Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category
Universities no longer matter
We just had a pretty intense Committee Lunch with a lot of issues to discuss. One of these was the Comprehensive Spending Review out today. The President pointed out that as we sat there, the Chancellor was speaking to Parliament to outline how much the different parts of government and the state in general are to be cut, and that as we spoke people were madly charging around the College offices trying to figure out what is going to happen. The Master wants to have a College Congregation, which is a meeting of everyone from the senior fellows to the lowliest first year chemistry student, at which we could mandate the Master to tell the University that we disagree with the Tory plans, because at the moment the Vice-Chancellor agrees with the most vicious readings of the Browne review; such a meeting hasn’t happened for six years. Our OUSU firebrands want us to take the conclusions of this meeting to the union so that we can push the case on two fronts.
It feels pretty hopeless though. Supposedly it was leaked that the budget will go from £11bn to £5.6bn for higher education. This is completely insane, of course. But what else could we possibly expect from Con-Dem?
It was quite humbling to sit there in that room discussing something as big as this as it was happening. World War II was obviously completely different in scale and nature but I imagine the radio announcement from Churchill had a similar air to it. We all knew this was coming, we all knew it was going to be terrible, and somehow it all mixes up into something I can best describe as despair.
Thinking the Unthinkable, part 2: examination as the good
This post is part of a series, meant to be read from the beginning. Go to the first post.
The only real element of the philosophical system I aim to set out that was present in my last post was the claim that the timeless edict
The unexamined life is not worth living.
—Socrates in Plato’s Apology
forms the axiomatic basis of my system of ethics. In this post, I hope to say what I really mean by this loose claim, and also give a little argumentation for it; why I am led to choose it above other similar starting points.
On its own, the sentence isn’t very helpful. What is the unexamined life; where on the scale between the extremes of a fifty year orgy and a fifty year meditation or degree course does it lie? By what standard, necessarily (we might think) external to life are we to judge whether or not something is worth living? The statement is informal and to worry about this misses the point. What I really mean is that my starting point is the belief that a careful, rigorous consideration of everything that we come across in our mind and outside it (if such a place exists; it is irrelevant for we certainly have a mental model of it) is worthwhile. I assume for now that it is the only thing that is truly worthwhile, to avoid adding axioms to my system, but as I go on it will surely be questionable whether I really have avoided drawing on anything else.
But my language remains loose as to the nature of this examination, the word I will use to refer to this assumed good. I am stuck, as we all are, in the context of the society I live in, and what it sees as thoughtful examination. For purposes that will become clear in the political parts of this series, I shall attempt to give a minimalist account of examination, and what I mean by it. The full view of what it is will likely emerge as we go further. Examination, then, is for me very philosophical in nature, taking that term in the informal sense that may be used with derision against philosophers in the modern world: it’s about questions and an understanding of those questions, not about asking questions and then seeking out answers to them. In my next post I will talk about the scepticism which leads me to this statement, but for now just consider the two things, side by side: a deep understanding of a question and how it relates to other questions and everything else that we come across, and an answer, which I take to be a statement that removes the uncertainty of a question and fills the gap that it leaves.
It is obvious that the latter is almost entirely useless without the former. An answer will not be accepted by anyone in a thoughtful state of mind until they have at least a rudimentary understanding of the question that led to it. So we are certainly to have the former if we are to have either. But as I will argue in my next piece, when one has a decent level of understanding of the significance, ramifications and nature of a question one will quickly realise that any answer that might be a genuine addition to the thoughts one already has is entirely out of reach.
In setting this out I have used the word “axiom” without any definition, and it has been clear that the definition used in mathematical and philosophical logic isn’t what I intend. A better way of describing my intent might be to say that I am treating this belief that I have tried to expound as self-evident, that I am treating it as if it contains everything it needs to justify itself within itself, in the same way that we see the phrase “a bachelor is an unmarried man” as being true.
I will close by attempting to describe the reasons which lead me to this axiom rather than others, to set this project in its context. On the assumption that working from single starting points makes sense, there are many I could have chosen: religious, utilitarian and scientific (where science is taken to mean the optimistic view held widely today that it can discover the nature of the universe, rather than what it might sensibly be taken to mean) spring to mind. I am biased, no doubt, by my good experiences of studying Philosophy and thus my axiom might be summarised as “Philosophy is good”, but in doing so we would strip away subtleties that I would rather keep around.
I do have, though, one reason that I will boldly claim as being a strong one: the advantage of examination is that it is capable of self-replacement. If it turns out that we are able to find that we should base our lives on something else, and in some way not known to me we are able to secure certainty and infallibility for ourselves on this point, then we will have found it through examination and examination will yield to it: we will have examined our lives and come to a different conclusion because our scepticism and thirst to examine will have driven us to pursue all possibilities. Examination is capable of being an axiom yet not being absolute. This lies in stark contrast to many other starting points; I will not be to crude as to exhibit “examination is bad” but instead briefly, and bravely, knowing my readership’s knowledge of my views, consider “seek happiness”. In following this, we will only perform examination as a means to an end, and chances are in gaining happiness for ourselves (or our society, depending on the formulation), and if another axiom is in fact that right one, our chances of finding it are either reduced or entirely destroyed.
I take the rigorous, “philosophical” examination of everything that we come across to be the basic good that we should pursue. The reason that leads my mind to this starting point rather than any other is the way in which examination is capable of finding out other starting points that may be improvements on this one if they do exist, and of yielding to them. But this is just my attempt to describe why my mind has got where it is. The important thing to take away from this post is that I am treating examination, as elucidated here, as self-evident, and I am basing the rest of this project upon it.
Thinking the Unthinkable, part 1: Introduction
In mid-2009 a group of Balliol students discovered the website seanwhitton.com, and proceeded to poke fun at the banality of its statements regarding the ultimate worth of (what I conceived to be) Philosophy; particularly, issue was taken with Socrates’ timeless edict that
The unexamined life is not worth living.
—Socrates in Plato’s Apology
In the proceeding months I have realised that a great deal of what I claim in moral, political and academic contexts can be traced back to a strong belief in the truth of Socrates’ claim; indeed, I have an almost axiomatic respect for it. My aim in this series of posts is to put together all the claims that I make that seem to me to stem from this, in an attempt to figure out just where I am coherent, and precisely where a great deal more enquiry is needed: where the strengths and weaknesses of my thought lie. This is my promised essay that I have deferred to in discussions for months.
In characterising this as a work of Philosophy, I am aware that I invite the ire of many modern academic practitioners of this, the greatest of all mental pursuits, in that I would seem to be merely setting out a system of belief for my own reasons, rather than attempting serious analysis or dialectic. But this is one of the great issues I have with the philosophers I find in Oxford. Philosophy is merely the thoughtful, reasoned and – crucially – rigorous pursuit of understanding of the deepest questions we are capable of asking. For me, what I am asking here are the deepest questions I have yet to come across.
I write this now as an undergraduate who has yet to properly engage with the analytical Philosophy of my course. As is the nature of different levels and ways of thinking, it is likely that my future self and others who I pass this to will see this as immature and underdeveloped. But every piece of writing has its context, and all I ask is that this be considered in that of my mind, which has only too recently been opened up to the weaknesses in our common modes of thought, and desires little more than consistency, and that which I intend to set out in this essay. Nothing here is fixed. I intend to revise this in subsequent years, when the hold of analytical positivism over me will likely be somewhat stronger.
Ultimately, what I aim to achieve in this piece is a foundationalist linkage of the various passions I have for idealised ways of living into something drawn from the natural light of reason, as Descartes would put it, and the above Socratic edict. This is then something I can mould and shape, add to and remove from, as the years go by. But we do well to be clear where we are beginning if we intend to get anywhere at all. I do not expect to get absolutely ‘from point A to point B;’ I am under no illusions that from this axiom I can derive with compelling certainty very much at all. But I want to see what I can get, and whether my informal reasoning draws on any other axioms, and then to see how useful and sane the foundationalist project turns out to be.
I suggest a technological analogy. I have a server that sits in London and stays on continually, serving my e-mail, storing my files and keeping processes running throughout the night when my own computers at home are switched off. The data on that server is backed up in two ways. When I first put the backup system into place, I took a full backup. The entire content of the server’s hard drive was mirrored onto the backup server. Following that, incremental backups are performed nightly: the way in which the hard drive contents has changed relative to the full backup are recorded, which means that the backup server consists of the original copy, and for each day since a description of how the files have changed. This series of posts is my first full backup: I want to be in a position where I can write incremental backups of my thoughts with something to refer back to. Every so often the backup server is wiped and a fresh full backup is made, when the contents of the hard drive have changed very substantially. This is what I will do in years to come.
I write this as a series of posts because I would like to accept and incorporate criticism, if anyone will be kind enough to present it, as I go along: I’m taking a foundationalist approach, and it is harder to extract misshapen and unstable stones later on, when they have much of import piled atop them. This introduction was written in the Spring of 2010, and then added to in early September. I’m ready to go. Watch this space.
Next: examination as the good
Perspective
Hindsight is, it seems, the only true sight, and only when we look back on things and discuss them with others do we tend to be able to truly put them into a reasonable perspective, something that sees their consequences and implications in the most realistic light. It is particularly amazing, I find, how much what we are doing right now or what we are involved in or what we are trying to read from other’s words and actions seems so amazingly significant at the time we are doing whatever it is we are involved in, compared with how insignificant they later seem. This is, I imagine, due to the hold that emotions seem to have over our ability to judge situations. It is always a worry to me how dependent we all are on such forces. I’d like to think that I am less susceptible than most, but how do I know this is not just because I hold positive feelings about the things I engage in? Maybe my perceived ability to ride through things that upset others is just because of a certain emotional set, not a lack of one. But again, this is something that changes with time. Our own point of view of events is incredibly significant in our ability to deal with them. The question is then whether or not there is a better set of views to hold in order to not be held back by emotions but only having them serve as bolstering, useful forces. For many years I have maintained that there is but while I’m still fairly sure of this I seem to make little progress towards it. Just maybe, human life should be something infused with passion for what is perceived to matter – for otherwise it seems we have little reason to do very much at all, aside from simple biological ones.
The worrying thing about all of this is that at the end of the day, I am faced with the arguments from pure utilitarianism that in fact any claims I make to be doing something with any kind of meaning and worth could always be derived from the positive emotional state that I seem to gain from such pursuits. It is depressing to consider the possibility that all of these high-minded claims we all try to make to living what we like to call rich and fulfilled lives in which we flourish potentially all collapse with startling rapidity into mere attempts to release certain chemicals in the brain. But I’m not sure this argument is quite so deadly as it sometimes seems. Perhaps happiness can be equated with something being ‘good’, as merely a definitional reaction to certain events which we see as either worthwhile, fun or interesting. I’m not going to try and develop this argument now as I’m not entirely sure why I sat down to write this post at all, but it is something to consider. I maintain my scepticism. I don’t know anything but merely work on through life according to my nature, and try to examine it as I go for if I did not, it would be just another life, even less significant on the scales of history than it already is.
So is there a useful conclusion from these considerations? One is, I believe, simply to keep such considerations in mind. When an event or person or idea overcomes the senses and dominates the mind’s thoughts as it twists through the day’s considerations, stepping back is a useful tool. Take things slowly, get other opinions, recognise the deficiencies of one’s own intellect as something that, when it cares, can let emotion get the better of it. Recognise unnecessary desires as something that experience shows will be fleeting but don’t destroy them, merely add them to an ever-growing list of considerations and ideas to be tried if life offers such opportunities. For you never know where you’ll go next, who you’ll meet, or what you’ll be doing – and if it will perhaps seem, at the time, to be of the utmost significance.