Author: Bill Vallicella

It’s the Welfare State, Stupid

When one reads a piece by Robert Samuleson, one feels oneself in the presence of a clear, penetrating, and honest intellect:

By all means, let's avoid the "fiscal cliff": the $500 billion in tax increases and federal spending cuts scheduled for early 2013 that, if they occurred, might trigger a recession. But let's recognize that we still need to bring the budget into long-term balance. This can't be done only by higher taxes on the rich, which seem inevitable. Nor can it be done by deep cuts in defense and domestic "discretionary" programs (from highways to schools), which are already happening. It requires controlling the welfare state. In 2011, "payments for individuals," including health care, constituted 65 percent of federal spending, up from 21 percent in 1955. That's the welfare state.

Compare Samuelson to the  leftist ideologue, Paul Krugman:

It’s not just the fact that the deficit scolds have been wrong about everything so far. Recent events have also demonstrated clearly what was already apparent to careful observers: the deficit-scold movement was never really about the deficit. Instead, it was about using deficit fears to shred the social safety net.

From Samuelson, we learn something.  We get facts, figures, cogent arguments. From Krugman, we get an ad hominem attack.    The fiscal hawks, we are in effect told, are motivated by a dastardly desire to "shred the social safety net," not by any objective economic considerations.  Krugman impugns their motives while ignoring their arguments.

I am not opposed to the impugning of motives in all cases.  It is legitimate to do so when the other side has no arguments or has transparently worthless ones.  In earlier posts I impugned the motives of those who oppose photo ID at polling places, but only after I carefully argued for such ID procedures and refuted the flimsy 'arguments' of the oppostion.   

Go read the two articles in question and decide for yourself who is talking sense.   

Robert Reich on the New American Civil War

Robert Reich bemoans the New American Civil War as he calls it:

I know families in which close relatives are no longer speaking. A dating service says Democrats won’t even consider going out with Republicans, and vice-versa. My email and twitter feeds contain messages from strangers I wouldn’t share with my granddaughter.

What’s going on? Yes, we’re divided over issues like the size of government and whether women should have control over their bodies. But these aren’t exactly new debates. [. . .] And we’ve had bigger disagreements in the past – over the Vietnam War, civil rights, communist witch hunts – that didn’t rip us apart like this.

Part of the reason that there is a 'civil war' is because of people like Reich and their inability to fairly present the issues that divide us. 

He mentions the abortion issue.  It is not about whether women should have control over their bodies.  Of course they should. It is about whether the fetus growing inside a woman is a part of her body in a sense of 'part' that would permit her to dispose of it the way she would dispose of unwanted fat through liposuction.  Reich is not unintelligent: he is capable of understanding the issue.  But he  is intellectually dishonest:  he does not present the issue objectively and fairly.  He distorts it  like the typical leftist ideologue he is.  (See here for my refutation of the 'woman's body' argument.)

He does the very same thing with his talk of "communist witch hunts."  That phrase implies that there was no communist infiltration of the U. S. government.  But that was precisely the question. The phrase he employs is a question-begging epithet.  Why?  Well, there are no witches.  So if you call something a witch hunt then you are implying that it is a hunt for something that doesn't exist.  There is also the implication that the people conducting this search have some ulterior motive such as the desire to suppress all dissent.

The same goes for the phrase 'Red Scare' beloved of the Left.  The phrase implies that there was no threat to our gvernment posed by communists. But again that was the very question, a question that is begged by the use of the phrase 'Red Scare.'   As a matter of fact, it was not a mere scare, but a real threat. So  'Red Threat' is the proper phrase.  After all, we now know that the Rosenbergs were Soviet spies and that Alger Hiss was a communist.

My point is that Reich is not intellectually honest.  He understands the issues but he refuses to present them objectively and fairly.  He is nothing but a leftist ideologue.  And notice the tone of his piece.  It begins with a gratuitous smear against Sarah Palin.

The piece ends with Reich's playing of the race card.  So typical.

So while bemoaning the 'new American civil war,' he fuels it by his own contemptible behavior.

Why We are Headed for a Fiscal Cliff

A short video.  It explains the difference between discretionary and mandatory spending and why not even mandatory spending is covered by tax revenues.  Mandatory spending comprises the entitlements and the interest on the national debt.  A balanced budget is not possible given the way the government is currently structured.  A re-design is needed.  It must begin by a posing of the question: What is the proper role of government?

This philosophical question will  be neither seriously posed by the people in power, nor answered. And so it is is to be expected that we will go off the cliff.  I am talking about the ultimate cliff, not the one coming in early 2013 when  $500 billion in tax increases and federal spending cuts are scheduled to kick in.

So you might think that Romney's loss is of no real consequence.  It just doesn't matter who presides over the collapse.  But if you are headed for a cliff and certain death, would you rather be mounted on a nimble Obama jackass or a plodding Romney elephant?  In the long run we're dead.  But later is better than sooner.  There is more time to prepare.

And there is more time for the owl of Minerva to ascend and survey the passing scene until she too must pass away.

John W. Carlson’s Words of Wisdom: A Philosophical Dictionary for the Perennial Tradition

Dear Bill (if I may), 

I came across your interesting 2009 post on "The Dictionary Fallacy," and I would like to follow up.

I wonder whether you are aware of my recent work, Words of Wisdom: A Philosophical Dictionary for the Perennial Tradition (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012).  Attached are the publisher's notice, plus an interview I did with the blog called "Catholic World Report."  My own thinking about dictionaries — and specifically philosophical dictionaries — can be gathered from the interview, as well as from the Introduction to my volume, which can be accessed as the "Excerpt" highlighted near bottom of p. 1 of the UNDP announcement. 

I would be pleased to see you mention Words of Wisdom on "Maverick Philosopher," and to learn what you think about my project. 

Best wishes from a philosopher who can't seem to get himself to retire,

John W. (Jack) Carlson
Professor of Philosophy
Creighton University
Omaha, Neb. 68142

Dear Professor Carlson,

I am pleased to announce your book on my weblog which, at the moment, is experiencing  traffic of over 2000 page views per day.  So I should be able to snag a few readers for your work.

I read the The Catholic World Report interview and I find myself in complete agreement with much of what you say. For example, I wholly agree with the following:

CWR:  Let’s begin with a Big Picture question: what is the state of philosophy today? I ask because philosophy today seems to be dismissed often by certain self-appointed critics. For example, the physicist (and atheist) Lawrence Krauss, author of A Universe from Nothing, said in an interview with The Atlantic that philosophy no longer has “content,” indeed, that“philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, ‘Those that can’t do, teach, and those that can’t teach, teach gym.’” Why this sort of antagonism toward philosophy?

Dr. Carlson:So Krauss in a single sentence denigrates both philosophy and gymnasium. May we begin by remarking that Plato—who thought highly of both—would not be impressed? 

Your question, of course, is a good one.  A response to it requires noting salient features of Western intellectual culture, as well as key concerns of philosophers in the recent past. Over the last century and a half, our culture has come to be dominated by the natural or empirical sciences and technological advances made possible by their means. It thus is not surprising that there has arisen in various quarters a view that can be characterized as “scientism”—i.e., one according to which all legitimate cognitive pursuits should follow the methods of the modern sciences. Now, somewhat ironically, this view is not itself a scientific one. Rather, it can be recognized as essentially philosophical; that is, it expresses a general account of the nature and limits of human knowledge. But if it indeed is philosophical, we might well ask on what basis scientism is to be recommended.  Does this view adequately reflect the variety of ways in which reality can be known? To say the least, it is not obvious that the answer to this question is “Yes.”

Lawrence Krauss is one of a large number  (along wth Jerry Coyne, Stephen Hawking, et al.) of preternaturally ignorant scientists whose arrogance stands in inverse relation to their ignorance of what is outside their specialties.  They know nothing of philosophy and yet 'pontificate' (if I may be permitted the use of this term in the presence of a Catholic) in a manner most sophomoric.  Their education has been completely lopsided: they have no appreciation of the West and its traditions and so no appreciation of how natural science arose. 

I criticize Krauss's scientistic nonsense in a number of posts showing  him the same sort of contempt that he displays towards his superiors.  These posts can be found here. His book is so bad it takes the breath away.  If you haven't read it, you should, to get a sense of the lack of humanistic culture among too many contemporary scientists. 

What you say about scientism is exactly right.  I have made similar points over the years, but it seems one can never get the points through the thick skulls of the science-idolaters.

I have an entire category devoted to scientism.  My definition of the term is contained in What is Scientism?

So I salute you and your book, and look forward to reading it.

Yours in the love of philosophy,

Bill Vallicella

P. S. Retiring may be like marrying.  Wait too long and you'll never do it.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: ‘End’ Songs

Skeeter Davis, The End of the World

Traveling Wilburys, End of the Line

Floyd Cramer, Last Date. Skeeter Davis' version.

Bob Dylan, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.  Dont' like Dylan's voice? Try Joan Baez's angel-throated version.

Roy Orbison, It's Over

Beatles, The End

George Harrison, All Things Must Pass

Bob Dylan, Not Dark Yet (but It's Getting There). 

The Doors, The End.  "The West is the best."

Bonus tracks:

Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.  This'll grow on you if you give it a chance.

This one goes out to General Petraeus:  Bob Seger, The Fire Down Below.  In its grip, they'll throw it all away.

Stanislav Sousedik’s “Towards a Thomistic Theory of Predication”

Enough of politics, back to some hard-core technical philosophy.  If nothing else, the latter offers exquisite escapist pleasures not unlike those of chess. Of course I don't believe that technical philosophy is escapist; my point is a conditional one: if it is, its pleasures suffice to justify it as a form of recuperation from  this all-too-oppressive world of 'reality.'  It's what I call a 'fall-back position.'

I have been commissioned to review the collection of which the above-captioned article is a part.  The collection is entitled Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic (Ontos Verlag 2012) and includes contributions by Peter van Inwagen, Michael Loux, E. J. Lowe, and several others.  My review article will address such topics as predication, truth-makers, bare particulars, and the advantages and liabilities of constituent ontology.  I plan a series of posts in which I dig deep into some of the articles in this impressive collection.

Stanislav Sousedik argues for an "identity theory of predication" according to which a predicative sentence such as 'Peter is a man' expresses an identity of some sort between the referent of the subject 'Peter' and the referent of the predicate 'man.'  Now to someone schooled in modern predicate logic (MPL) such an identity  theory will appear wrongheaded from the outset.  For we learned at Uncle Gottlob's knee to distinguish between the 'is' of identity ('Peter is Peter') and the 'is' of predication ('Peter is a man').

But let's give the Thomist theory a chance.  Sousedik, who is well aware of Frege's distinction, presents an argument for the identity in some sense of subject and predicate.  He begins by making the point that in the declarative 'Peter is a man' and the vocative 'Peter, come here!' the individual spoken about is (or can be) the same as the individual addressed.  But common terms such as 'man' can also be used to address a person.  Instead of saying,  'Peter, come here!' one can say 'Man, come here!'  And so we get an argument that I will put as follows:

1. Both 'Peter' and 'man' can be used to refer to the same individual. Therefore

2. A common term can be used to refer to an individual.  But

3. Common terms also refer to traits of individuals.  Therefore

4. The traits must be identical in some sense to the individuals.  E.g., the referent of 'Peter' must be in some sense identical to the referent of 'man.'

But in what sense are they identical?  Where Frege distinguishes between predication and identity, Sousedik distinguishes between weak and strong identity. 'Peter is Peter' expresses strong identity while 'Peter is a man' expresses weak identity.  "Strong identity is reflexive, symmetric, and transitive, weak identity has none of these formal properties." (254)  It thus appears that strong identity is the same as what modern analytic philosophers call (numerical) identity.  It is clear that 'Peter is a man' cannot be taken to express strong identity. But what is weak identity?

S. is a constituent ontologist.  He holds that ordinary substances such as Peter have what he calls "metaphysical parts."  Whereas Peter's left leg is a physical part of him, his traits are metaphysical parts of him.  Thus the referents of the common terms 'man,' 'animal,' living thing,' etc. are all metaphysical parts of Peter.  Clearly, these are different traits of Peter.  But are they really distinct in Peter?  S. says that they are not: they are really identical in Peter and only "virtually distinct" in him.  The phrase is defined as follows.

(Def. 1)  Between x, y there is a virtual  distinction iff (i) x, y are really identical; (ii) x can become an object of some cognitive act Φ without y being the object  of the same act Φ . . . . (251)

For example, humanity and animality in Peter are really identical but virtually distinct in that humanity can be the intentional object of a cognitive act without animality being the object of the same act.  I can focus my mental glance so to speak on Peter's humanity while leaving out of consideration his animality even though he is essentially both a man and an animal and even though animality is included within humanity. 

The idea, then, is that Peter has metaphysical parts (MPs) and that these items are really identical in Peter but virtually distinct, where the virtual distinctness of any two MPs is tied to the possibility of one of them being the object of a cognitive act without the other being the object of the same act.

Is S. suggesting that virtual distinctness is wholly mind generated?   I don't think so.  For he speaks of a potential distinction of MPs in concrete reality, a distinction that becomes actual when the understanding grasps them as distinct.  (253) And so I take the possibility mentioned in clause (ii) of the above definition to be grounded not only in the mind's power to objectify and abstract but also in a real potentiality in the MPs in substances like Peter.

One might be tempted to think of weak identity as a part-whole relation.  Thus one might be tempted to say that 'Peter' refers to Peter and 'man' to a property taken in the abstract that is predicable not only of Peter but of other human beings as well.  'Peter is a man' would then say that this abstract property is a metaphysical part of Peter.  But this is not Sousedik's or any Thomist's view.  For S. is committed to the idea that "Every empirical individual and every part or trait of it is particular." (251)  It follows that no metaphysical part of any concrete individual is a universal.  Hence no MP is an abstract property.  So weak identity is not a part-whole relation.

What is it then?

First of all, weak identity is a relation that connects a concrete individual such as Peter to a property taken abstractly.  But in what sense is Peter identical to humanity taken abstractly?   In this sense:  the humanity-in-Peter and the humanity-in-the-mind have a common constituent, namely, humanity taken absolutely as common nature or natura absoluta or natura secundum se.  (254)  What makes weak identity identity is the common constituent shared by the really existing humanity in Peter and the intentionally existing  humanity in the mind of a person who judges that Peter is human.

So if we ask in what sense the referent of 'Peter' is identical to the referent of 'man,' the answer is that they are identical in virtue of the fact that Peter has a proper metaphysical part that shares a constituent with the objective concept referred to by 'man.'  Sousedik calls this common constituent the "absolute subject."  In our example, it is human nature taken absolutely in abstraction from its real existence in Peter and from its merely intentional existence in the mind.

Critical Observations

I am deeply sympathetic to Sousedik's constituent-ontological approach, his view that existence is a first-level 'property,' and the related view that there are modes of existence. (253)  But one of the difficulties I  have with S.'s  identity theory of predication is that it relies on common natures, and I find it difficult to make sense of them as I already spelled out in a previous post.    Common natures are neither one nor many, neither universal nor particular.  Humanity is many in things but one in the mind.  Hence taken absolutely it is neither one nor many.  It is this absolute feature that allows it be the common constituent in humanity-in-Peter and humanity-in-the-mind.  And as we just saw, without this common constituent there can be no talk of an identity between Peter and humanity.  The (weak) identity 'rides on' the common constituent, the natura absoluta.  Likewise, humanity is particular in particular human beings but universal in the mind (and only in the mind).  Hence taken absolutely it is neither particular nor universal. 

But it also follows that the common nature is, in itself and taken absolutely, neither really existent nor intentionally existent.  It enjoys neither esse naturale (esse reale) nor esse intentionale.  Consequently it has no being (existence) at all. This is not to say that it is nonexistent.  It is to say that it is jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein to borrow a phrase from Alexius von Meinong, "beyond being and nonbeing." 

The difficulty is to understand how there could be a plurality of distinct items that are neither universal nor particular, neither one nor many, neither existent nor nonexistent.  Note that there has to be a plurality of them: humanity taken absolutely is distinct from animality taken absolutely, etc.  And what is the nature of this distinctness?  It cannot be mind-generated.  This is because common natures are logically and ontologically prior to mind and matter as that which mediates between them. They are not virtually distinct.  Are they then really distinct?  That can't be right either since they lack esse reale.

And how can these common or absolute natures fail to be, each of them, one, as opposed to neither one nor many?  The theory posits a plurality of items distinct among themselves.  But if each is an item, then each is one.  An item that is neither one nor many is no item at all.

There is also this consideration.  Why are common natures more acceptable than really existent universals as constituents of ordinary particulars such as Peter?    The Thomists allow universals only if they have merely intentional existence, existence 'in' or rather for a mind.  "Intentional existence belongs to entities which exist only in dependence upon the fact that they are objects of our understanding." (253)  They insist that, as S. puts it,  "Every empirical individual and every part or trait of it is particular." (251)  S. calls the latter an observation, but it is not really a datum, but a bit of theory.  It is a datum that 'man' is predicable of many different individuals.  And it is a datum that Peter is the subject of plenty of essential predicates other than 'man.'  But it is not a clear datum that Peter is particular 'all the way through.'  That smacks of a theory or a proto-theory, not that it is not eminently reasonable.

One might 'assay' (to use G. Bergmann's term) an ordinary particular as a complex consisting of a thin or 'bare'  particular instantiating universals.  This has its own difficulties, of course, but why should a theory that posits common natures be preferrable to one that doesn't but posits really existent universals instead?  Either way problems will arise.

The main problem in a nutshell is that it is incoherent to maintain that some items are such that they have no being whatsoever.  'Some items are such that they have no being whatsoever' is not a formal-logical contradiction, pace van Inwagen, but it is incoherent nonetheless.  Or so it seems to me. 

Long-Time MavPhil Commenter, Robert V. Koepp, Passes Away at 60

I was saddened to hear from Malcolm Pollack just now that Bob Koepp, who commented extensively at both our sites, died on 29 February of this year.  Ever the gentleman, Bob contributed to the discussions at the old Powerblogs site and here at the Typepad incarnation of MavPhil.  He had an M. A. in philosophy and studied under Wilfrid Sellars.  He was such a mild-mannered  man that I sometimes wondered if my more acerbic asseverations offended him.  His comments are here.  Bob will be remembered.  My condolences to his family and friends.  As the obituary below says,  for Bob, "the questions mattered more than the answers."  He exemplified the philosophical spirit.

On a lighter note, I once made mention of Maynard G. Krebs, the Bob Denver beatnik character from the 1959-1963 sitcom, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  Koepp remarked  that back then he thought Krebs the quintessence of cool. 


Koepp, BobKoepp, Robert V. Our beloved Bob, age 60, of St. Paul, passed away on February 29. He was diagnosed just three months earlier with lung cancer, which he faced with admirable strength, caring above all for the comfort of those he loved. He is mourned by mother Helen (Rohe) Koepp of Hutchinson, siblings Reinhard of Tarpon Springs, FL; Ken (Jan) of Hot Springs Village, AR; Karen of Minneapolis; Marla (Bob) Lichtsinn of Fountain Valley, CA; Vern (Cindy) of Rush City; Irene (Dave) Schwartz of Litchfield; Marty of Minneapolis; Aaron (Laury) of Fort Collins, CO; Esther of Eagan; and Joanne (Randy) Fischer of Wausau, WI, as well as other dear relatives and friends. He was predeceased by father Reinhard W. Koepp and grandparents Herman and Augusta Koepp and Walter and Anna Rohe.

Bob, whose abiding wish was for racial equality, believed deeply in loving God and your neighbor. He grew up in Brownton, was a lifelong student of philosophy of science, ethics and bioethics (Gustavus, U Pitt, U of M), and coordinated oncology research at Children's Hospital, Minneapolis. Bob also loved nature and fishing, helping family members with jobs and projects of all kinds, especially woodworking, and music, especially Bach. He was astoundingly bright, and for him, in life or in energetic dialogue, the questions mattered more than the answers. He was selfless, generous and exemplary in so many ways, and he will be dearly missed. A memorial gathering is being planned. Remember him by supporting racial equality or nature organizations, or by doing a random act of kindness.

                                                Published in Star Tribune on March 4, 2012

A Reader Wants an Introduction to Philosophy

M. T. writes,

I've followed your blog for a few months now.  I feel compelled to say thank you for the content of your posts.  They are usually trenchant, always interesting, and occasionally they lead me to delve into topics and categories that I have never explored previously.

Some background: I'm an Arabic linguist for the Navy.  I currently live in Georgia, but was born and reared in Florida.  I pretty much agree with everything you've said on political topics.

A question for you: I didn't study philosophy, but am extremely well read in history and politics (particularly ancient history).  You obviously were a academician, but if I wanted to get grounded in the current state of philosophy, where do I start?  The field is so vast, so opaque and confusing.  Am I better off just reading Plato and perhaps William James?

Again, thank you for a wonderful blog.  I always try to learn something new every day, and your writing makes it easier for me to accomplish that task.

I of course appreciate the kind words, and the regular arrival of letters like this in my mail box is emolument aplenty for my pro bono efforts.

First of all, I wouldn't worry too much about the current state of philosophy because much that is current is ephemeral and even foolish.  I would concern myself more with an introduction to the perennial problems of philosophy.  To understand the sometimes strange things that philosophers say one  must first understand the questions that perplexed them and the problems they were trying to solve.  With that in mind I recommend two short well-written books, the first from 1912 and the second from 1987:  Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy; Thomas Nagel, What Does It All Mean?  I commend the following advice to you from p. 4 of Nagel's book:

The center of philosophy lies in certain questions which the reflective human mind finds naturally puzzling, and the best way to begin the study of philosophy is to think about them directly.  Once you've done that, you are in a better position to apprecdiate the work of others who have tried to solve the same problems.

Sage advice.  There is no point in studying philosophy unless there are some questions that 'bug' you and to which you want and need answers. Think about them directly, and try to answer them for yourself.  Then test your answers against the answers more experienced thinkers have proposed.

For example, suppose you are interested in the question of the freedom of the will.  Formulated as a problem, it is the problem of reconciling the freedom of the will presupposed by ascriptions of moral responsibility with the apparent determinism of the natural world of which the agent is a part.  So you think about it. You don't get very far on your own, so you seek help.  You turn to Schopenhauer's magisterial On the Freedom of the Will for orientation.  You get that and more: data, distinctions, the history of the problem and the various solutions, and Schopenhauer's own solution.  And so it goes.

The ComBox is open in case anyone wants to suggest titles for my reader. 

Kevin Kim on the Mourning of the Morning After

Kevin Kim has been following me since late 2003 before I was a proper blogger commencing 4 May 2004 and only a mere slogger (slow blogger without the proper software: I'd upload batches of short posts to a website that I have long since taken down).

In his Conservatives Mourn, Kevin links to me, Malcolm Pollack, and Bill Keezer, and then asks:

Come on, gents– surely you saw this coming?

Well, I didn't for a second think that there would be a landslide in favor of Romney, and I was puzzled by the cocksure pronunciamentos of Dick Morris and others who made up for their lack of crystal balls by displaying their brass balls.  But no, I didn't think the Obama win was inevitable, especially after his miserable showing in the first debate.  I thought Romney had a good chance of winning given all the objective considerations that condemn Obama, the litany of which I will not again recite.  If I was naive, it was because I foolishly underestimated the foolishness of the electorate and how it has been dumbed-down and stupefied by the flim-flam man and his empty rhetoric and outright lies and promises of all sorts of goodies that he is going to get the rich bastards to pay for.

Bill Keezer, whom I have met in the flesh a couple of times and who truly deserves (as does Pollack) the epithet 'gentleman,' speaks in his post of civil war:

If you go back through my blogs for the past few months, you will see the prediction of a coming civil war.  The differences in the red vs. the blue states is now so fundamental, that I think civil war is quite possible.  I also think the red states will win, hands down.  They still have the values that make for effective soldiering.   Imagine street gangs against disciplined, seasoned fighters.  There will be no contest, and if the red states take mercy on the blue, woe to both.  It is time for justice.  (A concern of the last couple of blog posts, which is not moot.)

God help us if Bill is right and the present war of words and votes ramps up into a shooting war. Leftists need to be careful.  If push comes to shove, and shove to shoot, the Red Staters will clean your clock.    After all, they have the guns.

How can we avoid tearing ourselves apart?  My recommendation is a return to federalism.  But of course the Left, which is totalitarian from the ground up, won't allow that.  And so we may be in for some 'excitement.'

Addenda:

1. Obama wins, gun stocks soar.

2. Ed Feser joins the mourning and adds some recrimination in his meaty post, Chief Justice Ockham.  Be sure to follow the internal "Razor Boy" link.

3. Malcolm Pollack points us to a couple posts of his more substantial than the one linked to above. Here and here. 

Bread, Circuses, and Decline

This from an English reader commenting on my owl of Minerva post:

America's fondness for bread and circuses is by no means singular and all may be well for a while, as Theodore Dalrymple observed, at least as long as the bread holds out. Yet the twilight quickly becomes darkness and after the owl of Minerva takes off, what then? Some sort of apocalypse seems overdue – but I rather feebly hope not in my lifetime.

Philosophers, for the time being, have their consolations; but when the multitude howls for 'bread' and at the same time burns down the bakeries, for how long will gentlemen and scholars be permitted the peace and quiet in which to enjoy their books, music, and speculations? 

I'm glad that I'm on my way out rather than on my way in because the decline of American civilization will affect the whole world.

Best Wishes from one depressed. . . .

A genuine apocalypse, that is, a revelation ab extra of a Meaning hitherto hidden and inaccessible to us, might be a good thing.  Nur ein Gott kann uns retten, said Martin Heidegger in his Spiegel interview near the end of his life.  But I fear all we will get is a descent into brutality and chaos.  There is, I agree, consolation for the old: I am very happy to be 62 rather than 26.  One can hope to be dead before it all comes apart.  Fortunately or unfortunately, I am in the habit of taking care of myself and could be facing another 25 years entangled in the mortal coil.  When barbarism descends this will be no country for old men. 

In the earlier entry I wasn't reflecting on the possibility of the utter collapse of the U.S. but on the more likely possibility of decline to the level of a European welfare state whose citizens come increasingly to resemble Nietzsche's Last Men.

I fully agree that Minervic flights and the consolations of philosophy cannot be enjoyed when the barbarians are at the gates of one's stoa.  The owl of Minerva is a tough old bird, but no phoenix capable of  rising from its ashes.

I myself have argued more than once in these pages that conservatives, especially those of them given to contemplative pursuits,  need to make their peace with activism in order to secure and defend the spaces of their quietism.  

Libertarians are the Ralph Naders of the Conservative Side

I just heard Dennis Prager say that on his radio show.  Exactly right.  The point is to do good, not feel good about yourself by making some meaningless, ineffectual, narcissistic, self-congratulatory, adolescent 'statement.'  It is a futile gesture to 'stand on principle' and 'vote your conscience' when the candidate representing your principles is unelectable.  Politics is not about theoretical purity but about practical efficacy.

I would add to Prager's thought that, even if libertarian ideas were better than conservative ideas — and they are not inasmuch as what is good in libertarianism is already included in conservatism – it would remain foolish to vote for libertarians.  It would be a case of letting the better and the best become the enemy of the good.  If you vote for the unelectable candidate with better ideas  over the electable candidate with good ideas, then you have done something manifestly foolish.

There is another side to this argument, however.  The following is from Andrew P. Napolitano, a man I respect:

Can one morally vote for the lesser of two evils? In a word, no. A basic  principle of Judeo-Christian teaching and of the natural law to which the  country was married by the Declaration of Independence is that one may not  knowingly do evil that good may come of it. So, what should a libertarian  do?

If you recognize as I do that the Bush and Obama years have been horrendous  for personal freedom, for the soundness of money and for fidelity to the  Constitution, you can vote for former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. He is on the  ballot in 48 states. He is a principled libertarian on civil liberties, on  money, on war and on fidelity to the Constitution. But he is not going to be  elected.

So, is a vote for Johnson or no vote at all wasted? I reject the idea that a  principled vote is wasted. Your vote is yours, and so long as your vote is  consistent with your conscience, it is impossible to waste your vote.

On the other hand, even a small step toward the free market and away from the  Obama years of central economic planning would be at least a small improvement  for every American’s freedom. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single  step. That is Romney’s best argument. I suspect it will carry the day next  Tuesday.

I am afraid the good judge does not understand the phrase 'lesser of two evils' in this context.  It does not imply that the candidates are evil, but that, while both are imperfect, the one is better than the other.  Both Romney and Obama are highly imperfect.  In an ideal world, the choice would not be between them. (Indeed, in an ideal world there would be no need for government at all, and no need to choose any candidates for any offices.)  But one candidate (Romney) is less imperfect than the other.  In this sense, Romney is the lesser of two evils, i.e., the least imperfect of two imperfect candidates. 

But this sense is consistent with the principle that one may not knowingly do evil that good come of it.

Napolitano claims that it is impossible to waste one's vote as long as one votes one's conscience.  But this ignores the point I have repeatedly made, namely, that voting and politics generally is a practical business: it is about accomplishing something concrete in the world as it actually is.  It is about doing good, not feeling good about yourself.  Once that is understood, it is crystal clear that to vote for an unelectable candidate is to waste one's vote.

This is especially obvious when Republicans lose to Democrats because Libertarians voted for unelectable Libertarians instead of electable Republicans.  There were a couple of cases like that in yesterday's election.  Such Libertarians not only wasted their votes, they positively made things worse.

The Owl of Minerva Spreads its Wings at Dusk

Obama won, conservatism lost, and a tipping point has been reached in America's decline. Our descent into twilight and beyond is probably now irreversible.  The economy is bad, the opposition fought hard and well, and the incompetent leftist won anyway.  Why? The Left promises panem and the culture's circenses have kept the masses distracted from higher concerns and real thought.  That's the answer in a sentence.

Should any of this trouble the philosopher? Before he is a citizen, the philosopher is a "spectator of all time and existence" in a marvellous phrase that comes down to us from Plato's Republic (486a).  The rise and fall of great nations is just more grist for the philosopher's mill.  His true homeland is nothing so paltry as a particular nation, even one as exceptional as the USA, and his fate as a truth-seeker cannot be tied to its fate.  Like the heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly Athens is not bound to a geographical location.

National decline is not just grist for the philosopher's mill, however, it is also perhaps a condition of understanding as Hegel suggests in the penultimate paragraph of the preface to  The Philosophy of Right:

When philosophy paints its grey on grey, then has a shape of life grown old.  By philosophy's grey on grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood.  The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only at the falling of the dusk.

Daughter of Jupiter, Minerva in the mythology of the Greeks is the goddess of wisdom.  And the nocturnal owl is one of its ancient symbols.  The meaning of the Hegelian trope is that understanding, insight, wisdom  arise when the object to be understood has played itself out, when it has actualized and thus exhausted its potentialities, and now faces only decline.

When a shape of life has grown old, philosophy paints its grey on grey.  The allusion is to Goethe's Faust wherein Mephisto says

Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie,
Und grün des Lebens goldner Baum.

Grey, dear friend, is all theory
And green the golden tree of life.

Philosophy is grey, a "bloodless ballet of categories" (F. H. Bradley) and its object is grey — no longer green and full of life.  And so philosophy paints its grey concepts on the grey object, in this case America on the wane.   The object must be either dead or moribund before it can be fully understood.  Hegel in his famous saying re-animates and gives a new meaning to the Platonic "To philosophize is to learn how to die."

In these waning days of a great republic, the owl of Minerva takes flight.  What we lose in vitality we gain in wisdom.

The consolations of philosophy are many.

My Campaign Sign

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Subtle, eh?  I thought of placing two such chairs side by side, the second to signify the vacuity of the benighted and mendacious Joe Biden, but then I thought that might confuse people.

Did you vote?  Of course, I don't want any of you liberal knuckleheads to vote thereby canceling out the thoughtful votes of conservatives, but I do defend your right to vote.

Is voting a civic duty?  Think of it this way.  You have benefited all your life from the rule of law and from living and flourishing in a relatively well-ordered society.  And you don't feel any obligation to do your bit to preserve and protect that order?

Does it matter whether you vote?  Well, does it matter who the sheriff of your county is, or which judges are retained?