed on the way to the bar a huddling group of wizened philosophers, muttering to themselves obscurely), they on their own having no innate or occupational interest in the so-called "love of wisdom".
What then transpires will sound strangely familiar. A lull occurs, as before, and Alfonso happily opines on the real nature of the question of God's existence, and so and on and so forth, and as anyone can clearly see the only tenable position is the following, and therefore such and such can be deduced by necessity, and since anyhow it was a foregone a priori conclusion that such would be the case, one can really only say X, etc. Alfonso's argument comes across so delightfully constructed and lyrically performed as to put the poor deceased Medieval theologian entirely to shame. Glowing from the expenditure of his own intellect, Alfonso sits back and sips his beer in a mild state of euphoria, until his glance happens upon the faces of his friends. Expecting beaming praise and admiration, he is dismayed to discover only scorn, boredom, and poorly disguised irritation. Bewildered, he turns reticent for the remainder of the night, while his friends rather hurriedly change the subject to something completely devoid of any philosophical import (like sex).
We can almost hear the mental refrain cascading through the skulls of Alfonso's friends, "What a pretensious dick!" But this situation has at least two notable differences from the previous, musical scenario, namely that Alfonso's career choice is entirely plausible, and furthermore probably no secret to his friends. Certainly in both instances Alfonso behaved at least in part out of a desire to impress, but never did he act on the basis of a so-called 'affectation' (going back to the OED definition). In the first scenario, Alfonso genuinely was a musical genius (albeit only in the land of dreams); in the second, he was genuinely a well-read and articulate student of philosophy. The latter case doesn't seem to change dramatically in light of the plausibility of being well-read and articulate in philosophy. Many unsuspecting people have been accused of as much in the lengthy course of history.
Why then the entirely predictable accusation of pretension in the second scenario? What, exactly, is Alfonso pretending to be? Everyone at the table knows and probably agrees that he is well-read and articulate; notwithstanding this knowledge, they still probably wish he'd just as soon shut up about metaphysics. It can't be that philosophy is inherently boring or unappealing, because in the latter scenario it was his friends, and not Alfonso, who began philosophizing.
It is, of course, fairly easy to see that Alfonso has, in some way, overstepped his bounds. Perhaps his discourse carried on a bit too long, or his tone had a hint of condescension, or his friends perceived in his speech a distasteful and inflated sense of self-worth. Any one or all of these could easily produce disapproval and even resentment in a group of listeners. Why then, in the peculiar case of philosophical speech, is the term "pretension" bandied around so readily, and not some of the other candidates? The problem, I think, lies in the way this strange word is used (or perhaps misused?)
To be continued...
Monday, February 18, 2008
Pretention
I'd like to start by broaching the subject of pretention, or pretentiousness. I've often been accused of exhibiting both, and it's led me to wonder what it is about myself and what I say and do that might inspire such an accusation.
The word is often used in a pejorative sense, of someone who aspires to a particular way of being, but fails in at least one crucial and infuriating respect. Let's take, for example, someone who aspires to be a great musician. Such a person, let's call him Alfonso, might on any given day find himself present in a setting that has nothing at all to do with the exhibition of his own personal musical prowess. Let's say, for the sake of constructing an image, this setting is a local bar. Alfonso sits at a table with a number of his friends, who are by some improbable stroke of fortune discussing music and bands they have seen. Alfonso, at a momentary lull in the conversation, notes matter-of-factly that such and such band is actually quite mediocre, and in truth if given half a day he could compose a set's worth of songs that would blow the aforementioned amateurs out of the water. His friends scoff at him, and think to themselves (electing not to speak their minds out of politeness, a grace Alfonso evidently lacks), "What a pretentious dick."
Now, they may well be justified in thinking so poorly of their 'friend'. By all accounts he seems not only to have a tremendous opinion of his own abilities, but is also a shameless braggart. Or is he?
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Alfonso has been playing guitar for a dozen years with a zealous fervour that causes his parents to regret the day they ever bought him that Fender Stratocaster. Let's say he regularly composes set lists in half a day for his own pleasure and amusement, and genuinely believes his compositions to be brilliant, transcendent, and better than virtually all the competition. He considers himself naturally talented, and having no other musicians to play with, but only the tripe he listens to on the radio for comparison, has no reason to believe he is anything other than a modern day virtuoso.
This is a fact, in his mind, and is scarcely open to contestation. So, as it happens, when he encounters his friends he feels naturally compelled to correct their obvious mistaken evaluation of the "Band X" they had seen in concert, and offers -- out of a simple desire to share what he considers to be his personal wealth of talent -- to create and perform for their pleasure and amusement a new and better set list than they have yet heard. For this act of selfless generosity he is rebuffed, perhaps, and certainly in the minds of his friends devalued. Unjustly? That remains the question.
What is Alfonso's crime here? We should assume that, regardless of his intentions, there exists a basic disconnect between the way his friends perceive him and how he perceives himself. It is evident to his friends that the talent Alfonso believes he possesses, namely an extraordinary ability in music, is in fact less than extraordinary, and may in truth be at best middling (if not overtly terrible). Who is mistaken? Naturally, permitting for a fair degree of subjectivity in the evaluation of art, it is probably safe to assume that Alfonso is not the virtuoso he holds himself to be. But if we were to say, once again for the sake of argument, that he is in fact a poorly understood musical genius, does that change the timbre of his boast?
Alfonso, the savant, claims -- correctly -- that he can produce a set list worth of music far better than that of "Band X", presuming there are some quasi-objective criteria for evaluating music that most of his friends hold in common (how radically it embodies the hipster aesthetic, for example, or the number of aleatoric sound samples used, to suggest two possible criteria entirely at random). His friends, not knowing he possesses this talent, will surely scoff at him just as before. Unless they are somehow persuaded of the truth of his claim, why should they think he is anything other than a self-deluded pretentious bung hole?
Let's consider another scenario, then. Alfonso, having produced his Fender Stratocaster from a secret compartment underneath the table, leaps onto the stage and performs ex nihilo an entire set list that completely astonishes the entire bar, and prompts a frenzy of excited cheering and gesticulation. Having finished, Alfonso leaps off the stage onto the adoring arms of his newly won fans, and is lowered gently to the floor whilst garlands of roses are placed lovingly around his neck. Or something. Weeks pass, and Alfonso and his friends find themselves once again sitting around a table in a bar discussing the "Band Y" they had seen two or three nights before. Alfonso, detecting a brief lull in the conversation, once again contributes the information that he could, quite effortlessly, produce a set list superior to such and such band, etc. etc., yada yada, and so on. This time, however, his friends simply nod humble acquiescence and think to themselves, "Yes, it's true, but he's still a dick."
Though not, perhaps, a pretentious one?
To be continued...
The word is often used in a pejorative sense, of someone who aspires to a particular way of being, but fails in at least one crucial and infuriating respect. Let's take, for example, someone who aspires to be a great musician. Such a person, let's call him Alfonso, might on any given day find himself present in a setting that has nothing at all to do with the exhibition of his own personal musical prowess. Let's say, for the sake of constructing an image, this setting is a local bar. Alfonso sits at a table with a number of his friends, who are by some improbable stroke of fortune discussing music and bands they have seen. Alfonso, at a momentary lull in the conversation, notes matter-of-factly that such and such band is actually quite mediocre, and in truth if given half a day he could compose a set's worth of songs that would blow the aforementioned amateurs out of the water. His friends scoff at him, and think to themselves (electing not to speak their minds out of politeness, a grace Alfonso evidently lacks), "What a pretentious dick."
Now, they may well be justified in thinking so poorly of their 'friend'. By all accounts he seems not only to have a tremendous opinion of his own abilities, but is also a shameless braggart. Or is he?
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Alfonso has been playing guitar for a dozen years with a zealous fervour that causes his parents to regret the day they ever bought him that Fender Stratocaster. Let's say he regularly composes set lists in half a day for his own pleasure and amusement, and genuinely believes his compositions to be brilliant, transcendent, and better than virtually all the competition. He considers himself naturally talented, and having no other musicians to play with, but only the tripe he listens to on the radio for comparison, has no reason to believe he is anything other than a modern day virtuoso.
This is a fact, in his mind, and is scarcely open to contestation. So, as it happens, when he encounters his friends he feels naturally compelled to correct their obvious mistaken evaluation of the "Band X" they had seen in concert, and offers -- out of a simple desire to share what he considers to be his personal wealth of talent -- to create and perform for their pleasure and amusement a new and better set list than they have yet heard. For this act of selfless generosity he is rebuffed, perhaps, and certainly in the minds of his friends devalued. Unjustly? That remains the question.
What is Alfonso's crime here? We should assume that, regardless of his intentions, there exists a basic disconnect between the way his friends perceive him and how he perceives himself. It is evident to his friends that the talent Alfonso believes he possesses, namely an extraordinary ability in music, is in fact less than extraordinary, and may in truth be at best middling (if not overtly terrible). Who is mistaken? Naturally, permitting for a fair degree of subjectivity in the evaluation of art, it is probably safe to assume that Alfonso is not the virtuoso he holds himself to be. But if we were to say, once again for the sake of argument, that he is in fact a poorly understood musical genius, does that change the timbre of his boast?
Alfonso, the savant, claims -- correctly -- that he can produce a set list worth of music far better than that of "Band X", presuming there are some quasi-objective criteria for evaluating music that most of his friends hold in common (how radically it embodies the hipster aesthetic, for example, or the number of aleatoric sound samples used, to suggest two possible criteria entirely at random). His friends, not knowing he possesses this talent, will surely scoff at him just as before. Unless they are somehow persuaded of the truth of his claim, why should they think he is anything other than a self-deluded pretentious bung hole?
Let's consider another scenario, then. Alfonso, having produced his Fender Stratocaster from a secret compartment underneath the table, leaps onto the stage and performs ex nihilo an entire set list that completely astonishes the entire bar, and prompts a frenzy of excited cheering and gesticulation. Having finished, Alfonso leaps off the stage onto the adoring arms of his newly won fans, and is lowered gently to the floor whilst garlands of roses are placed lovingly around his neck. Or something. Weeks pass, and Alfonso and his friends find themselves once again sitting around a table in a bar discussing the "Band Y" they had seen two or three nights before. Alfonso, detecting a brief lull in the conversation, once again contributes the information that he could, quite effortlessly, produce a set list superior to such and such band, etc. etc., yada yada, and so on. This time, however, his friends simply nod humble acquiescence and think to themselves, "Yes, it's true, but he's still a dick."
Though not, perhaps, a pretentious one?
To be continued...
Polylogos Prefatory
I created this blog to accommodate my desire to write philosophical diatribes without being governed by some nominative principle other than the idea of "many words". Hopefully it will manifest as something interesting, but for the time being I hope only that it suffices to help me work through some of my own thoughts about things.
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