Editorial: 9th Issue July 29th 2018

Blog: http://michaelrdjames.org/

Journal site https://www.aletheiaeducation.eu/

https://joom.ag/M0GY

The first lecture is entitled “The Fourth Centrepiece lecture on The Philosophy
of Education” and it is the Fourth lecture given by Jude Sutton, one of the main
characters in the recently published Philosophical/educational novel “The
World Explored, the World Suffered: The Exeter lectures”.

The lecture explores epistemology and the philosophy of language from the
point of view of the philosophy of education in partly Aristotelian and partly
Wittgensteinian terms. Sutton claims that the epistemological view of our
language and our souls world bears the responsibility for much of the confusion
in what are essentially everyday commonsense discourse. A particular view of
Knowledge and Language follows from Sutton’s approach:

“Let us imagine that I am in pain and that everybody can see the symptoms of the toothache I
am suffering from. Let us further consider this example in the light of the question “What are
the necessary and sufficient conditions for a pain to be a pain? Gather ye symptoms as ye
may, they do not seem to add up to the necessary and sufficient symptoms for a pain to be a
pain. That is, it always seems possible that an agent could fully be manifesting all of these
symptoms and there be no pain—he might for example be acting a part in a play. Or,
alternatively, the agent is in pain but he is in unfriendly circumstances and is using his
Spartan training not to display any of his symptoms. He is in pain but only he seems to know
it. But have I not in this admission that he knows he is in pain given the game away to
Descartes and his followers who might at this point say in the most skeptical of voices “Only
the person experiencing the pain can know that they are in pain”. Caught in these skeptical
pincers one may want to try to deny that the agent “knows” he is in pain. It is too intense for
him to know anything, someone may want to maintain: He is in pain, and this means that the
experience is not an epistemological state, not a position in which one can know anything.
Well, I think the agent does know he is in pain, and claiming that he is not, is only going to
change the example we are talking about. Let us give the Cartesian his due: the agent knows
he is in pain in spite of the fact that I believe the Cartesian could not give us a good
philosophical account of what kind of being possesses a state of mind in which he is both in
pain and knows that he is. The Cartesian argument Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am, is
supported by an argument which is meant to refute the skeptic, namely the argument that one
cannot doubt that one is thinking because in order to doubt that one is thinking one would
have to be thinking. This is a good argument but not an account of the state of mind of a being
that can acknowledge this to be a good argument. And anyway it is at best only an account of
how I know myself to be in pain. It is not an account of how I know some other sentient being
to be in pain. And since I do not share in his conscious state, his conscious state, by logic,
therefore, could not be attributed to me. We can rule out that I am conscious of his pain in the
way he is. Well, then, how do I know? By observation, by using my senses and the
application of criteria to ones observations, is one possible position. But this is only going to
lead us back to the position previously referred to: we might settle for a large set of symptoms
and find that they will not suffice and then we will add others and they will not suffice and
eventually we will throw up our hands in dismay and agree that no theoretical set of
symptoms will ever amount to the pain itself. I am told that Socrates left his studies of the
physical world because of this kind of problem after having read the work of a pre-Socratic
philosopher who claimed that the foundation of everything was Mind. The attempt to ground
knowledge on the nature of matter will always fail philosophically because we will, in Kant’s
words never arrive at its nature however complex the set of symptoms for it are. Aristotle
claims matter is infinitely mysterious and we can only know its forms –the result of its
apprehension by the mind: or in other words, the way in which we conceptualize it. Some
ancient philosophers thought that the problem resided in the fact that all we could know of
matter are its mathematical properties and since these are provably infinite, when considering
it in its quantitative dimension, there can never be a complete set of symptoms for its state. Be
that as it may, I think it suffices from the point of view of logic to merely point out that all
that needs to be the case is that some given physical phenomenon is alternatively
conceptualisable, say as a wave, or as a particle:- and if this is the case we clearly have a
logical problem unless we rest with the idea that alternatively conceptualizing this
phenomenon is a matter of characterizing different forms or ideas of matter.

The second lecture is a commentary and critique of the first lecture of a series of
lectures entitled “Political Philosophy” given by Professor Smith of Yale
University. Smith defines political Philosophy in terms of the analysis of what
a regime is and the search for a fully functioning regime.

“It is important to note that although the empirical imagination may imagine an
infinite number of possible regimes, the actual political field does not present us with
an infinite variety of different forms–the field is structured and ordered into a few
regime types. A corollary to this insight is that regime is always a particular structure
and stands in opposition to other regime types. That is, the very structure of politics
entails the possibility of conflict, tension, and war. The regime seems then to need
to be partisan and consequently may need to install loyalties and passions. These
passionate attachments even take place within government structures where
different partners contest for power. Henry Adams claimed that Politics is simply the
organization of hatreds. He did not also say, yet it is true, that Politics is also an
attempt to direct these hatreds and animosities to the common good. One wonders
whether it is possible for such a process to end in friendship, in fellowship? Can we
replace conflict with harmony? This gives rise to a major political theme which is
echoed in the question: “Is it possible to transcend regimes and organize ourselves
around international law and justice?”

The reference to politics and “the organisation of hatreds “ and partisianship of

course reminds one of some American’s views of American Politics. Kant, in
his political writings referred to the possibility of organisation of desire
emerging from the antagonism of man for man but antagonism is not hatred and
Kant in all likelihood was building upon the Aristotelian view of sibling
antagonism which is grounded in Aristotelian friendship/love. Love and hate are
for both philosophers and for Freud as well, separate and antagonistic desires.
The suggestion that one contrary can grow out of another is indeed paradoxical.
A more analytical notion of “regime” emerges in the following part of the
lecture :

“A regime is more than a set of formal structures, institutions. It consists of the

entire way of life of a people: the moral, religious, habitual, customary and
sentimental. The regime constitutes an ethos, a distinctive character that nurtures
distinctive human types. Every regime shapes a character type with distinctive traits
and qualities. So the study of politics is the study of distinctive natural character
types that constitute a citizen body….The regime describes the character and tone
of the society and focuses on what the society finds praiseworthy. One cannot
understand a regime unless one understands what its people praise.”

The above quote ends on an Aristotelain note and the lecture ends on a Platonic
note::

“The good human being will have something philosophical about him/her and may
feel fully at home only in the best regime. But the best regime lacks actuality–it does
not exist! This fact makes it difficult for the philosopher to be a good citizen of any
actual regime. He could only be loyal to what is best. This raises a question of
loyalty and friendship. This tension between the best and the actual makes political
philosophy possible.In the best regime philosophy would be redundant–it would
wither away. This is why it is a potentially disturbing activity–because it may
transform you! The ancients had a word for the political quest and the quest for
knowledge–Eros. The best regime must be driven by Eros. This may be the highest
tribute one can pay to love.”

Freud’s essay “Civilisation and its Discontents” is suggested which takes us

full circle back to hatred and the death instinct, Thanatos.

The third lecture is part three of Aristotle in the Introduction to Philosophy

series. The issues discussed are in the general region of Philosophical
Psychology, in particular the issues of agency and action.

Action and Agency are form-creators for Aristotle because they issue from a form of
life that can build a world around itself. As a rational animal capable of discourse I
go forth in a world of physical events such as a storm at sea. After throwing the
cargo overboard I can but sit and wait for the consequences to play themselves out
on this watery stage. As a rational animal capable of discourse I am of course a form
of life that can act but one whose actions have consequences I cannot control. The
sun was shining and the weather was fine when I embarked on this sea voyage. The
possibility of a storm at sea was a piece of knowledge I had but it was not active at
the time of the choice. I am now trapped in this situation and if I was an ancient
Greek, the “action” of praying to the gods would follow the action of throwing the
cargo overboard. Is it irrational to begin to pray or is prayer an assertion of agency
as such when natural events play with our lives? For Aristotle, the world-creating
forms occur in the media of change(space, time and matter) and they find their
explanation in a theoretical matrix of 4 kinds of change three principles and 4
causes. The material and efficient causes of the storm are forms situated in the
infinite continuum of the media of change: the forms of water(the high seas) the
forms of air(high winds) the forms of fire( the lightning issuing from the heavens) and
the wooden earth-like form of the ship being tossed about and being prepared to
rest finally in peace on the earth at the bottom of the sea. In such a situation can we
talk about praying in terms of rationality? Well, I had the knowledge that this fateful
outcome was a possibility and did not use this knowledge. For Aristotle, this was a
failure of deliberation and therefore of rationality. So all that is left of the definition of
such a being is his animality expressed in his fear and apprehension and his attempt
to communicate via prayer with the “agency” expressed in the storm. For those who
found themselves in such situations and prayed and survived to tell their story, it
might seem as if some divine agent had now a reason to save the souls on the ship.
Aristotle would not have sanctioned such an explanation. He would have pointed to
all those skeletons lying on the floor of the sea-bed, resting, who undoubtedly
prayed and who lost their souls in storms at sea. Aristotle’s theory of action, agency,
and powers would not permit the world of the human to become confused with the
physical forms of the infinite continuum. That is one can rationally say that I should
have considered the possibility of the ruin of my hopes in a storm at sea and ought
not to have decided to board the ship but one cannot rationally say that the Storm
ought not to have sunk the ship and extinguished the life of all the souls on board.
For Aristotle, there is a categorical distinction to be observed here, a logical
boundary that one only crosses on pain of the loss of one’s rationality. This does not
necessarily mean that Aristotle would have thought that it was irrational to pray as
the ship’s mast was broken by the tempestuous winds. Indeed he would have
thought that we are active world creating forms and a structured form of discourse
was, of course, preferable to quivering and weeping or rushing around like the ship’s
dog howling at the wind. We are forms of life embedded in a world of physical forms
and some forms of action are appropriate and some forms of behaviour not: or in
other words, when we are dealing with free voluntary choices there are actions
which ought to be chosen and actions which ought not to be chosen. The ought’s
here are rational and can be formulated in value-laden premises and conclusions
with logical relations to each other, thus forming rational valid arguments for action.
We are clearly exploring the foothills of ethics and morality or as Jonathan Lear so
clearly put it in his work “Aristotle: the desire to understand”, we are exploring the
“Mind in action”.

The lecture continues with a discussion of perception phantasy and memory and
one is reminded of Freudian discussions of the phenomenon of “shell shock”
after the first world war.