Hi Matt,
On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 1:38 PM, Matt Kundert
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Mark,
>
> Mark said:
> When a quasi-scientific discipline such as psychology is used to
> describe philosophy, I find it to be somewhat misleading and perhaps
> derogatory. Science does not analyze concepts, it applies concepts.
> Psychology is being "applied" to philosophy so as to modify it towards
> psychological ends. The governence of psychology thus stands over
> philosophy. This, I know is not your perspective, but I see this
> tendency in some of these posts.
>
> Matt:
> There's a slide going on in what is meant by "psychology" between
> the way I (and Dave) was using it and the way you typically used it.
> In the above, you're talking about psychology as a discipline. Dave
> and I were talking about the makeup of a person's mind, "my
> psychology" or "our psychology," which is closer to your use of
> "psyche." I don't see Dave as "applying" psychology, the discipline,
> to philosophy. He's rather interested in something we might just
> call "philosophical psychology," or in deference to your reversals in
> your reply to Dave, "psychological philosophy." It doesn't matter,
> because I don't think Dave is being reductionistic (or at least he
> doesn't want to be). Whatever philosophical psychology is, it is
> currently an un-discipline: there's no research program for the kind
> of humanistic study that goes into the study of the problems that
> Dave was talking about. One could draw quite easily from Plato,
> Augustine, Cervantes, Hume, Hawthorne, Nietzsche, Freud, Henry
> James, William James, John Austin, Vladimir Nabokov, Wittgenstein,
> D.W. Winnicott, Ralph Ellison, E. R. Doods, Bernard Williams, Don
> DeLillo, Owen Flanagan, and Kwame Anthony Appiah.
Yes, perhaps I am taking the term psychology too literally. However,
modern psychology claims that our feelings are simply a result of the
environment, or our DNA. It is this reductionist notion from
psychology that is detrimental to MoQ in my opinion. It takes
determinism into the subjective.
As I stated in my post to dmb, I was not picking on him, I was using
his post as an example. I forget exactly what he said (and I couldn't
find it, so maybe I made it up) but is was something to the effect
that our philosophy is rooted in our psychology. This is saying that
science or reason can explain why we do science and reason. When I
hear psychological terms bandied about, I become concerned. That is,
when "such and such" explains why we do things or feel certain ways.
Physical psychology trends in this direction too. This cause-effect
analysis can produce nasty effects, like frontal lobotomy. Depending
on how we are philosophizing we can choose from a wide variety of
causes and their effects. In this way, philosophy determines our
attitude towards psychology as taught. This also ties in with what
Pirsig was speaking of in Lila concerning the "insane" which he
claimed both Phaedrus and Lila suffered from. This "club of
psychology" sent him to a hospital when he should have been sent to a
Zen temple, and Indian reserve or some place that had an understanding
of his condition (all my naive opinion of course).
A comment to you list of names. There is a difference between drawing
from all these men, and finding that what they profess is resonates
with what you feel. If something written by these people resonates
with you, it is not because you are being unduly influenced by these
writers, it is because what they say is in harmony with you at that
particular time and place. Nobody can dictate the reality of things,
they can only share their reality. If it sounds good to you, it is
because you are in the right place. If it is a round peg which fits
your round hole, then that is good. If it happens to be square, then
it is nonsense as far as you are concerned, until perhaps you get
there.
>
> What is this study? Hard to say, but if you accept the proposition that
> philosophy is a human response to life, then you will be concerned
> about the state of the mind when it responded in a particular fashion.
> That doesn't mean the "particular fashion" (e.g., "philosophy") can be
> _reduced_ to the "state of the mind." But pragmatists were really big
> on emphasizing the continuity of philosophy to other tools humanity
> had constructed to help itself deal with reality (like fire, airplanes, or
> science). And because of that it verged into uncharted territories
> about what certain kinds of beliefs do for us, in all kinds of facets of
> "do for us."
Well, I do not accept that proposition as written. For it is
incorrect to separate philosophy from life. I would prefer to say
that philosophy is one aspect of life. The term "a state of mind" if
used as a term for reduction is on the road to modern psychology. If
we are reducing philosophy to the sum total of what has happened
before, then this is an oversimplification. For, as the "before" was
happening we were in a process of evaluation of that happening; I do
not believe that our way of thinking can be simplified in that way.
It is like saying that the mind is a machine and stuff goes in then
comes out depending on how the gears are oiled. But to deal with the
broader context of your paragraph, it is hard to differentiate between
"dealing with our reality", and "creating our reality". But, yes, so
long as we see all these things as tools that we can take or leave,
then perhaps we have a modicum of freedom. However, after fourteen
years (to start) of education, how much freedom do we really have. We
are taught how to march; how then can we dance?
>
> Does this mean that psychology "governs" philosophy? I don't think
> so. If you could reduce propositions to psychological states, then
> there could be that possibility. But as I see the issue, even if a
> proper research program could be pulled together from the currently
> haphazard state of this nebulous thing I've dubbed "philosophical
> psychology," that still doesn't mean it would be master over anything.
> It would just describe the interface between, as Steve put it, truth
> and passion.
Again, it is the intrusion of a quasi-science into the realm of the
subjective that I find inappropriate. For, by making the subjective
objective we create a reality which leaves out the self. These times
present much credence into science, to the point that we believe what
the "great scientists" say just because they say it. ("Why, Yes, he
smokes a cigar because it looks like a penis, that makes perfect sense
to me, because obviously everything revolves around sex, because that
is how evolution works, because that is what the books say which are
accepted by everyone as the real deal since they are so logical and
have So much evidence to support this explanation of cigar smoking.
That must be why they castrated him, so he wouldn't burden the
hospitals as a cancer patient").
As I see it, the discipline of psychology as it stands has little to
do with philosophy. It is trying to use equations to predict one's
reaction to a sunset. People then read these equations, and then the
prediction comes true because people believed what they read and
reacted to the sunset in that predictable fashion. All of these
psychological presentations of reality become self-fulfilling. We then
live in a sterile world waiting to find out how we are going to feel.
OK, now I am sounding like George Orwell, but we are way past 1984.
What ever happened to experiencing reality without having to read how
to do it.
>
> Did the invention of a discipline called "psychology" alter our
> psychology? Absolutely. I think you are right when you say that.
> Working out just how this can be right is difficult, but it's a Hegelian
> idea that I endorse. As we better understand ourselves, it is difficult
> to retrospectively deduce whether we altered ourselves because we
> better understand, or better understand because we altered. I'm
> not sure it matters.
I do not believe that psychology has anything to do with understanding
ourselves. Again, I am using the term as it is taught in
universities. Yes, psychology is creating our understanding of
ourselves because it is in vogue and we read about it in books. Is
there really a "science" behind understanding oneself? Did people not
understand themselves in the past? Are we now so much better at
understanding ourselves? Or are we just going along with the head
trip?
Yes, I much prefer the term psyche to psychology. This leaves it wide
open to finding your own way.
Cheers,
Mark
>
> Matt
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org/md/archives.html
