"If men wish to be free, it is precisely sovereignty they must renounce.”
The quote is from Hana Arendt's essay on Freedom. I came across it in an article from the Ethics Institute, Freedom and disagreement: How we move forward. The article makes the obvious point that
This is obviously in tune with the point I've found myself obliged to make a few times recently, that ethics begins not when one considers oneself, but when one considers others.
Anyway, I'm linking to the Arendt essay in order to ask again her question: What is freedom?, and to give a space for considering her essay. Given the "freedom convoy" that trickled into Canberra yesterday, and the somewhat more effective equivalent in Canada, It seems appropriate.
Edit : https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/651724
When debates are being waged over freedom, we must begin with the acknowledgement that we (as individuals) are only ever as free as the broader communities in which we operate. Our own freedoms are contingent upon the political systems that we exist in, actively engage with, and mutually construct.
This is obviously in tune with the point I've found myself obliged to make a few times recently, that ethics begins not when one considers oneself, but when one considers others.
Anyway, I'm linking to the Arendt essay in order to ask again her question: What is freedom?, and to give a space for considering her essay. Given the "freedom convoy" that trickled into Canberra yesterday, and the somewhat more effective equivalent in Canada, It seems appropriate.
Edit : https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/651724
Comments (470)
Hence the "Oppression of the will".
No, because any such act would be an act of will, whether free or not.
Word play. The argument is that the notion of freedom is...fraught. Like a square circle.
My bolding. Arendt seems to be saying that you do not know what freedom is...
For example, I might like to drink ten schooners of beer every night, but will not on account of the health consequences. Would you count that as an example of "acting against one's will" or would you say that the will to health is stronger in this case than the will to get pissed, and that it is thus an example of acting according to one's will?
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
I don't see, nor frankly much care, how you make these compatible.
Have a read of the article, and come back when you have something cogent to say.
Quoting Banno
So I was disagreeing with the idea, and saying why I disagree, that it is really "a strange little paradox". If you can't think of anything to counter what I've said, and so have to resort to trying to dismiss it as lacking cogency, that is your problem, not mine.
Hmm. I take lack of cogency to be exactly a counter to what you said, and sufficient to dismiss it. You try to force a wedge between what you wish and what you will, when the question is if you are free to do other than what you will.
From the context it is clear she is here speaking of political freedom. What to make of this?
In so far as rationality obliges you to act in some way and not another, your action is not free. In so far as your act is what you will, you could not have done other than you will, and it is not free.
In true existential style, it is only the act that is free...?
We had no choice in choosing what we will. To that extent, we're not free.
However, we can deny our will. What's the word "no" for? I want to eat chocolate! No, I shan't. To that extent we're free.
Freedom, as far as I know, is by and large resistance in nature. To comply is to go with the flow, driftwood and dead fish do that. To oppose is the defining characteristic of freedom. Consider our will to be oppression, our ability to reject it as freedom. [s]Free will[/s] Free won't!
If the 'freedom' of individuals cancels the possibility for a public realm, we are in the war Hobbes described as a state of nature. If such a cancellation is not the intention of the libertarians, what are the alternative means to preserve the public realm if it is not recognized as a necessity?
"Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." ~Arthur Schopenhauer
At the level of the political, compatibilism is operable such that "freedom" consists in the lack of (illegitimate, arbitrary) coercion by any agent (or constraints applied by any agent) that, at minimum, blocks – controls – any other agent's assenting, dissenting or indifferent actions. Corollary: We are free (i.e. "freedom" is the nonzero-sum shared commons ~ Arendt's "public realm") to the degree we free others – everyone – from (illegitimate, arbitrary) coercion, no? :chin:
edit:
"Rights", therefore, are prohibitions on 'practices by the state, businesses & churches which (illegitimately, arbitrarily) coerce individuals (and, by implication, the communities to which they belong)' as the juridical infrastructure for maintaining the inclusivity (i.e. communicativity ~ Habermas, Otto-Apel, Dewey, Peirce) of "the public realm".
This wording implicates a dualism even too dualistic for me.
"You" and "your will" are identical.
And no, I didn't read your article. I chose not to. My will chose not to. It's all the same. Can my will do other than it did? Yes, unless it's not a free will.
The will is the power to resist any action which one is inclined toward. That's why it takes will power to break a bad habit. In this sense, every action is an act against one's will. But the fact that we can resist acting demonstrates that the will is in fact, free. It is the acts themselves, which are not free.
Thanks for looking at the article. Onward, to the conclusion...
Well, no, if the activity of a polity that has a monopoly on violenece is to use that violence to violate freedoms, that actually says nothing of an individual's freedom, or their ethics, when such an entity isn't employing such violence. The fact that forces exist that would violate freedom, does not imply humans do not have the capacity to free, or exercise it regularly, as is being demostrated simply by this thread and its responses. That being said, interpersonal freedom requires the recognition of sovererign boundaries between people. That means that even interpersonal ethics, not violating the sovereignty of individual boundaries in this case, begins as an individual recognition. Thus, people are only freee in society when they are ethical at least to that degree. As far as "free will," there is no such thing. There is simply limited agency, or will. My body tells me I am hungry, I can choose between foods. I have homework to do tonight, I can choose which class to tackle first. The universe supplies us with more than enough restrictions to limit our freedom of choice and action. As far as acting against your own will, that's begging the question. Your will is your will, for processes still a mystery to us.
The article relies on a false representation of freedom to produce its conclusion. True freedom, as the possibility to do anything can only exist when one is doing nothing, because as soon as one engages in action one's freedom is restricted by the activity that the person is presently engaged in.
So the author presents a false dichotomy: "We do not envy the freedom a prisoner possesses to retreat into the recesses of their own mind, we envy the person who is free to leave their home, and is safe in doing so, because a system has been politically and socially established to make it as such."
The freedom to leave one's home is not produced by having a political system in place, which allows one to do that safely, it is produced by the fundamental physical fact of the individual having not yet left one's home. And at this point, the person must "retreat into the recesses of their own mind", to decide whether or not it is a good idea to do that, regardless of whether there is an established political system. Whether or not there is an established political system in place is irrelevant to the fact that one must make one's own decision, prior to leaving one's own home, as to whether or not it is a good idea.
It's only when we take this primary, and necessarily prior, freedom for granted, "the freedom a prisoner possesses to retreat into the recesses of their own mind", and make one's own decisions, produce one's own conclusions, that we come up with the idea that the ability to move around in the open, is in some way more enviable than this ability to decide. The ability to prevent oneself from moving around, from going out the door, and make the decision as to whether I ought to move around, considering all relevant factors of safety and whether my needs require such, and decide for myself, when it is safe to do such, is actually far more enviable. This is a necessary requirement for the freedom to go out safely, the established political system is not.
I believe it's a big mistake to try and deceive intelligent people with such faulty arguments. It will only backfire and make them more distrusting of the established system.
Yes, a good way of looking at is that, just because there is the possiblity of my sovererignty being violated, doesn't mean I don't have sovereignty. In the very same manner that you may lose your arm today. does that mean now that arms are merely a social largesse? No, its absurd. My mind and body are restricted to my own usage at all times, irrespective of whether or not entities, with the same restrictions on their own bodies, use force to compel me to do other than my own inner compulsions. And a question: If I am only free because of the political system, are the people that run the political system free? Either way, at the bottom of this self-contradictory mess, you have some people exerting freedom, and limiting the freedom of others so that they may do so. Freedom and sovereignty aren't negated, they are exemplified by this thought experiment.
Freedom is to act in accordance with one's will, desires, interests, or biological compulsion. How the brain generates those interests and desires is a mystery of which we do not require the answer to.
No, it's my will. Freedom isn't defined by the separation of mind and body, but body from body. My inner compulsions are irrelevant to freedom. Freedom is the ability to fulfill any dominating will within me, without experiencing oppression from without, as my body belongs to me. That's how that works.
So, no, the concept of rights begins as a conceptual method by which to assess your ethical relationship with other individuals. Meaning, ethics isn't dependent on your consideration of others, rights are, which requires the recognition of sovereignty of other individuals. When properly exercised, the only logical conclusion that can be draw is that freedom between people, the recognition of sovereign boundaries between individuals, is the only manner in which to induce a society whose ruling polity doesn't violate individual, or interpersonal ethics (rights). Which, to this day, seems to be something people are having difficulty apprehending. You cannot assert the idea of no sovereignty, and the idea that ethics starts with the consideration of others in the same post, they are contradictory entirely. Either you accept the freedom of others, or you are freedom's violator, you cannot have it both ways.
On that point, Arendt agrees with you
-Hannah Arendt
Quoting Garrett Travers[/quote]
Arendt describes that quality this way while discussing ancient polities:
And so, Mr. Travers, the need for a "guaranteed public realm" is because the appearance and maintenance of "boundaries between individuals" requires more than willing it to be so:
I agree with you to this point, Janus, but when you are forced, you are given a choice too, and you will follow the path of what you will. It coercion or forcing usually involves a threat of something more unpleasant happening to you (general "you") than the degree of unpleasantness of acting in a way you don't want to act.
I don't think I said anything new or original; I am just saying that forcing or coercing still allows one to act according to his will.
In fact a person never acts against his own will.
I think the ensuing argumenting after where I left off reading the posts (which had to do with the drinking example), is hinging very much on an equivocation. The equivocation is that free will is a concept denied by determinism, and supported by Christian dogma; at the same time that will is a concept that may be free or not to make choices in action.
That's exactly why she insisted men had to give up their sovereignty. She insisted Heidi gave up his sovereignty. Only then he could be truly free. By giving her her freedom. Which he probably didn't, being a strict nazi, who generally wants the wife in the kitchen and give birth to new Arians to sustain the Reich and hunt for Lebensraum.
I am sorry, but I have to quote again my best friend, teacher and master: Paul A. S. He came to me one day, and asked, "Peter (not my real name) do you consider yourself your own intellectual superior?"
The absurdity was a vehicle to convey to me he thought I was a puffed-up, self-important, egomaniac, who had given himself to intellectual onanism.
And he was right.
But Paul's absurd humour also can be applied to the question of will.
"Is your will stronger than your will?" Is your will capable of conquering itself? Is your will free to overcome itself?
I hope to have conveyed the absurdity of Randt's propositional question.
--------------------------------------
You can't act against your own will if all your actions are a product (or are governed) by your will.
So the question becomes not freedom of will (we can safely dispense with that superfluous and aggrandizing qualifier), but whether you always act according to your will or not.
I am on the view that yes, you always act what you will. And I maintain that that functionality has nothing to do with freedom. It is not a question of what you are free to do or not free to do. It completely severs the "freedom" component of the functionality.
This doesn't address anything, it merely takes the concept of freedom and describes it as slavery. The ability of the individual, who may be a slave to his/her biology, to act in accordance with his nature in complete freedom from human to human coercion, is what freedom is.
No, it isn't. Again, the author is attempting to completely redefine freedom and hoping you do not notice, luckily the nonsense doesn't work on me. Our concept of political freedom is that of the human to act without threat of force to compel action not designated by the natural will of that individual. Internal freedom from biological compulsion requires the freedom described above, if at all it is ever a possibility, which is certainly up for discussion. What the author is doing to your brain in these passages is creating a false dichotomy, one or the other, its manipulation in the form of fallacious arguments, casuistry.
Let me remind you what is the actual raison d'etre is for government, which is to say politics, that being the institutionalized protection against those who would seek to violate your freedom to act as you see fit. It doesn't matter if it is political by definition, what matters is the philosophy guiding the body-politic. As far as individuals are concerned, humans already operate under the pretenses of freedom, they only do not do so when the threat of force is present and pointed in their direction. Freedom is the natural human state, states are the unatural human excogitation. In other words freedom presupposes the necessity of the state, because historically violations of freedome have pressuposed the emergence of states as means to ensure freedom and property on the part of the criminals of the world and to whom they delegate freedom and property in pursuit of further gain.
Quoting Paine
A requirement for humans to live as they naturally are, is not an indication that they would not do so without such a guaranteed public realm. It is more an indication of the ineradicable psychopathology attendant upon those who regard other humans as not having individual boundaries between one another. You are 100% of the time operating as if there is a separation between you and others, as is our natural inclination. Just as Kings, Emporers, and Tyrants act regarding themselves and others. The existence of governments that ensure that freedom from coercion does not presuppose freedom from force's existence. We know this because we have chosen to erect states to ensure it, meaning our freedom was valued as a presupposition of state existence.
Nota bene: you don't get to use the word "Empires" when describing things that are non-political.
The author appears to be agreeing with me here. But, she does so by conceding that she has changed the definition of freedom as a result of commentary on the subject by a number of influential people. Sovereignty is the virtue, and it is one that can easily be concluded given almost every logical framework imaginable. As it would appear that Thomas Paine still understood by the time he wrote that remark. In which case, I'm left to wonder: what exactly is the point of this work? Was it to describe how freedom isn't a thing? Or, that freedom used to be something else? Maybe I'll read it to find out.
Freedom is individual human action, as is demanded by your nation, independent of interpersonal coercion. I know what freedom is because one, words have definitions, and two, I experience independence from interpersonal coercion and the biological imperative known as independent action. There is no we. There are only individuals and you, as an individual, either understand freedom, or regard others as fit for your influence, coercive or otherwise. In which case you would still be valuing your own freedom, as all do at all times, but more so the idea that your freedom supersedes another's freedom with them being the instrument of your desires. Yes, we can most certainly do what we want within the parameters of the above listed definition. Other humans are not a factor in the equation that is your individual freedom.
Quoting tim wood
That cannot be your definition, as there are many things encompassed by "material possibility" that would require you to violate the freedom of another to obtain. Yes, Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness can only be achieved through the recognition of individual sovereignty, which is to say freedom from coercion. Coercion is antithetical life, liberty, and individual pursuit. Coercion is that which is required to hinder all of those when not voluntarily renounced on the part of any and all individuals.
Quoting tim wood
Individual pursuit of self-maximization, and thereby recognition of individual sovereignty, to act according to one's desires, resulting in a market exchange of critical services that are produced for individual gain and mutual benefit that all of us value and use as either a by-product of production, or a direct result of production. Freedom personified.
The passage addresses freedom of the individual, as it has been expressed by Epictetus, for example, as an experience that is possible despite whatever condition or station of life one might find oneself in the world. Her intent to separate that meaning from the realm of political action is not dissimilar from your purpose in saying:
" As far as "free will," there is no such thing. There is simply limited agency or will. My body tells me I am hungry, I can choose between foods. I have homework to do tonight, I can choose which class to tackle first."
Arendt does not have to agree or disagree with your formulation to make the distinction in how the idea is expressed for different purposes.
Quoting Garrett Travers
To speak of a just "body-politic" is to propose a "guaranteed public realm." Doubting that such a realm was given to us as a state of nature in the spirit of Rousseau is not the equivalent to saying that "humans as not having individual boundaries between one another." You are the one conflating the two ideas, Arendt distinguishes them from each other;
Quoting Garrett Travers
So, you just spent hundreds of words critiquing something you have not read. In the future, please indicate that is your condition before making a comment upon something.
I think it is. I'm not separating percieved aspects of will. I'm say free will doesn't exist, we know this because 99% of our cognition is subconscious. But, we certainly have limited agency. That's not the same as dividing societal aspects of liberty from individual liberty and claiming one is favorable between them. They are the same thing at the core of their motivation: independence from coercion.
Quoting Paine
I never said anything about a just body-politic, I said the philosophy is what guides such a societal direction as providing a guaranteed public domain, as an extension of the idea of independence from coercion, for someone to later critique as separate things. They aren't separate things. The sovereignty of the state is both an extension, and dependent on the sovereignty of its individuals. A state is itself a declaration of the exact same assertion: the right to exist independent of unwelcomed influence and of self autonomy. Yes, I am conflating them, they are the same phenomenon, one writ small, the other writ large.
Quoting Paine
I'd rather just see if the arguments can withstand scrutiny and if I find something that gives me pause, I'll go read it. So far, the arguments being made in the above listed passages do little more than strengthen the concept of sovereignty as the core principle guiding both individual, as well as societal liberty.
My bad it must have auto corrected, here's what I meant to write: Freedom is individual human action, as is demanded by your nature, independent of interpersonal coercion.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Freedom: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
It can be experience on a regularly daily basis, it is self explanatory as far as your day to day experience is concerned. You are experiencing it right now reading this, just as I am typing it. In fact, your biological nature dictates that you act. Freedom is doing so without the coercion necessary to stop you. And the same applies to every other human.
Quoting tim wood
Walking, sleeping, thinking, speaking. The concept of freedom, as I have laid out covers interpersonal interection. When it comes to relying on, or being involved with other people, respecting eachothers sovereign boundaries implies voluntary interaction. Meaning, there still is no we, there are only one or more individuals in voluntary agreement of co-operation.
Quoting tim wood
Because to stop me from acting according to my desires, which I will do as an imperative of my biological being - as will you and everyone else, mind you - you would have to violate my sovereign boundaries. Again freedom: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
Negative liberty is the kind of freedom found in the phrase “freedom convoy”, as evidenced by their opposition to certain mandates.
Or more specifically - other's goals. Ethics is the relationship between one person's goals and another person's goals in whether they come into conflict or agree.
Quoting Banno
Freedom is partly choice. The more choices the more freedom.
The other part is the feeling that your choices are evenly balanced, as if there were more of an equal (50/50) chance of making one choice over the other.
Coercion limits freedom because it creates an in-balance in the chances of choosing between doing on thing or another. I may still do what someone is threatening me no to do, but their threats puts pressure on me to make another choice that I wouldn't have necessarily had.
On the ground, anywhere I choose, and because I'm the one doing it. Again, acting in voluntary co-operation with other people is still an exercise in individual freedom.
Quoting tim wood
That would be America, as the last best hope of this. I can go where I want, say and do what I want, when it doesn't violate the rights of others to also do so. Now, that doesn't mean the U.S. law hasn't overstepped its boundaries, it has, but freedom as a concept does not change simply because a person, or group of persons begin to violate it. They are simply violating it. And yes, biology has its own imperatives.
Quoting tim wood
Natural hindrences aren't what the topic is. Hindrences as imposed upon you by other people, even though your were imposing no such hindrences upon them, that is the issue. Yes, to actively respect sovereign boundaries is to be free, and let be free.
Freedom is the idea that you can achieve your goals using an equal balance of choices, or the idea that you have at your disposal all possible options with many having an equal chance to be chosen (tried (learning)).
Dominion, supremacy, authority, tyranny, power, hegemony, domination...
Do I need to write more? Hannah Arendt was wrong. Only if a man is sovereign, he can be free. Only then can he send constraining forces home.
No, that's not the case because even those impulses are self-generated, either by one's nature, or one's considerations. One cannot be a slave to themselves, to be a slave to one's self is to be free.
Quoting tim wood
Sure nature of course has its restrictions. But, as Tolstoy postulated in War & Peace, it is in fact the natural constraints of reality that create the domain in which human action can even be achieved. You might consider trying to walk without gravity. Nonetheless, natural strictures have no bearing on the concept of freedom as independence from interpersonal coercion. Nobody is going to argue against the idea of natural restraints, none reasonable anyway. I'm also not going to negate the innate psychopathology intrinsic to man that seems to be driving humans to violate rights, even though that's the last thing they would wish done to themselves. However, the fact that most men throughout history have lived in self-contradiction, does not imply that freedom in the sense I have been describing isn't real, or achievable. I live free every day, you are exemplifying freedom by engaging with me here on this forum. It is very real.
Quoting tim wood
It must needs be freedom if your desires are being met without coercion from others to stop, or hinder you. That may not be the kind of freedom you like, emotionally. But, it is quite literally encompassed in the definition of freedom.
It constitutes an act of sovereignty over one's own self and the exercise of the sole right to the action therein contained. Human action is sovereignty, and it requires force to impede, or compel.
Quoting Ciceronianus
That is precisely what she's doing, and hoping you follow along and accept her premises, which I do not.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Exactly the suspicion I fell under. She's trying to have you renounce your individual sovereignty, as is meant when discussing the topic of freedom, to promote the sovereignty of the state, so as to do as it pleases, because after all, you have the state to thank for your freedom. As if it wasn't sovereign individuals that erected the state and enshrined as its basic code governance the sovereignty of the individual and the free expression thereof that didn't violate the rights of others. She's hoping that you let the state do what the bill of rights forbids it do, thereby undoing its entire purpose, and only legitimate justification for existence.
Folks, it is clear that Arendt agrees with you that one cannot act against one's will.
I offer 's disagreeing with her, and you, as further evidence that she is right.
Quoting Hanover
Are you still upset about Eichmann?
I have a fondness for Stoicism, and think there are things which are in our control in significant respects. In these dark times, I think of Montaigne's saying that "Not being able to govern events, I govern myself." But I think when we speak of governing ourselves or having sovereignty over ourselves, we should understand that we speak metaphorically. I think Arndt isn't doing that when she refers to individual sovereignty, and in this fashion makes individual sovereignty appear equivalent to the imposition of authority over others, and as objectionable.
Paragraphs are wonderful things.
Quoting Garrett Travers
and yet,
Quoting Garrett Travers
I'm not sure with what you are disagreeing.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Ah. Don't let me detain you.
I would say that is probably influenced by a dualistic approach at seeing oneself and one's own actions. The pre-frontal cortex alloe, in conjunction with all other structures of the brain, the capacity for both perception, as well as pattern recognition. This creates the illusion that we exist separately from the body that provides this gift, as over time we percieve the patterns we produce in ourselves. This is not what is happening. Each individual is the sum total of all its constituent elements, including the actions and thoughts produced by the body, and perceived by the pattern recognizing mechanism of it's own brain. We ARE slaves to our selves. To be permitted to be such a slave by your fellow human without interference is to be free.
Banno: Says things.
Dualism has plagued us for centuries. I doubt there has been any greater source of philosophical futility.
I'll be a bit more clear and let's see if we can get an argument from you. I'm arguing that this:
“…it becomes as impossible to conceive of freedom or its opposite as it is to realize the notion of a square circle.”
Is demonstrably bullshit. And that restrictions like what are the topic of discussion in the article apropos covid are clear and present violations of sovereignty and freedom of the individual to act as one sees fit. And furthermore, that the argument that lockdown measures are somehow necessary to ensure saftey is also false, thereby rendering any fabricated concept of freedom, like what the article would have you consider, utterly without justification. To review the inefficacy of liberty violations that we saw for covid, here's a recent meta-analysis on the relavent data.
https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf
Freedom is sovereignty of the individual. It is not imposing force on people to create the illusion of safety, it is not freedom to access property and serivices provided by another's labor, which would violate sovereignty, it isn't freedom from one's own impulses, as if that were a thing at all.
Man, I couldn't agree more.
The usual, ad hominem instead of considering the principles presented, a decidedly uneducated practice.
I blame YouTube.
Much of the confusion here seems to be mistaking "Are you free to act against your own will?" for "Are you free to act against your own desire?". This is 's error, along with and .
Arendt's point here is that "it must appear strange indeed that the faculty of the will whose essential activity consists in dictate and command should be the harborer of freedom." In doing so she shows the tyranny of following one's will, and hence that will is contrary to freedom. The will, therefore, cannot be the source of freedom.
That, at least, is how I see the argument in the first few pages as proceeding. It's not a style of argument that I am keen on, owing more to the European style of philosophising than to the analytic style with which I am familiar. But it rings true with those arguments for the inadequacy of the notion of free will with which we will all be familiar. It adds to a long list of conceptual concerns that might lead one to suppose free will unreliable.
I actually went ahead and read it, my arguments are relavent to the descriptions of "freedom" provided in the article, such access to healthcare (someone else's labor), and government covid mandates (force imposed to impede free action).
Quoting Banno
And Arendt is wrong because the source of those dictates and command is actually the very mind that is also producing perception that allows for superior-pattern-processing, which is the mechanism that notices one's own impulses. Meaning, to argue against the idea that the mind is not free to determine its own course of action, if left free from coercion, is question begging and makes no sense otherwise. The individual is the sum total of all aspects of his/her being, including their mind, impulses, and limited domain of agency - all of which is contained in the workings of the brain.
It is clear to me that she thinks freedom is not to be identified with sovereignty... Do we at the least agree here? That Arendt, for better or worse, thinks freedom is to do with choice and novelty within the re publica? As opposed to the capacity to achieve what one wills without regard for the public space?
The discussion of "inner freedom" at about p146-7 seemed to be an oblique reference to stoicism. The implication is that Stoic ideals such as control of one's passions or acting in accord with nature morphed under the influence of Augustin and Paul into something closer to modern ideas of freedom as acting in accord with one's will. I take the change to which she refers to be between a more ancient notion of the freedom to choose within a polity to a supposed freedom to chose despite a polity.
Cheers - the article is indeed apropos of our times.
So for you freedom is lack of coercion?
If you prefer. One thesis of the article is that, as a result of this, freedom has it's being in the shared space in which we live rather than in the privacy of what one wills.
Well put.
Quoting tim wood
And again! :fire: Here's @Ciceronianus' Stoic. The question is where freedom fits in relation tot his Stoic enterprise of overcoming unreasonable or unnatural desire. I don't know enough of the topic to be sure, but at first blush freedom does not look to be of great significance to the Stoics.
I've never quite reconciled with the notion of freedom as doing one's duty.
If nothing else the article gives us pause to consider if there can be a coherent notion of freedom.
It’s like you did something impossible and read the very words from my mind.
It’s not something that has to do with distinguishing will from something that opposes it. It is part and parcel with will. That is an aspect of how human will emerges from the brain.
Quoting tim wood
You really mean to say that pursuing one’s desires is an example of a lack of freedom? Where are you people generating these absurdities. Pursuing desires is a fundamental element of freedom. You denying your natural desires is the opposite of freedom. That’s an example of you suppressing your desires for the sake of appearances, or dogma, best case scenario for health.
Of course there is, I brought it up numerous times. There is nothing fallacious or inconsistent in defining freedom as the ability to act, think, or speak without coercion. That’s completely coherent.
Blame it on Nietzsche:
“As far as the superstitions of the logicians are concerned: I will not stop emphasizing a tiny little fact that these superstitious men are loath to admit: that a thought comes when “it” wants, and not when “I” want. It is, therefore, a falsification of the facts to say that the subject “I” is the condition of the predicate “think.” It thinks: but to say the “it” is just that famous old “I” – well that is just an assumption or opinion, to put it mildly, and by no means an “immediate certainty.” In fact, there is already too much packed into the “it thinks”: even the “it” contains an interpretation of the process, and does not belong to the process itself.”
“In every act of will there is a commandeering thought, – and we really should not believe this thought can be divorced from the “willing,” as if some will would then be left over! Third, the will is not just a complex of feeling and thinking; rather, it is fundamentally an affect: and specifically the affect of the command. What is called “freedom of the will” is essentially the affect of superiority with respect to something that must obey: “I am free, ‘it' must obey”…
But now we notice the strangest thing about the will – about this multifarious thing that people have only one word for. On the one hand, we are, under the circumstances, both the one who commands and the one who obeys, and as the obedient one we are familiar with the feelings of compulsion, force, pressure, resistance, and motion that generally start right after the act of willing. On the other hand, however, we are in the habit of ignoring and deceiving ourselves about this duality by means of the synthetic concept of the “I.”
“All willing is simply a matter of commanding and obeying, on the groundwork, as I have said, of a society constructed out of many “souls”: from which a philosopher should claim the right to understand willing itself within the framework of morality: morality understood as a doctrine of the power relations under which the phenomenon of “life” arises.”
The mere assertion will not do. One ought first to set out the objections found in the Arendt article, then address each of them.
SO if freedom is lack of coercion, you are not free if you act in accord with the coercion of reason.
SO if freedom is lack of coercion, you are not free if you act in accord with the coercion of will.
You can explore its meaning in various contexts. For an American take (obviously the most important one) I would point you towards Abraham Lincoln and Thoreau.
What context interests you?
Tyranny in my faulty imagination is absolute rule. Rule that is self-serving. Making others do what they don't want to do in order to satisfy the tyrant's hunger for control. The tyrant is motivated to make others do what he wants them to do. It makes the tyrant happy to be successful at this.
Will makes man act in any which way. If there is no will, there is no action.
But the tyrant and the people s/he controls are all humans.
The will does not control other wills. When viewed within the perspective of an individual's will and actions. Will controls actions, that are not wills.
Now, when you say that the will can't be the source of freedom... that goes for actions. Is a person, with a will, defined FOR HIMSELF by his actions? And by his actions alone? No, he is not reduced to mere will-action sequences. He has motivation, and needs, and feelings. Feelings of happiness and feelings of sadness; feelings of elation and feelings of despondence; feelings of pleasure, feelings of pain.
The will is controlling the action to help the person attain happiness, elation and pleasure, and to avoid sadness, despondence and pain.
Where does freedom come into play here? Who is not free although we had thouth was free? This is very convoluted when one brings in the concept of freedom. I think it is absolutely unnecessary, superfluous and in essence a non-sequitur.
It is a causal chain, in which will is one part. Why worry about freedom? I really, but really, don't understand why it is important for Arndt to bring freedom into play in this mechanism of motivation, will, action, and result.
The freedom... of what? the freedom of the will? the freedom of action? the freedom of the person to whom these are components? The freedom of motivation, the freedom of needs, or the freedom of result of actions?
What the hey is freedom trying to achieve here, for what purpose, and in what way? I still say introducing freedom is not a good idea, for it does nothing to the mechanism of will-action, but convolutes it, and in doing so it only creates an illusion of a problem, which is actually non-existent.
Anything contrary to a concept could be the source of the manifestation of that concept, AS LONG AS IT IS NOT IN THE SAME RESPECT.
And thereby lies the absolute fault of Randt's reasoning. She says something that is contrary of freedom1 can't be the source of freedom2. In other words, she mixes up freedom with freedom.
I admit I don't know what she covers as the domain1 over which freedom1 presides, and what she covers as the domain2 over which freedom2 presides. I know one thing for sure: she does not mean that domain1 = domain2.
I hope this is clear.
Yes, indeed. We could also look to see how the notion grew from nescient in ancient philosophical contexts and map the were's and why's of it's progress, as well as consider critically how this family of ideas might fit together.
Which is what this thread is about.
Umm. That's a tall order. Happy trails.
Why did you not say so, ever, in the OP? I thought the thread was about this:
Quoting Banno
Oh I wish people wouldn't adjust the goalposts when they are cornered.
Not to say you are cornered, Banno, but you did move the goalposts. Why?
I had my say in earlier posts, I'll await your reply to it, and if you ignore it, to me it signifies one or both of two things:
- you don't respect me enough to give serious thought to my points or
- you can't respond to defeat my points.
:100:
Hm. Is this an admission of trying to satisfy unnatural desires?
(Sorry - couldn't resist...)
Following on with Arendt's strategy, is one free to not do as one desires? Or are we subject to the tyranny of desire? A somewhat facetious question, but it indicates that it is not clear what freedom consists in, in the way @Garrett Travers supposes,
I've read them. I've not seen anything in them to which i might reply.
So maybe remember that Aristotle held slavery to be a necessary evil. Giant respect to him for declaring it to be evil. It's a weight on the heart that he thought it was necessary, tho.
This is one aspect of the problem of trying to apply Aristotle to present concerns.
I guess it depends on how you define 'will', gmba. There is a sense in which it might be thought that being a slave to the passions is not freedom. If one is threatened with death unless one does something against their will, then I would say they are not freely doing their will but acting under the constraint of fear.
If you held a gun to @god must be atheist and threaten to shoot unless he pats his nose three times, and hence he is forced to pat his nose, hasn't he willed himself to pat his nose?
This by way of making no further point than that the notion of will is somewhat fraught.
I addressed this, yes I AM free because I AM the source of said reason. I AM also the source of MY will. I AM the sum total of ALL things ME, just as YOU are. To say that MY reason or will is an example of MYSELF not being free, is to be beg the question. It is fallacious reasoning. Will, reason, and choice are all centrally located and centrally governed. One cannot coerce themselves, they can only act in accordance with the sum total of their own thought. Which is why I said there is no such thing as "free" will. There is only limited agency, that of which arises for the brain's capacity for perception and superior-pattern-processing. We recognize that patterns in the expression of our will through time, and can make limited adjustments to those patterns. More on superior-pattern-processing here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141622/
Which was, among other objectives, the point of Arendt's essay.
I gather you wish to skip this bit and talk of the coercion of others as what limits freedom.
But if that is so, then you are in agreement with Ardent at least in that freedom happens in the res publica, the public space in which others might coerce you.
Anything you, being an organic and natural creature, produce as a desire is itself organic and natural. To argue against such a claim is to assert the existence of an extramundane will beyond that which nature produces in the form of you and your brain and the sum total of thought and action therein contained. In your first example, you purchased a watch that you thought would be stylish, versitile, or otherwise provide utility to you, which is 100% natural and among desires people exhibit on an everday basis. You only changed your mind when the cost was not meeting the desired outcome, 100% natural. Your exotic steel was desired, again, for its utility (hunting), and when discovering that a basic 1075-1095 carbon was more versatile and much less costly, you changed your predisposition on the subject. Meaning your desire for versitile utilities that met and acceptable cost/benefit ratio tipped your scales as far as desire. The exact same process of value determination (desire) in both scenarios. Those desires being very natural and very basic.
Such a proposition is a self-contradiction. If one desires not to do something, they simply will not do it unless forced. In the case of choosing to do something other than that which one desires, it will necessitate an evaluation of conflicting desires and the cost/benefit analysis associated with it, thereby resulting in a replacement desire(s) that will be fulfilled if unimpeded in action. Such a proposition quite literally says nothing whatsoever of freedom from the application of force from fellow humans to overide both your desires and your actions. The two are not even in the same realm of discussion. You are your desires, thoughts, actions, and physical hardware (legs, arms, heart, brain, etc.) Other humans are the exact opposite (not your legs, arms, heart, brain, etc.) And the difference is glaring, if only you'd check it out.
No, there is no tention, because as it turns out, the integration of data, ideas, truth, experience, and trauma all change the patterns associated with your desire protocals. A good example would be Tim and his learning that carbon steel was both more versatile and cost effective than an earlier purchase, which resulted in a reorientation in his desire for a new product, predicated upon his values in products. Meaning, your values can be used to prime, inform, and ultimately overhaul your desire protocols to align with one another (values and desires). Which mine do. We are all constrained by the capacities of our brains, that does not describe coercion. This is the definition of coercion : the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats. Does this change the way you're viewing the nature of coercion? You see it is self-contradictory by nature to coerce oneself. It doesn't make sense.
Didn't say you did have use for it. Use is only one dimension along which your desire protocals assess objects, or actions of desire. I said you had a desire for it, predicated on the values that you described in the message you sent, at least. There's no telling why you wanted any of these things, but you purchased them with your labor for nothing other than the desire to have them at bare minimum. If your desires are predicated on irrational standards of value, then irrationally is how your purchases will emerge from you in action.
The basic idea is that the concept of freedom is only meaningful relative to its negation.
This is not contradictory. It's a pretty well worn path in philosophy.
This basic idea is garbage. Freedom is meaningful beyond that of active negation. I enjoy and value my freedom by simply interacting on this thread, part of a free platform on which to do so. Freedom is valuable when you are performing any action that requires freedom to perform, such as typing on a forum thread. It is negation that renders it of higher meaning and value. But, it is not a necessary precondition. Freedom is a concept that is meaningful when you are not having it negated and when you are. It is intrinsic to your nature, you require freedom to obtain resources to continue and fulfill your life. If negation was the only thing that made freedom meaningful, we would have specialized methods by which to negate freedom as a form of service, much like we have chemo and radiation for cancer. It's exactly the opposite: because freedom is a requirement for life, can be valued independently, and has been shown to result in human flourishing it has innate meaning as a concept, even if threating it only serves to increase its meaning.
However, that actually isn't what the article is about. The article is about what the person being interviewed regards as an impossibility to define: freedom, which is literally absurd as I have very thoroughly argued in this thread.
We might ask our friendly stoic, @Ciceronianus...?
I don't think will is something that seeks a definition that determines it. It seeks a definition that describes it.
Is it worth using a mental concept of a thing which we can't agree what it is, since it escapes definition and description; I think it's more embarrassing than not.
And if will is not a thing that we know what it is, how can we so assuredly describe its relationship to freedom?
If Arndt was talking about a thing which she herself admits can't be described properly, then how come she makes such clearly delineated claims about it, which would necessarily presuppose what she is talking about? Which even Paine claims is not the case: "(the concept of will is fraught) Which was, among other objectives, the point of Arendt's essay."
Inconvenient observations like this get heavily ignored.
Some philosophers here are not lovers of wisdom, but haters of truth. The refusal to respond to my earlier arguments also serves this opinion.
But, it doesn't escape definition and description:
the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action/ control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one's own impulses/ a deliberate or fixed desire or intention/ the thing that one desires or ordains/
So, in other words, the sum total of all human thoughts, actions, desires, or decisions per individual. That's will. It's quite clearly defined, and most people here seem to be laboring under false pretenses of what will is, or definitions given to themselves as a result of casually understanding the concept.
Freedom is defined as:
the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint/ absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government/ the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
In other words, the ability of human will to manifest in accordance with each individual's natural inclinations without the threat of force, coercion, impingement, or otherwise uninvited interference.
Quoting god must be atheist
The only clear thing she can say about it, stated quite clearly mind you, is that nothing can be clearly stated about it, yet the statement was presented as a description of said indescribable thing... Right.. You know what I think, I think it's one of two things: Either she can't describe because she lacks the critical faculty requisite to do so, which seems a bit odd for a philosophy professor. Or, she said as much in the hopes that her reception would be met with the confused neuroticism attendant upon taking statements of the kind seriously without critical review to accompany it.
Quoting god must be atheist
Yeah, the moment you see insults, that's that. The moment someone doesn't address what you said, but instead moves to a new subject, you aren't dealing with a good-faith scenario, that's that. If someone cannot argue outside of an established fallacy(s), that's that. Also, another real, real good one to remember, is when someone attempts to change the definition of a word outside of conventional use, or outside of its adaptive progression; that meaning english is adaptive through time and words change their meaning to suit modern conventional use.
No, you weren't in thrall, you were desiring, and thus purchased based on that desire. Ultimately unwanted is different from desiring enough in the moment to purchase. Persuaded, eh? I addressed that. If you are persuaded, that means your brain has done the cost/benefit analysis and overrided a previous desire protocal and replaced with the one YOU ACTED on, which demonstrates your desire for it. Again, if your desires are predicated on irrational values, then your standards of purchase will appear to you as irrational, or in your case as thralldom. You exercised your freedom to purchase something you weren't happy with after you got it home and assessed its quality, you weren't a slave.
A definition that describes it would be a definition that determines it(s nature), would it not?
First off, I fail to see a difference between will and desire.
Second, notice how slavery revolves around compliance to commands; it follows, then, doesn't it?, that freedom is essentially dissent/rebellion, a refusal to comply. Hence I pointed out that free won't (veto not volo) is the essence of our freedom.
Arendt is right. There doesn't seem to be a difference between will & tyrant! It would be silly to think our freedom lies in a despot's hands.
So one can't wish for something without deciding and moving to obtain it? I desire chips, but I've not the will to get up and go to the shop.
Quoting Agent Smith
SO do you agree that the freedom is not found in the will alone, but requires a public space?
So, desire precedes will. Then shouldn't we be discussing desire for that reason?
Arendt stops making sense on that score, no? Desire comes first, will later. We should trace our actions back to its origins, in this case [s]will[/s] desire.
Quoting Banno
I agree with Arendt to the extent that the oppressed can't find their freedom in an oppressor (the will).
I don't think the government hinges so much on the actions and thoughts of its people. Democracy is held together by legal and political institutions, its integrity and the protection of our liberty is placed in their hands. People will naturally, without any special kind of motivation, utilise whatever freedom, security, opportunity provided to them by their government or community.
Also, a person is their will, or do you think you can be robbed of your will but remain yourself. Will, desire, intent... they're all part of our consciousness - us. How can freedom require destroying ourselves? What's left to be free?
Are you suggesting that this is in some way counter to what either I or Arendt has said?
Whatever characterisation one gives will, it is most definitely us and not separate. We always act in accordance with our will because we are our will. Yet, we don't live in a bubble, we are influenced, manipulated, incentivised, blackmailed by our experiences, feelings and interactions with others. We don't need power to enact our will, because there is no "enaction", we need power to ignore, control, resist "outside" influences which compel or restrict us.
The most complete freedom would include absolute power over others and the power to immediately and effortlessly alter any aspect of the circumstances of one's experience.
Is that a counter to you or Arendt? It's a different and perhaps mutually exclusive view than those of yours and Arendt. To me, freedom is control, power and influence, especially over yourself. Sovereignty over oneself. That's why things like rights and protections are essential for freedom.
I will admit that I am not entirely sure what Arendt is arguing against, is there a view of freedom that says a slave is free because they're "internally free" despite every aspect of their life being controlled? Or what exactly is she talking about? I don't understand this divorce of the inner and the outer when there is so much interaction between the two.
I think there is a difference. You determine the food you are cooking; but you can only describe the food that your neighbour is cooking.
Description, as I used it, has no influence on the topic or thing described. Determination has influence on the nature of the topic or thing.
Description is passive; determination is active.
I doubt it because the existence of others and their goals is what limits our individual freedoms in realizing our own goals. You also have the goals of different groups coming into conflict.
Individualism vs collectivism is that part of ethics that asks questions about what is good for the group vs what is good for the individual. As far as I know that hasn't been resolved yet - just like every ethical dilemma - because ethics is subjective. Obtaining an objective ethical standard is trying to obtain something that doesn't exist.
Or just stop using the vague term, "will" and say that one had the choice to eat chips and the choice to not eat chips. Once the choices were compared to other factors like being too tired or not, one choice wins out over the others. It's really no different than nested IF-THEN-ELSE statements.
IF the experience of craving chips
AND IF not tired
THEN go get chips
ELSE stay at home
It doesn't make sense that they desired chips but then didn't go get chips. Did they really desire it if they didn't go get chips?
Bill can go to the wilderness of northern Alaska and enjoy his freedom. His freedom is indeed meaningful relative to the constraints of a community, but he doesn't actually have to be in a community to have his freedom.
If we want to focus on the logical arguments against freedom of the will, great. That's not going to diminish the meaningfulness of "Bill is free in Alaska." It will only make us wonder if anyone can be free in any situation.
The problem obviously, is that the author of the article has not provided a cogent definition of "will". It is this faulty description of "will" which produces the appearance of your "strange little paradox". In reality there is no such paradox, just the proposal of an unacceptable definition of "will".
And you continue in your usual habit of attributing to me ideas which are completely inconsistent with what I actually write. In two different posts, I explained that "will" consists of the power to refrain from acting. The capacity of restraint enables deliberation. This is completely distinct from equating "will" with "desire". So you completely ignore what I write, to class me in some category, (those who think "will" is equated with "desire"), through some predisposition to classify people in one way or another, for the purpose of inflicting your prejudiced attack on that person. You insinuate, 'Metaphysician Undercover is one of them', therefore MU thinks like them, without even paying attention to what I actually write.
Quoting Banno
The activity of "dictate and command" is not proper to the will. This activity is proper to the faculty of reason. What is proper to will is action. And the will does not necessarily follow reason. That this is the case was demonstrated long ago by Plato, through reference to the fact that one can do what one knows is wrong. This was the principal argument of Socrates, against sophists who claimed virtue is knowledge, and professed the capacity to teach virtue. In reality, knowing what ought to be done does not necessitate that it will be done. Augustine considered this problem at length. Therefore we have a separation between reason, which dictates and commands what ought to be done, and will, which does not necessarily act according to reason, and is therefore free from the dictatorship of reason.
The implications of this reality are wide ranging. As demonstrated by Aristotle, the capacity to think and reason is a potential of the material organs of the human body. That the will is free from being causally controlled by the habits of this material aspect of the living being, is evidence that the will is truly free from material causation, and united directly to the immaterial aspect of the living being, the soul. Therefore the freedom of the will is what allows us to break free from bad habits of thinking, like what is displayed in your referred article.
No, you simply have a stronger desire to stay on the couch than to go to the store to get chips. This is really quite simple.
Yeah, but I, on the other hand, have not only supplied multiple definitions, but the ones that are THE current working definitions and not a single person on this thread has responded it. Yet, everyone keeps saying there isn't a definition. Yes, there are multiple definitions, all related, of both will and freedom. I have them listed, all of them.
Thanks Banno, for the chance to consider this essay. So many here take it as a stepping stone to discuss free will. That is not what the essay is about. It is indeed about the history of the notion of freedom and raises the question what political freedom, philosophically understood, looks like.
I also do not see the paradox you bring up and over which so many of the writers here trip. The question you ask presupposes a notion of freedom Arendt rejects, namely freedom as a kind of faculty of the will. The paradox she highlights is another one in my opinion and one that reveals itself when one views the concept of freedom in a historical light. Freedom for the Greeks was political, a concept which played in political life, contrary to philosophical life. Arendt apparently sees as philosophical life as singular, lonely, a-political. I think here she follows Heidegger, but also a lot of the Western tradition as seeing philosophical knowledge as self knowledge.
When freedom became a problem, in Christian philosophy in the context of conversion and the ability to embrace Christ, freedom was 'married' so to speak, to this lonely philosophical life and became seen as a kind of mastery, mastery over oneself. Mastery requires power and so freedom became drawn in a register of power, control, subordination and sovereignty. So much so that freedom became equated with sovereignty as it still is apparently for @Judaka.
The paradox here is that freedom as sovereignty immediately distorts the notion of freedom. Only the soveriegnty is truly free, but that means my freedom is dependent upon the unfreedom of others. It has become antithetical to the communal, reciprocal life of a community. So I think her idea is to rethink freedom and locate it less into a discourse of singular mastery and in the political realm of communal relations. Only if we establish relationships towards others that are free, might we be free. That requires relinquishing sovereignty. (I read the Arendt essay, not the article you also linked to).
For those of you who get all horny about free will, it is not unlike Strawson's concept of it, who is firmly rooted in the analytic tradition. However also for him free will resides in a relation to the other, not in some sort of mastery over oneself. I am not going to dwell further on it, because it detracts from the topic of freedom in a broader sense.
@Ciceronianus might be happy to note the essay can also be read as criticism of Heidegger, who still holds on very much to an idea of freedom and authenticity in conversation with oneself. Arendt invokes the political.
How is this so? Freedom is dependent only on the non-advance of univited interaction between peoples. Meaning, respected sovereignty between people is tantamount to freedom for all those participating in the respect of boundaries. Where does the unfreedom of others come in? I suspect you're going to introduce one of a number of different perceptions of freedom to explain this, that have nothing to do with the working definitions of the word that I have published here in this thread. But, in the importance of being fair to you, I shall give you the benefit you need to properly answer that question, if you so choose to freely.
Quoting Tobias
I was freely operating in the confines of my home, away from all uninvited intereference with my life, even this very morning, before you ever presented yourself to me as someone who even existed. Meaning, the exact opposite of the above statement is true. Relationships with other REQUIRES the acknowldegement of individual boundaries on the of part of each-the-other person in said relationship. A consideration that is made prior to entering a public domain where relationships can be formed.
Quoting Tobias
"Free" will, doesn't exist. 99% of our cognition is subconscious. But, we do have executive function that works in tandem with cingulate cortex, amygdala, basal ganglia, and the hippocumpus to form the emotion processing network. Which allows for us to initiate decision making protocols based on external stimuli that is processed through the entire network. The control center of course being the prefrontal cortex that is quiteliterally connected to all of those structures of the brain and when operating in symphony, give rise to the sum total of human action and thought, or will. Or, as I like to call it, 'limited agency.' Will is properly defined in a thread I posted above. More on executive function here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2017.00431/full
I do not care what you have published in the thread Garrett, I was reading Arendt. You are already working with some kind of definition of freedom. Apparently the non-invited interaction between peoples. God knows why, but you might have a reason for it. However, I am reading Arendt's genealogy of freedom and was commenting on what she tried to do. I do not need any benefit from you to answer any question you might have. Out of my sight, shu.
Quoting Garrett Travers
As if that explains something....
Quoting Garrett Travers
Ohh great we have a medical doctor in the room. I am doing philosophy not neurscience. I suggest www.theneuroscienceforum.com
I'm under the impression that she speaks of "individual freedom" or "inner freedom" as if it's a kind of "sovereignty" over oneself, which it would seem is consistent with what appears, to me, to be a tendency on her part to believe in a kind of inner dialogue or conflict between one me and another me, one me being the will, one being desire, another me being acting-me, yet another being acted-upon-me; I don't know, it gets confusing (not enough mees in me to comprehend this, perhaps). But I may be wrong. I find it difficult to follow her thought, distracted as I am by the names she so relentlessly drops throughout the article.
I don't think the Stoics were all that concerned about freedom of any kind, except perhaps to the extent that it was necessary to act in accordance with nature. Virtue was the good for the Stoics. One could be virtuous without being free to do whatever one likes. For them it was quite unnecessary, and even improper, to exercise sovereignty over anyone--for Epictetus I'd say in particular, as others are not within our control. Epictetus was a slave and if one believes he said what Arrian says he said, it didn't matter to him that he wasn't free for much of his life. He thought it unimportant that Emperors and others could punish or kill him if he chose to act virtuously (so it seems did certain Roman Senators who were Stoics, who were executed by Emperors). Stoics didn't associate themselves with any polity, believing with Diogenes the Dog that they were citizens of the world.
I rejoice in any criticism of Heidegger, but frankly wish he had spent far more time "in conversation with himself" than he did.
Not much significance at all. It's more a concern for those who desire or disturb themselves over things or matters which aren't in their control.
:rofl: I do know he is a national socialist and that is, of course, uncomely. However, I do wonder why you always react so strongly to him. He is also a very interesting thinker. He really is, despite his unwelcome affiliation with some of the most heinous villains in history.
Yes, I do, in fact. It's called the working definition: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint/absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government/the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved
To say, "I don't care," doesn't make sense within the context of this specific conversation. We are having a discussion ABOUT that.
Quoting Ciceronianus
It gets confusing because it's complete bullshit, and a trained philosopher knows better than to spread this nonsense. As if Cartesian duality hasn't been addressed, and dispensed with, by philosophy and neuroscience alike. It's confusing because there is only, and objectively, ONE you, irrespective of the dialogues that take place in your head. Which emerge as a result of your emotion processing network running constantly across multiple structures of the brain, including the endocrine system, governed by the prefrontal cortex. Also information I listed above.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Spot on.
Quoting Ciceronianus
He believed it not only absurd, but counter-productive to one's happiness and virtue to desire that which could not be controlled. All of the Stoics have my most profound respect for viewing life in this manner.
Quoting Ciceronianus
How can one, when one sees the nature of those who comprise said polities? It's like staring into the heart of Nietzsche himself and having a legion of men, women, and children stare right back at you.
I do not think that that is what she is after. I rather think that this is what she considers freedom defined in the Justinian and Christian tradition, amounts to. We find it playing in the history of philosophy as well. There is a dychotomy between will and knowledge where knowledge is supposed to be in control of will, or, one has to will in accordance with knowledge. That would be rather Kantian. It all makes freedom an inner experience, one aligns one's knowledge and one's will and is free from desire. (remember the old Gala song?) Her point is that freedom is not an individual experience, but a political category. One is free within a certain system. I read in the essay a more communitarian critique of a liberal conception of freedom, but I might be wrong of course. Streelight seems to have a different take on it.
That kind of does the trick. It's a bit like reading Lenin; sure, it's interesting, but was it worth the bodies? Many more interesting philosophers than both.
There is no such thing as 'the working definition'. Philosophy is not an excercise in dictionary writing. There might be working definitions of philosopher x or y, or in the context of Kantianianism, utilitarianism and so on. Arendt opens the discussion on what freedom is, then telling her, here I have 'the working defintion, does not make any sense.
Quoting Garrett Travers
No, we are having a conversation about Arendt's essay. You have a tendency to want to set the terms. However, why would I be playing along? You also have a tendency for using capital letters I see.
Quoting Garrett Travers
I see it as totally unrelated. What they argued about philosophy is for me removed from their politics. A good argument is a good argument irrespective of the political views of the one who brings it forth. It may be a warning and invites thorough investigation of the work in question to see if any ideas within it prefigured mass murder. If anything it is a reason to read both very carefully, something I doubt you both have done. And no, I am not taking your word for it that there are more interesting philosophers. Why would I?
Um... No, you've got this completely backwards. To change the working definition of a word in english, which is an adaptive langauge where word definitions change through time and usage, to be used to conceptualize something that the current, standing, working definition defines as something entirely separate, is completely unphilosophical. She doesn't "open" any discussion, she quite clearly says that defining the term is impossible, even thought there is a definition for it, and provides no argument for the assertion that can with stand logical, or scientific scrutiny. She does this while making claims about the nature of freedom that are ambiguous and derived from multiple "understandings" of freedom that have nothing to do with actually, clear usage of the term that has been in place and in active usage for a good long while. Arednt's attempt here is little more than an exercise in fallacy that seems to be being bitten, hook, line, and sinker. And you might ask, "well, Garrett, what fallacy could you be talking about, given you're so pompous as to assert such a thing about a respected philosopher?" Easy, this one: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Equivocation
Quoting Tobias
And the topic of that essay, and by extension the topic of this discussion - as described by the title of this discussion - is on the nature of freedom, sovereignty, and by ambiguous extention, purposely asserted in the essay, will and it's associated degrees of freedom. I changed no terms, I merely have upheld them.
Quoting Tobias
A completely fair assessment.
Quoting Tobias
Never said to take my word for, but now that you bring it up, trust me, take my word for it, you'll thank me, there are far more interesting and less destructive people who have graced the field of philosophy; a lot more interesting, too.
Can someone tell Garrett Travers that just because he states there is some sort of definition that does not make it the case? Philosophy does not do dictionary. Maybe it is just your objectivist leanings, but not in any tradition worth its salt is a concept such as freedom off limits because there is some sort of definition of it.
Quoting Garrett Travers
No I I would not ask such a question because it is of no interest to me in the least. I am actually not asking you any questions, nor am I engaging with any of the points you made in the thread accept those directed at me, because I am not seeing anything in there that are remotely worth my time. Perhaps a discussion of whether your definition is viable might be interesting in itself, but I have to admit I find Arendt's approach a lot more interesting then the analysis of some kind of definition.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Indeed those are the topics of the essay, apart from free will, which in my opinion is not. However, you refuse to engage with the essay because it does not play by your rules aka your working definition of freedom. However, no one gave you any authority to set those rules.
Quoting Garrett Travers
The way you do philosophy, actually the way you not do philosophy, gives me no incentive to trust you on just about anything remotely related to the subject.
Please o lord deliver us from evil....
This is simply a statment of non-truth. Nothing else to it. It would not take you more than two google searches to realize that the predominantly held view of freedom within the domain of philosophy is a 1-to-1 comparison to the working definition of the word. The idea that a word's usage must be accepted by all, is a standard you are simply fabricating for no other reason than you do not want to contend with the clear rebuttal that I presented against the argument of this psuedo-philosopher. Neither is broad improper usage of a clearly defined term, both linguistically and philosophically, a standard for which one might reasonably begin the fallacious process of saturating a term with ambiguity for reasons unknown.
Quoting Tobias
Never said it was off limits. I said the claim that "it becomes impossible" to define, is simply not true. There are plenty of definitions provided as a matter of linguistics, as well as philosophy, that are in accord with one another and all generally confirm the same principle. And I don't know what Objectivist leanings means. What about might Stoic leanings? Or, my Virtue Ethics leanings? Or, my Utilitarian leanings? Would any of those dictate whether or not I could read a definition clearly defined and clearly expounded upon within the philosophical tradition over the course of thousands of years? Seems a strange thing to toss into a question about reading comprehension.
Quoting Tobias
By not seeing arguments that are "not worth my time," you mean to say, "you have clearly refuted the original claims of the essay in question, using both modern cognitive neuroscience, logicical argumentation, and clear definitions of a word that has long had the same basic understanding informing its description, thus I would rather not engage with you and instead insult you, even though you've done no such thing to me." That's quite literally the only thing I read in this tantrum.
Quoting Tobias
Yes, by clearly defining terms, because to not do so would be a fallacy of ambiguity - that's something you learn in introductory logic, supporting those definitions with a description of how the brain operates as per cited academic journals provided by frontiers in science, and actually addressing every single critique of my assessment sent in my direction..... How do you do philosophy? And tell me, when you describe said methodology, will you please do me the favor of just showing me how you do it, while leaving the insults to yourself; it's kind of not a philosophical approach to discussions, it's actually a fallacy, which makes it unphilosophical.
Even though that is a neat little paradox, I think this is the best part of the portion of Arendt's essay I have read:
"The rise of totalitarianism, its claim to having subordinated all spheres of life to the demands of politics and its consistent nonrecognition of civil rights, above all the rights of privacy and the right to freedom from politics, makes us doubt not only the coincidence of politics and freedom but their very compatibility."
If, as she states earlier, freedom is known only through tangible realities - such as our interactions with others - not through some sort of apparatus of self-reflection, then how can those who live under the thumb of totalitarianism, in which all spheres of life are dominated by the political, be thought to be free at all? Does this limitation of the will extend to all legislation directed at curtailing freedoms, whatever their ends may be?
Moreover, I find myself wondering if the recognition of privacy and freedom from politics is more desirable than the legislated freedom (such as the second amendment), if the two are not compatible.
Will try to finish the essay, but it's a difficult read for me. How do you get through slogs like that, Banno? I can hardly understand anything that's being said without reading it like five times.
I hold no such view. I just hold the view that philosophers does not need to accept a working definition, also not when that definition is held by many other philosophers. She enters into a genealogical exploration of a philosophical concept and finds different meanings. What is wrong with that? The analytic tradition and continental tradition also may have a different definition of freedom. This I got from an article on Kant: "Kant formulated the positive conception of freedom as the free capacity for choice. It asserts the unconditional value of the freedom to set one’s own ends. Autonomy of the will is the supreme principle of morality and a necessary condition of moral agency." here
Hegel's definition of freedom: "So a philosophy of right is necessarily a philosophy of freedom that seeks to comprehend freedom actualized in how we relate to each other and construct social and political institutions." here
And here Heidegger on freedom: "In Heidegger's late thinking, human freedom is determined not any more by the obligation of choosing oneself but by the necessity of clearing the truth of Being." taken from here
All different articulations, none of which correspond to your working definition whatever that may be. In any case I am sure I can find many others and a google search like assert is no sound basis either. On such concepts such as freedom even if definitions seem alike, there may be worlds of difference. In political philosophy the term freedom is still hotly debated even though there may be definitions that are more or less dominant. I do recognize your definition, that is not the point, there are many others though and Arendt's essay might well be insightful even if she does not share your definition.
Quoting Garrett Travers
I do not know which one of those makes you incapable of engaging with a philosophical genealogy of the concept of freedom. I suspected objectivism, that is all. It is not about reading a definition, it is about thinking that that is what philosophy is.
Quoting Garrett Travers
No, apply your own definition: not worth my time, means not worth my time. I am not saying that assessment is necessarily correct. Maybe I am missing a brilliant rebuttal of Arendt, might be. But your responses have not given me any new insight or made any contribution to my understanding of it.
Quoting Garrett Travers
No, philosophy is not 'clrearly defining terms'. I had a class on introductory logic, all well and good. It is by no means the only approach to philosophy. Not even the dominant approach anymore, it seems. How the brain operates has never been a philosophical topic, but one for neuro-science. I take my bearings in philosophical methodology from Michel Foucault, who stands in a Heideggerian tradition. I conduct genealogical enquiries in the history of concepts mostly. Moreover, I also tend to take an approach taken from G.R.G. Collingwood, namely the identification of absolute presupositions. But in any case, do it as you want it, try to get published. But again, that is not an insult but a statement of fact, you have not said anything I find worth my time. Take that statement from the perspective of ordinary language philosophy.
And yes, you do insult me. You do not engage in dialogue, you merely wish to set the terms of it and expect everyone to agree. You do so in a very condescending way. That I find insulting and indeed provokes counter barbs, from which I should and will refrain.
There's nothing wrong with that approach, she was wrong both in her approach, as it was fallacious, as was her conlcuision, which I provided, as of yet, arguments that haven't been overcome.
Quoting Tobias
This definition, the definitions I provided from the dictionary, and the description I gave in my own words are exactly the same. It is Arendt that does not agree with this statement from Kant. As it stands, you'd be hard pressed to find a definition of freedom, as provided by a philosopher, that isn't some variation of this exact idea. Meaning, you just reiterated my position by using Kant's description.
Quoting Tobias
And what does he describe as being freedom? “the free will which wills the free will." Same thing, freedom of the will to will. He agrees with my definition and Kant's.
Quoting Tobias
This is not an intelligible sentence, and Heidegger is not a philosopher.
Quoting Tobias
That's not something people say in a philosophical discussion when one person (me) has presented well supported arguments with science, logic, and clear communication that haven't been overcome. To say "not worth my time," means you have no business here discussing this topic in a forum designed specifically for philosophical discussion.
Quoting Tobias
Oh, I see what's going on with you then. Foucault's not a philosopher, dude. He was nihilistic child predator who hated the world and everyone in it, especially the people he could confuse to the point neurotic derangement. And Heidegger was fucking Nazi. The idea that you would even remotely have an urge to critique my philosophical approach, without providing even a single argument against my position, when your ideological leaders are the most immoral, disgusting specimens among men imaginable, is next level self-myopia. And yes, it actually is the case the clearly defined terms are a elemental in philosophizing. Foucault has abused you, as well, it seems.
This was your definition of freedom. Kant disagrees. For him freedom is a victory of ratio over nature. It s not being compelled by your desires but choosing the moral law freely. So no, they do not agree with you, nor with a dictionary definition.
And no Arendt does not agree with Kant or you either. I find what Arendt says interesting, you do not. That is fine.
You have not presented anything worth my time, really. I think you just do not like to hear that. Please go on doing things your way, but do not compel me to read it as I find philosophy by dictionary simply boring.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Perhaps you forget I am under no obligation to engage with you at all. In the above statement your true colors show. Whoever does not do philosophy your way is no philosopher. You are fond of fallacies right? Look up 'no true Scotsman'. While you are at it also read up on the argumentum ad hominem and please stop annoying me.
Quoting Tobias
These statements are logically equivalent. They mean the exact same thing. Human action free of coercion is the free capacity for choice and autonomy of will, will being the sum of all action demanded of you by your nature. You are wrong.
Quoting Tobias
Wouldn't compel anyone to do anything, I'm not a Nazi or a sexual predator hiding behind the philosophical tradition. And "philosophy by dictionary" isn't what has happened here. I presented the current definitions and defended them with academic journals, my own logical arguments, and by highlighting the fallacy she used to make the argument in her essay. You're having trouble analyzing things.
Quoting Tobias
I hope they do. Understand this, if you appear as a philosophical underling of such trash, you've already been dismissed as not-to-be-regarded by reasonable people. And, it may be wise to familiarize yourself with that fallacy, as you don't know when it's being used. I actually brought to your attention that you were insulting me, instead addressing my arguments that were "NoT WoRth mY TimE." You require a great deal of help here, man.
As the character played by the incomparable Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke said (the Captain?), what we have here, is failure to communicate. Not on your part, but on the part of Arendt.
If she is saying what you think she's saying, it would be a relatively simple thing to express, I believe. I don't think she does do so with any clarity, and leaves us to wonder what's going on with freedom and what it has to do with sovereignty and why giving up sovereignty will make us free. I think she gets caught up in the avalanche of references, names, debates on causes and free will, and dualisms she unleashes on the unwary reader. But perhaps I'm too impatient. Or, perhaps I've been a lawyer for too long, and so am suspicious of what seems to be a set-up, or an effort to "baffle them with bullshit."
I understand she's making a distinction between ancient and modern points of view regarding freedom. I don't necessarily agree with the distinction I think she makes, but believe there is a difference.
My guess is status and position were more important in Graeco-Roman times than freedom. Julius Caesar was assassinated because he usurped the authority and honors, the imperium, of the Senate, not because the people of Rome longed to be free. His much wiser grand-nephew created a new form of government, the Principate, in which the form of the rights and privileges historically held by the Senate was preserved and honored, while actual authority was held by Augustus and his successors.
Totalitarianism is at least as old as the work of its first and possibly greatest proponent, Plato. Freedom wasn't an issue to him because it was insignificant at best, an inconvenience at worst. Plato dreamed of the ruthless and regimented imposition of perfection. The Christian conception of freedom would be much the same during the time the Church dominated society, though the Church likely thought freedom more dangerous and opposed it with greater zeal. There was one truth, one goal.
That began to change, though, and my guess is that concerns regarding freedom as we understand it now began to arise in the conflict among nations and sects that arose when theocracy failed. Just a guess, though.
Even better, the individual experiences his/her own tangible realities independent of force that would threaten it. If a human is left to their own devices, their will shall simply emerge of it's own accord; it is of itself so. Meaning, freedom is intrinsic to the nature of the individual being qua being, irrespective of whether or not something has threatend said freedom, which only serves to increase the individual's desire for freedom, it doesn't define it. What defines it is the fact that, left to it's own devices, consciousness and conscious experience is self-sustaining and self-generating; freedom defined. And as far as governments are concerned, you're asking the right question, my astute friend. How can one be free, if one's labor isn't their own to keep exclusively? How is one free if they need to verify that they have crossed an imaginary line, arbitrarily drawn by the people paying the guy to force such verification with labor stolen from me by taxation? How am I free , if to renounce citizenship I must flee the country and swear fealty to another freedom stifling organization, which is current law by the way? To the degree that your actions and thoughts (will) are limited by external forces, and not as the result of you limiting another's, you are not free.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Legislated freedom, as outlined by the founders of the U.S. was always meant to fulfill the philosophical framework of freedom that logically follows one assessing human nature, its requirements, and what reasonably constitutes his rights as an individual, sovereign entity in the world. Such a framework means nothing to the world of power seekers if that philosophical framework is dismissed in the minds of the constituents, in favor of one that promotes self-sacrifice, property as an example of theft, production as a right, and humans as non-individuals. Which is fundamentally the predilections of 9 out of 10 of the average person sample.
Quoting ToothyMaw
That's exactly how she wants you to feel. She's a worm. She's employing the fallacy of ambiguity on you in the hopes that you don't pick up on it, and are simply rendered confused and slightly neurotic. That's always when the Sophist has you, and that's precisely why the Sophist's arguments are always laced with fallacies. No exceptions.
So when I said this: Quoting Janus
It should have been expanded: A definition that describes it would be a definition that (purports to) determine it(s nature), or is (purported to be) based on a prior determination of it(s nature) would it not?
Apology accepted. Now can we address my arguments?
Well, perhaps something more than uncomely.
I don't find him interesting, I'm afraid. I confess I find it very hard to read his work--his student, the young woman he seduced while her teacher, who wrote the essay being discussed in this thread, was a model of clarity in comparison to him. I find him, to the extent I can understand him, to be romantic, mystical, muddled; inclined to obfuscate if it suits his purposes, inclined to pontificate, a "self-infatuated blowhard" as it seems Don Idhe called him in reviewing his rhapsodic musings on the Parthenon while ranting about modern technology (Heidegger was apparently not content with merely likening the manner in which the Jews were killed by the Nazis in the camps to the mechanisms employed in modern agriculture in his critique of technology--his only mention of the Holocaust, apparently).
H.L. Mencken used to call William Jenning Bryan "the Great Mountebank." I feel much the same about Heidegger.
But to be frank I like to poke at sacred cows, and there's none more sacred in philosophy.
Present something worth considering and we'll consider it.
Well, no I've already done that. The numerous, thoroughly argued positions I presented above haven't been addressed. I confess, that it's growing apparent that my fellow thread-people simply don't have the ability, or are reluctant to do address them. This being evinced by the fact that they reliably choose the path of insult, instead of the path of argument, when no such form of intellectual dishonesty has been shown to them by me. Which, of course, is very telling. So, can you address the fallacy of ambiguity that accurately characterizes Arendt's argument? Here's a source on it that I already posted, just in case you need it: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Ambiguity-Fallacy
Yes, but also you work with a notion of freedom that Arendt at least contends did not exist as a problem for ancient philosophy. However, the concept of imperium is I think important. We have a kind of model of what rulership, sovereignty and imperium consists in. We have copied this model (just as we copied a model of the senate) in the history of our political concepts. I think Arendt would agree with you. There was no concept of freedom or liberty and of liberal autonomy. There was a concept of honors and rewards, that was what justice consisted in, giving everybody his due meant, give everyone the honors and rewards due to the role they play. I am curious of what Arendt makes of freedom as a political concept for the ancients, she says it was antithetical to a philosophical life, might well be, but she does not inform us of the political in which it then presumably still plays a role.
What strikes me in the essay as interesting, is that the concept of imperium (as sovereignty) and freedom become intertwined. It becomes married to Plato's conception of the soul that consists of base desires, spirit (in the sense of a spirited, impetuous individual) and the highest faculty, reason. In Plato's conception ratio ought to rule the other two faculties. In the Christian version this becomes a bit of a problem. Conversion means a willed 'act of fate', more an act of spirit than of ratio. We beget a new problem the problem of will as the source of freedom and knowledge as the source of freedom.
It becomes a thorny issue in all of western philosophy since then and up until a century or so ago, how to reconcile knowledge and faith or knowledge and will. Kant seems to hold a very Platonic sense of freedom still, it is ratio that should rule nature. The utilitarians choose the opposite, it is after all 'pleasure and pain' that rule us. Both though have something in common, namely they are both individualized. What I think Arendt wants to do is reconceptualize freedom in a non individualized manner. how exactly I do not know but she is making the point that freedom can only exist within a community that fosters it, that gives you something to be free with. Individual freedom is not interesting for her, it is communal freedom.
I think what she does is hard because she wrote at a time before the onset of the debate on political freedom, on comunitarianism and liberalism. However, I agree I am filling in a lot, but that is how I can engage with the text and gather something from it.
Quoting Ciceronianus
I do not think she thinks giving up sovereignty makes is free, but it is a step in a direction. If we assume freedom rests in sovereignty it follows that we need to establish that sovereignty and that means gain control of others. It transforms freedom into a zero sum game (I thought I read it before, I do not anymore who said it) if I am free, you are not. Freedom, seen from this perspective, leads to a war of all against all, the exact opposite of it.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Well, that conflict between nations may also have been (partly) caused by our conception of freedom and sovereignty. Just remembered the beef between France and the Holy roman Empire over the sovereignty of the emperor of the HRE. Lawyers have written libraries about the position of the king vis a vis the emperor.
Quoting Ciceronianus
I do not have shares in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. His reference to the concentration camps is in very bad taste, even criminally offensive, seeing that he lend his support to exactly that regime for so long. He does make that equation in what I think is a masterful piece of thinking on the nature of technology and the 'technification' of the world. A point which Arendt in this essay makes but with different words and a different target. The ;point being is that 'will to power' has usurped the way we view the world. For Heidegger this was a 'sinking' into an epoch in which we would appropriate everything and lost our ability to 'let things be' Arendt thought to operationalize this notion politically I think and took the concept of freedom as a target, a concept that became equated to 'will to power' as well.
To me it is interesting, but we all have our personal endeavors and interests, one no better than the other. I also do not like the name dropping, I am a child of my time too. However, in the continental tradition that was and (unfortunately) still is common practice. It is doable but it take time to get to know the discourse. In defense of it, it is a deeply historical, rather scholastic take on philosophy, not unlike law in that respect. For me though I have the same problem with the analytic tradition, the logic chopping is abhorrent and when they explain it to me in lay terms I think "óhh but could you not have said that clearly?"
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Quoting Ciceronianus
Ohh you, poking at all those poor cows! Imagine how they must feel.... ;) nahh, keep kicking against the pricks Ciceronianus!
Quoting Garrett Travers
Can you address the usefulness and necessity of the genealogical method in philosophy?
“In philosophy, genealogy is a historical technique in which one questions the commonly understood emergence of various philosophical and social beliefs by attempting to account for the scope, breadth or totality of discourse, thus extending the possibility of analysis…”(Wikipedia)
:cry: :rofl: :cry: :rofl:
Banno introduced the issue of free will in the OP.
Yeah, I know. All latched on to it. Which is fine of course, but I think the essay is richer than that. Besides, there are so many threads on free will...
One thing I am certain of is that here is no freedom without constraint, so there is no absolute freedom. The idea that my freedom trumps, and thus can cancel, yours is unjust; I don't think it's hard to see that.
I could, if that were necessary. My critique is not of the geneological method, but of the method being used to conclude something entirely contrary to both the current definitions, as well as the predominant understanding of the concept among philosophers that, get this, are completely consistent with the current definitions in broad, public use.
What is that method? It isn't the geneoligical method, it's the fallacy of ambiguity that, oddly, still hasn't been addressed. She employed this fallacy to conlude that freedom could not be defined, despite the fact it can, and she in fact does in her extended work, numerous times, in terms that are eqully as ambiguous like: "Men are free […] as long as they act, neither before, nor after; for to be free and to act are the same." Which is not the case if said action is compelled, or is being used to compel another, or simply thinking while remaing stationary. Or: "that thought itself, in its theoretical as well as its pre-theoretical form, makes freedom disappear."..... How? Not much sense here. So, we gonna address even that one argument? Forget the other stuff, just that one argument?
Smartest thing I've seen on this thread so far.
That points to the need for a 'guaranteed public domain' for all experiences of freedom, both public and private that requires more than legal rights but also is not possible without them.
When looking at the Shoah, the loss of this domain was not simply a loss of political power, it was the subtraction from a domain for one group for the purpose of increasing the sense of freedom for another.
One might get suspicious of the language of the will when one is on the receiving end of enthusiasts who talk about matters that way amongst themselves while loading you on to trains.
Well spotted! This was indeed a thought that occurred to me while reading the text, rather than one found in it. For your efforts in making such a close reading of the text, you win a bottle of Laphroaig, which you may collect when next over this way.
The line that urged the thought upon me was "it must appear strange indeed that the faculty of the will whose essential activity consists in dictate and command should be the harborer of freedom". Asking if one is free to act against one's own will is a way of bringing out the contrary relation between will and freedom that is Arendt's starting point. Indeed, as you say, the question presupposes a notion of freedom Arendt rejects, and hence in disagreeing with the question folk are agreeing at least in part with Arendt, that freedom is not consequent on will.
This has curiously not prevented folk from nevertheless taking free will as central to freedom.
Speaking roughly, Arendt seems to me to have identified a nascent freedom implicit in the capacity of a Greek citizen to take action together with their peers within their polis. Frustration with a lack of ability to act publicly was mollified by the privacy of what was under one's own control with Epictetus and the Stoics (@Ciceronianus). The slave Epictetus was unable to act for himself, and took solace in private virtues. These two aspects were brought together by Christianity; "When freedom made Its first appearance in our philosophical tradition, It was the experience of religious conversion of Paul first and then of Augustine which gave rise to it". But "...the appearance of the problem of freedom in Augustine's philosophy was thus preceded by the conscious attempt to divorce the notion of freedom from politics", and so arose the problematic view that my freedom is only won at the expense of yours. This view, that freedom is to do with personal sovereignty and not a capacity to act publicly, is the focus, I think, of Arendt's scorn (@Judaka).
Hence I agree with your "Only if we establish relationships towards others that are free, might we be free." This is the key borrowed by the Ethics Centre essay, which seeks to explain to Sovereign Citizens and their like that "Our own freedoms are contingent upon the political systems that we exist in, actively engage with, and mutually construct."
I'm please you found the essay interesting.
Reading Arendt is not like being led through an argument so much as inundated by it. One has to do some work to put the pieces together.
I think Arendt would agree that the Stoics emphasised virtue rather than freedom, and that she would add that private virtue was brought together with the will by Augustine to give us the fraught notion of freedom. Central to Christian concerns is the freedom to choose to go with or against the will of the Lord, who sees into one's soul and judges us on our private thoughts as much as our public actions.
I take this to be in accord with ' comment here.
Arendt talks of the public space, the res publica, as the domain of politics. She describes life under tyranny as a reduction of that public space, a removal of the citizen from the political. Hence "A state, moreover, in which there is no communication between the citizens and where each man thinks only his own thoughts is by definition a tyranny." Tyranny is the removal of that public space which is the habitat of freedom.
Hence Arendt is arguing for the opposite of what you suggest. In tyranny, it is not that all spheres of life are governed by the political, but that the ability to act politically is removed, that the citizen is driven from the public space back into the privacy of inaction.
I deny that. I did mention free will in the second post, which as @Tobias noticed was a bit of a furphy. At the back of my mind was the fact that it is always fun to have a bit of controversy in a thread, and it helps to get the posts rolling in. It gives the kids something to fight over, and they get the attention of the grown-ups. See Toby helping @Garrett Travers realise that there is more to freedom than he might find in the American myth.
I'm quite enjoying this thread. But there is weeding to do.
That's a cute way of phrasing "See Garrett making arguments that none of us could contend with, so we just decided to insult him."
But, I'm still open if any of you would like try where Banno and Toby have failed miserably.
I admire @Tobias' forbearance.
Even funnier bit is, the above sentence is, still yet, another example of you avoiding my arguments. And there is much to understand.
Even funnier yet is, Arendt has very ambiguous views on freedom that she can't clearly define for herself, except in various forms of negation, or by perceptions of the word sovereignty, which she rather stringently holds as a political concept without ambiguity, oddly, informed primarily by the ideas that have accompanied the concept of freedom throughout history that she finds questionable, particularly in regards to the Christianity informed concept of freedom, leaving her with very little in the way of something interesting to present. Nothing new, nothing unaddressed in philosophy, or neuroscience for that matter. So, yes, you're right, I offered specifically the view that she has attempted to critique and has not been successful in doing so in a manner that couldn't be addressed with logic and science.
Best end there.
That'd be good for you.
And until you do something of that sort, until you find it within yourself to talk about the topic of this thread, then your bitching about our not addressing your supposed arguments is hollow.
You've been presented with an alternative to your pedestrian, unconsidered view of freedom. You might have made use of it to better your understanding. You might have made some effort to see freedom from a different perspective, then given some consideration to your own views and reconsidered them, perhaps altering them, perhaps reviewing them entirely, or perhaps extending the very small arsenal of arguments you have at your disposal in their defence. Instead, you are being boring,
This is how children deal with arguments.
I'll recapitulated my contention with the Arendt's position:
Claim: "“…it becomes as impossible to conceive of freedom or its opposite as it is to realize the notion of a square circle.”
Rebuttal: Not true, definitions of freedom: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint/ absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government/ the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. These def. are in keeping with the predominant views on freedom in philosophy including Hegel, Kant, Mill, Locke, etc.
Her justification?: "our own lives are, in the last analysis, subject to causation and that if between past and future there should be an ultimately free ego in ourselves, it certainly never makes its unequivocal appearance in the phenomenal world, and therefore can never become the subject of theoretical ascertainment."
This is woo woo. The body is controlled by the brain and the brain is a part of the body that provides executive function that allows for limited agency in decision making, critical thought, memory retrieval, etc. that has been traditionally mistakened as the ego. The body is an independetly observable fact of phenomenal reality. There is no separation. The mind and body are a singular unit. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2017.00431/full
Definitions of will: the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action/ control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one's own impulses/ a deliberate or fixed desire or intention/ the thing that one desires or ordains/ make or try to make (someone) do something or (something) happen by the exercise of mental powers/ intend, desire, or wish (something) to happen.
In other words, the sum total of all actions or thoughts possible, within the context of man's evolutionary domain of existence, and the emergence of all actions and thoughts thereof.
Natural strictures both impede action and thought, as well create the domain within which action and thought can emerge at all - think of walking in space, not our domain. Thus, we are limited by nature, but our will is still free to emerge within the context of the environment we are evolutionarily adapted to exist within.
Another assertion: "It is not scientific theory but thought itself, in its pre-scientific and prephilosophical understanding, that seems to dissolve freedom on which our practical conduct is based into nothingness."
It is not scientific theory (rationally excogitated method of inductive observation) but thought (rational excogitation), in its pre-scientific (before rationally excogitating a rationally excogitated method of inductive observation) and prephilosophical (before the rationally excogitated method of inductive observation that gave rise to the other rationally excogitated method of inductive observation mentioned before), that seems to dissolve freedom (acting, speaking, and thinking without hindrance), on which our practical conduct is based (predicated on via rational excogitation resulting from thinking and speaking without hindrance) into nothingness (how so?). Indescribable, this statement.
"The ancient, ignorant, uninformed understanding of freedom dissolves freedom, thus we should conclude that is the strongest argument in the case of freedom."
Her argument for this assertion?: That the concept has been "distorted" as a result of "transposing it from its original field, the realm of politics and human affairs in general, to an inward domain, the will, where it would be open to self-inspection."
So, now we have both an ambiguity fallacy, as well as an etymological fallacy, you see that? She hopes to retain the old definitions of freedom apropos politics and "human affairs in general," another exercise in ambiguity, and away from self-inspection because freedom emerges from Augustine and has primarily been a topic in politics...
Hm, no shit? You mean the one area of life where humans have always had the ability to simply be free from the application of human upon human force constantly revoked from them in the name of the sovereignty of those doing the revoking? Is that where this topic has been most discussed? Would have never believed, that such a contradiction in practice that endured for so long, and still does so, could have ever come to the point of being precisely the domain in which the ignorant masses of people first decide to talk about saying "fuck this."
Also, I wonder when concepts of individual freedom really started to take hold. Perhaps after the development of the printing press that precipitated the Reformation, which precipitated the scientific revolution, which precipitated the Enlighten, all as the result of the mass proliferation of philosophical materials allowing access to the wider public to such materials, and thereafter the development of the concept of individual freedom as opposed to freedom for the Absolute Monarchs, who declared their own sovereignty against foreign invaders who would seek to violate their rights that citizens were only privy to by decree of the Crown and Clergy, that led to the American and French Revolutions. Not really making a case that the concept of freedom is "dissolved" or completely relegated to politics. History tells the exact opposite story: that the more the concept of the sovereignty of the individual has expanded, the more freedom has been achieved in the world as a result.
Meaning, free public domains require the recognition of individual sovereign boundaries as a primary, and the public domain is thereby created as a result. Protected, yes if need be by the state, but the vast majority of the time is seen to by the rational discretion of individuals respecting eachother's boundaries as a tacit understanding.
The current, non-atavistic, approach to freedom as a philosophical concept is much more broad, sophisticated, logically informed and supported, scientifically informed and supported, and is more beneficial for the human race than this attempt to negate human will by relegating it to the confines of ancient thought.
You guys can contend with this, I'll be back in the morn. If you don't contend with this and instead insult me, as has been the custom thus far, I'll take that to mean you couldn't argue with my assessment. Oh, and I'm happy to expound on any of the above mentioned issues that I have with the paper.
City of God appears to be anti-political, but it was a response to accusations that Christianity was responsible for the decline of Rome.
I think that when Rome fell, focus naturally went inward. Christianity followed that trend rather than causing it. So it was a massive shift in external conditions that shaped the way we think about volition.
The Greeks abhorred the idea of being free from a community, one assumes because it meant vulnerability. Therefore they didn't explore the idea of an inward locus of control and the moral responsibility that is dependent on that idea.
There's nothing superior about the Greek outlook. And "freedom from" requires context for meaning.
For me the issue is undecidable as well and therefore interesting ;) Many, if not all philosophical issues are undecidable and dwelling on them is only enriching when it opens up different perspectives on the topic at hand. The strategy of taking a different 'tack' so to speak is actually also true for the analytic tradition, that attempts to dissolve philosophical questions by demonstrating they are products of 'bewitchment by language'.
I agree with your conception if freedom as only possible with constraint and therefore not being absolute. In the philosophical language I embrace, thinking through freedom leads to a dialectic because it brings into view the necessity of constraint. I do not think Arendt would isagree with you per se though. Sartre might... but Arendt I think not as she locates freedom inside a community, which automatically brings constraints into view. Her point seems to me to be that unmooring freedom from community leads to all kinds of paradoxes, one of which being that my 'will to freedom' clashes with yours. This problem has been the problem John Rawls eventually tried to deal with.
Randt used this "will can't act against itself therefore it's not free" argument using a blatantly absurd construct, as above.
I am sure to take you up on that offer when I will finally arrive once in the land down under! :100:
Quoting Banno
Ahhh, yes. That is indeed her starting point and actually, her end point. Freedom and will have become conjoined in a way that is on the face of it logical but has historical roots. Nonetheles... the notion of free will only asserts that the will is free, not that it itself cannot make unfree. In other words, I might not be able to act against my own will, that would require a second will, also being mine, and that would be rather absurd, but that will that commands me, is indeed free in a sense. It is free to choose to choose the objects of its desire. I believe such is Sartre's view, but I might be wrong. I would still argue against that notion, because I think it is determined by all kinds of societal and biological processes, but strictly speaking it does not follow from the fact that will is about commanding, that it itself cannot be free.
Come to think of it, the opposite may also be asserted I thin with an equal amount of credibility: the will must itself be free because it determines the structure of dictating and commanding. It follows from her characterization of the will.
So a free will, in the sense of being uncontrolled by something else, would be possible if we accept her assertion. It is trivial of course because what most people ask is actually not whether they have 'free will' but whether they have control over their own will, so precisely if their will is not free ;)
Quoting frank
Why would she be wrong if we also accept your statements as correct? I do not think you are in disagreement. Maybe about whether the philosophical life as an inward life started with the fall of Rome or whether it is older. I think it is older, because of Aristotle's rumination of some unmoved mover, thinking only itself. So the philosophical circle as something going on inside thought is recognizable, but even if it was indeed your sociological explanation... is that deadly to her argument? I do not think she holds the Greek conception to be superior, if only because according to her the Greeks had no philosophical problem of freedom. We do.
No harm done I assure you. ;)
Whew... thanks. This was the next best thing to getting my arguments regarded / noticed / acknowledged.
Tobias, I essentially said the same thing several pages ago that you said here. I expect Banno to give you a sophisticated and cajouling answer... and my thoughts earned from him this:
Quoting Banno
Why is this? If A=B, and A precipitates C, then should B not precipitate C?
If you care to check them, my arguments were posted mainly on page 3 of this thread.
I do not know. I address that paradox here, but I agree with Banno that it is of little concern to the text as a whole. I like the paradox Banno referred to and it might be considered in its own right, but detracts from the text. Probably Banno did not answer you because he saw so many points being made about free will, most of them having nothing to do with the text, that he did not answer you. Do not get worked up over it, people choose what they engage with. My argument on the paradox is for me also a side note, as I think it is for Banno. I think it has to do wit the way the thread went instead of with your argument.
No, it shouldn't. If I (A) precipitate you, and I am reborn (B) in a next universe then C is in the middle.
Wow. I am speechless.
"Everything should be simple and clear and pure between us. Only then will we be worthy of having been allowed to meet. You are my pupil and I your teacher, but that is only the occasion for what has happened to us."
Teacher and pupil. Master and servant. Free will gone. How could he join a party condemning jews, while Hannah was jewish? And he was married! His Zeit and Dasein in the world seem pretty banal to me. The banality of evil.
Just don't take Banno too seriously, and neither me, for that matter. We all have a free and determined will. Hannah wanted other people to take hers into consideration too. Sovereignty caring for Sovereignty but at the same time needing each other to be Sovereign. Sovereignty can't live without others to be independent of.
not a problem, Cornwell, nobody else does either. I just am miffed that it's reciprocal.
"It is the contention of the following considerations that the reason for this obscurity
is that the phenomenon of freedom does not appearin the realm of thought at all, that neither freedom nor its opposite is experienced in the
dialogue between me and myself in the course of which the great philosophic and metaphysical questions arise, and that the philosophical tradition, whose origin in this respect we shall consider later, has distorted, instead of clarifying, the very idea of freedom such as it is given in human experience by transposing it from its
original field, the realm of politics and human affairs in general, to an inward domain, the will."
How do you not read this as saying the Greek view was superior and the concept of will was a mistake?
She's wrong because the arguments against freedom of the will (nobody tops Schopenhauer there) are all purely logical. All you can do with a purely logical argument is map out the way we think. You can't use it as an ontological proof. Those arguments can't be used to reduce our everyday experience to "nothingness" as she says.
Looks like you desired to stay home, not chips.
"Dictate and command" what - the self? Are you saying that the self dictates and commands the self? What is the will in relation to what it is dictating and commanding?
I'll give you a hint: they're the same thing.
Yet all you did was redefine what dictates and commands - from "will" to "others". What is about others the makes me free when I think of others I think of their goals and how they may either promote my goals or hinder them.
The opposition to the Manichean view was to establish the culpability of the individual for evil in the world:
The idea of self-control as not being ruled by external or internal compulsion is more of a Stoic idea.
That difference is the point of Arendt saying:
It appears to me that Banno is attacking a strawman.
That is correct, if he shares the opinion of the author that inspired the post. If you go back a page, I think, I present, once more mind you, a series of arguments against the author's position using a series of definitions, a scientific journal on the prefrontal cortex and its function, and refutations that have not even a single time in this thread been addressed by a single person. Give those a look. The will encompasses all possible human action and thought, the body and the will are the same thing, completely inseparable and emerging by way of the same neural network in the brain, which is the body. This whole thread is predicated on fallacy.
LOL, if "we" need to establish relationships with "others" that are free, then you're implying that "others" were already free prior to establishing relationships with "we". So what made "others" free prior to establishing relationships with "we" who are not free? Strawmen and infinite regresses are the crux of your argument?
It's almost as if the domain of freedom requires individuals within that domain to value freedom for that domain to exist... I get the feeling that something along those lines was taken into consideration when Europe overthrew most of its monarchies and the American settlers founded a country predicated on a limited government that recognizes the sovereignty of the individual, the right to be free from force......
Well she surely thinks the connection to the will was a mistake. Perhaps she thinks the Greek view is superior in the fact that they saw freedom as political. However, what she actually thinks about it is not very clear to me. She does not dwell much on it.
Quoting frank
Does she intend to do that? As someone steeped in a phenomenological tradition I doubt that really is her wish. I read it as follows: when we look at ourselves in the first person we see freedom and choice an experience them as such. However, when we take a step back and see ourselves as a body, a third person view, we seem to be under the sway of all kinds of causality. Therefore it is thought itself that leads to tis antinomy. Her approach seems to me to be phenomenological, not logical.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Right. "Others" is just other "we"s.
Stop it, Harry. You can't will that rational assessment freely like that. Others are required to provide that freedom to you in the form of not impinging it with violence, and vice versa.
That analysis sounds pretty banal to me. What Heidegger would call ‘Das Man’, a nice pre-packaged normative moralism without any genuine accounting for particulars.
He was a despicable little man, wasn't he? Still, hardly the first 35 year old eager to jump on an 18 year old, and perhaps her being Jewish made the affair more naughtily thrilling to him. The bit about "being worthy to meet" the relationship of teacher and pupil notwithstanding is certainly banal, and of course self-serving.
She specifically mentions a number of logical challenges to the idea of volition. Her approach is: this crap is taking place in the realm of philosophy, and this is why: people became ensnared by theology and so fail to see the wisdom of the Greeks (which is actually a Hegelian insight, not Greek, but anyway,)
hehaha
:up: But didnt the Persians see a grand cosmic choice set before the individual?
I don't need to read this shit. Put it on reveal.
Expound on that, would you? I've never heard of it.
Perhaps a community which fosters a desire for it, instead. Free from, would make more sense than free with, I think. I find it hard to conceive of a community which fosters freedom as we think of it now--or at least as I think of it. Perhaps those damn Romantics, with their emphasis on individuality, bear some responsibility for this perspectives. I like to poke at them now and again, as well.
Quoting Tobias
Fair enough.
Indeed you don't. Yet it seems you do.
That's actually the key here. Rocks don't formulate the concept of freedom. Only humans do. And as humans are individually confined to their own consciousness, it must needs be that only individuals, individually, can both conceptualize freedom, as well as value it. These two activities precede the emergence of domains predicated upon freedom, it simply cannot be any other way. Concepts have to be formulated and valued before they can be used to establish a mode of behavior, either individually or collectively, to be enacted. The problem is arising from the fact that history is distinguished by the emergence of states predicated on overwhelming force, and superstitiously justified in the subjects as decreed by the divine. Which really worked for the looters for thousands of years, before the expansion and dissemination of the philosophical tradition to as many people as was needed to necessitate a reorientation in the perceptual framework of justifiable human behavior, which I regard to really kicking into high gear in 1400's. Such proliferation of intellectual thought utimately ends in the logical conclusion of freedom for all men to within the context of not violating said freedom, is the preferred mode of being for all those who do not desire domination over others; which again, is not justifiable from any philosophical perspective.
The idea is that the Persians invented the idea of progress. As opposed to the Hebrew view where you're born ignorant and have to learn about good and evil, Persians, specifically Zoroastrians, believed you're born with this knowledge and it's your responsibility to choose goodness over evil. It's not a one time choice, but something that's before you every day.
Where in the Hebrew outlook, you can tell if someone is good or evil by their health and wealth status (indicating God's covenant based promise), for Persians, outward status doesn't tell you anything. A person could be rich, but if they aren't choosing good every day, they're evil.
This shows up in Christianity, which received Persian ideas which had already been absorbed by the Jews. You can see that the Persian view is sort of proto inwardness.
That's well put. I wish I had thought of it.
Quoting Banno
Augustine, having conceived (a nice way to put it, I believe) Original Sin, had to find a less obviously unjust way by which we could be condemned to the flames of hell. Christ's sacrifice wouldn't do the trick, not entirely. If it in itself removed the stain of Original Sin, did that mean that those who lived before the sacrifice no longer writhed, so justly, in agony for all eternity? Did that mean that those born after it were clean of stain? Of course not. So, Original Sin had to be a proclivity to sin, but not an overwhelming one. We had to choose to sin, or at least appear to do so, and presto! Free Will was born.
Mmmmm. Laphroaig. It's so smokey.
So, a bit like Plato's anamnesiac idea of recalling the forms which are already embued in your memory banks that simply need to be triggered, eh?
Quoting frank
Very cool. Especially for primitive thought. Superstition dominated early Man. These intimations of elevated powers of perception are always interesting to me. Which is why I love ancient Eastern philosophy, just for its beauty and approximately correctness that is contained in its truisms.
Quoting frank
Very interesting. Okay, I'll look into this. I'm far more attuned with Western Ethics, but this looks like good material to incorporate. Thanks a bunch for indulging my curiosity.
I hadn't thought of that, but yes, it is similar. Innate knowledge vs starting with a blank slate.
Quoting Garrett Travers
:up:
I think that is exacly the point. You equate freedom immediately with 'free from'; free from interference, free from those pesky other people. That is whatthe whole of western tradition was geared towards, freedom became 'free from'. As a lawyer that idea is immediately appealing, we hold our human rights in high regard and a community making demands is suspect. Her challenge to that I think is to rethink this notion. She asks how a free community is thinkable, in which you ar efree with others. We think of a free community in terms of isolated individuals free from interference by others.
Quoting frank
I always like Hegelian ideas, but here I am not sure what you mean. I can follow it to some extent, but what is the Hegelian insight you speak of? Not to quiblle, an honest question for some clarification. Which of course you are under no obligation whatsoever to give... ;)
:lol: :up:
This is true. However, in the course of her unclear explication of freedom, she actually concedes its true requirement, although it would take a couple cracks at analysis to pick up on:
"Freedom needed, in addition to mere liberation, the companyof other men who were in the same state, and it needed a common public space to meet them a politically organized world, in other words, into which each of the free men could insert himself by word and deed."
https://grattoncourses.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/hannah-arendt-what-is-freedom.pdf (pg.6)
In other words, freedom requires first the experience of being liberated from the forces of nature or man's arbitration, then to conceptualize and value it, to thereby be enacted in word and deed. So, she actually concedes my position, oddly enough. I think what she's really trying to do is confuse her readers by providing a bunch of (fallacy of ambiguity) ancient definitions for the word and assert positions based on them (etymological fallacy) that don't actually follow from her premises (formal fallacy). Meaning, there's a handful of fallacies associated with her assertions, as well as the concession that individual conceptualization of freedom is necessary for a free domain, even though having only a few short sentences previously claimed that such inner sense of freedom is an illusion. It really makes no sense, in all honesty...
In that sense, she is not opposing the idea of isolated individuals over against an idea of society or community but saying that the former is not sufficient by itself. The quote from Thomas Paine she gives is: ""to be free it is sufficient [for man] that he wills it," That may describe a necessary recognition of equality for the purpose of disavowing the claims of tyranny. It does not, however, address how to develop the means to go forward as a way of life.
The nature of this insufficiency can be approached from many different points of view. Kierkegaard said that freedom was the ability to do things. Living as an individual requires more than setting up a boundary.
The matter of capabilities and resources appears immediately when enough people associate with each other to share or not share them. Declaring all to be equal may be one way to begin but hardly is adequate for the struggles such a life must engage with.
And when the forces of tyranny do gather their capacity to cancel freedom, the strength to resist comes from those capabilities being alive and well. That work doesn't happen by simply establishing a set of rules.
I think a community can, as a community, as a nation, assert its commitment to the freedom of all its members/citizens. The U.S. does that and has done that since its foundation; so have other nations (France, most notably, since the Revolution). So that in itself is quite "thinkable." It's apparent, in fact, so I assume that's not what she refers to, and this of course raises the question--what does she mean?
A nation of course may go beyond mere assertion and adopt laws which restrict the power of government and guarantee certain freedoms. That would be the exercise of sovereignty in favor of freedom, at least to an extent. How renounce that and achieve the wished for freedom? Or does she speak of individuals renouncing any claim to sovereignty of some kind over others, e.g. someone claiming his/her individual freedom.rights have priority over the freedom/rights of others? The conflict of rights, if not freedoms, is something we certainly know of and of course is something the law must address wherever legal rights exist. It's likely inevitable and in many cases has to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps she's recommending we refrain from engaging in such conflicts? Is that what she's touting, using Epictetus as an example?
Yes, that seems clear as regards all domains of conceptual framework, not just freedom. For example the Manhattan Project could never have manifested itself the way it did without the scientific conceptual framework x amount of scientists unified in the achievement of the same goal, it's the basic principle of manpower. But, the whole process begins with individuals that integrate the perceptions that stimulate the consideration, which is thereby vetted for it's validity to the best of one's ability, then formulated through the processes of coherence, resulting in a clear framework with which to inform behavior. That's fundamentally the process.
How does that observation relate to the matter of insufficiency that was the central point of my comment?
Yes, that is exactly what one is left to think reading this, I agree.
Quoting Ciceronianus
More like exercise of the recognition of sovereignty for the constituents from within, while also asserting sovereignty of the constituents from without, in the direction of exterior domains of established sovereignty.
Quoting Ciceronianus
She believes the concept of sovereignty is best understood in the historical sense (again with the etymological fallacy), within the context of governments. Even though current definitions cover both individual understandings of sovereignty, as well as societal, or state sovereignty.
Definitions: supreme power or authority/ the authority of a state to govern itself or another state/ a self-governing state/ a self-governing state/ freedom from external control/ one that is sovereign
As you can see, the contemporary definitions are far more broad and sohisticated than simply relying on historical contex of sovereignty and covers both domains.
Quoting Ciceronianus
She certainly critiques authoritarianism, but, it's really not clear what she's ultimately using as reasons to conclude any of her assertions. As I posted above, they are laced with fallacy.
I provided an example of the phenomenon you mentioned, not addressing the process that is involved in such a phenomenon failing against forces that would oppose it. Nor, is it a topic of what is being discussed here, although interesting.
To address it: I would say, yeah, you're right. The capacity to resist DOES come from those capacities being alive and well. What animates them is individual value in the virtues that ensure those capacities, rules won't compel it. Rules are little more than an agreement on standards for interpersonal interactions and conduct decided upon by the people that were there to agree upon them. An individual has to value those standards to uphold them, and by extension have the constitution requisite to meet forces head on that would threaten it.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Yes, one needs first 'liberation'. In slavery one is not free. However, you hold on to some 'true requirement', as if that is enough. For her that is not enough. That is where her essay gets interesting.
Quoting Paine
Exactly, but I think Kierkegaard would not go far enough for her. Indeed one needs to ability 'to do things', but also to have a voice in setting the rules of the social game so to speak. Ahrendt asserts the 'right to have rights' in The Origins of Totalitarianism which she seems to divide the right to action and the right to opinion. Her point, at least the way I take it, is that you have a right to matter, in the sense of being taken into account. One is only free if one can matter politically. If not, if a group is marginalized and becomes politically outcast, it will lose all other rights. For that, you need a space in which you deal with others on an equal footing. Quite Habermassian this all seems. Therefore, liberation by itself is not enough.
There Cic's point comes in: Quoting Ciceronianus
Yes it can, but this assertion as a kind of motto is not worth anything. It has to provide that ground in practice. The USA in her time nominally supported freedom but there were many social groups disenfranchized even more so than now. I guess in her view, the thinking in terms of sovereignty prevents this politically free space to emerge, because politics is not a free space in which 'free men can insert themselves by word and deed', but an arena, to use a common sociological term, in which one wins and loses. Whether she is right I do not know, it is what I gather from her texts.
Quoting Paine
Indeed! It requires a rethinking of 'setting rules' to begin with.
Additionally, her point is not that freedom is not thinkable, she is trying to rethink freedom so that would be as silly assertion, but that it is unthinkable in the terms we have hitherto been using. Then she says, will you end up in contradictions. I do not know if that is true, but quite frankly I do not care, because if I get hung up there I miss the rest of her essay. Perhaps it is hyperbole, god knows.
You can oppress your own will. Like that of others.
That's correct, and in non- slavery one is free and does not need liberation to know it. This concept of freedom is in accordance with her hisrorical assessment of states and the perpetual non-freedom Man found himself in. Because freedom was in perpetual negation, and Man is ignorant and blind without philosophy and thereby subject to the vagaries of brute force, he must be liberated to experience his from. But, this is true ONLY in this context, and even in this context it still emerges as an individual value internally, to outwardly flow thence and build communities with people who share the same value. Again, she concedes my position in this assertion. It is her concept that is limited, not mine. She relies solely on the historical context of freedom to formulate her definitions of freedom which inform her conclusions, which is again, an etymological fallacy. I accept her domain of freedom, as long as it is not limited to that, but instead expanded to cover the individual element that the Enlightenment gave us as a result of more thought on the concept and it's essential nature to the survival of Man.
Quoting Tobias
I've already presented the reason why this is not contradictory. But, just to add to that argument, it is contradictory itself to conclude that freedom is contradictory from the perspective of inner thought, as it is inner thought that is at all times emerging as a free exercise of the activity of the brain, even when experiencing external intereference. The brain is in a perpetual state of thought and action, even if executive function is being overridden by force or nature. It is the definition of freedom: unrestrained action and thought in accordance with its nature. The only way to stop a brain from operating in this manner is trauma. Thus, the source of freedom cannot contradict itself in its own natural observation of its own freedom, which is a capacity of the human being as a result of superior-pattern-processing and exectutive function.
That comment evades the problem of the sufficiency of declaring individual freedom that I referred to.
That topic is integral to Arend's argument:
Although it depends on how they run the zoo.
No, it doesn't evade anything. Just a remark. I wasn't making an argument against what you said, as I expounded on afterward.
Nobody here has argued for such a thing.
This is scientifically illiterate. Will is the sum total of all possible actions and thoughts of a human being, will and body are not disconnected and nobody here argues such.
Honestly, I'm not understanding why this is being shown to me. Care to explain a bit?
Arendt is saying that if the principle of individual sovereignty was sufficient for the life of freedom, it would not lead to the absurdities noted in Rousseau's version of it.
I see, yes, among other assertions she presents that do not make sense. Yes, nobody says the mere concept is sufficient to create the "life of freedom," but that people value the concept as a prerequisite for such "life of freedom" to exist between people within a given domain, and also that such a concept is first and foremost an emergent thought and value within the individual brain. You cannot have the free domain without individuals who value freedom that comprise it as constituents. If humans are atomized, they can still live without force from other humans, but it decreases the liklihood. So, there is a dimension along which I agee, but only to that degree.
She also, again, makes many claims, among which is the impossibility of freedom to be defined, and the inherent contradictions in the concept of individual freedom, which are also assertions that simply do not make sense. For the reason I just explained, or have already explained with definitions and explanations that are consistent with the modern philosophical approach to freedom.
She defines freedom as action ,or praxis, which is prior both to reason- intellect and to the will. This notion is influenced by Hegelian dialectics. When she argues that freedom should not be equated with sovereignty of will she means that will should not be thought of in terms of a mastery. of ourselves. Action is the opposite of this. It represents a becoming and self-transformation , a new beginning. We are only free when we are surprised by what we will , rather than being masters over our thoughts.
“Action insofar as it is free is neither under the guidance
of the intellect nor under the dictate of the will although
it needs both for the execution of any particular goal but springs from something altogether different which (following Montesquieu's famous analysis of forms of government) I shall call a principle.”
“…the manifestation of principles comes about only through action, they are manifest in the world as long
as the action lasts, but no longer. Such principles are honor or glory, love of equality, which Montesquieu
called virtue, or distinction or excellence the Greek det dpLcrrerW ("always strive to do your best and to be the best of all"), but also fear or distrust or hatred. Freedom or its opposite appears in the world whenever such principles are actualized; the appearance
of freedom, like the manifestation of principles, coincides with the performing act. Men are free as distinguished from their possessing the gift for freedom as long
as they act, neither before nor after; for to be free and to act are the same.”
Which is another problematic definition, as one is free as one sleeps without someone interupting said sleep. Furthermore, modern cognitive neuroscience is out pacing this definition itself, by describing to us what the brain does. And what it does is complex maintenance of activity in the form of thought, emotion, and action (will) at all times, with the prefrontal cortex acting as the control center, and is connected to the entire neural, and emotional processing networks of the body. Meaning, the will (sum total of all individual human action) is never in a state of inactivity, outside of trauma induced inactivity. Freedom is not action, freedom is the will of an individiual emerging without the application of force to impeded, or inhibit him.
As far as mastery and sovereignty is concerned, I would on partially second that opinion. Yes, mastery as in, total active command as if a slave to a mastery, sure. But, if we mean sovereignty in these forms: freedom from external control/ controlling influence/ supreme power or authority/ a self-governing state, then yes, sovereignty is not just applicable to the concept of freedom, it's part and parcel
Quoting Joshs
This is in direct contradiction to both the Hegelian sense of freedom, which is to say thought itself in all of its manifestations including action, and to the current working definitions that cover both thought and action, which as I explained about the brain, is perpetual. Man is never in a state of inactivity. Freedom is the existence of man unimpeded by force.
In short, I know how she defines this stuff, she's simply wrong about her conclusions. Her conclusions should be resticted to the boundaries of her definitions, and it would also help her case if she would provide a clear definition on anything, which I've yet to see.
I like her idea that evoking “freedom of consciousness”, or applying freedom to other metaphysical spaces, is irrelevant. Freedom is the prime concern of politics, of the polis, of political action, and not of inward universes. “The raison d'etre of politics is freedom, and its field of experience is action”.
For Arendt, politics and freedom are intimately linked. She gives a better account of freedom in her The Promise of Politics:
At the very least her essay is a good reminder that until everyone is free to participate in the polis, there is no freedom. Given Arendt's criteria, we can look at places with rigid lockdowns and confirm that we are not free, that there is no freedom.
The will does the enacting, but is it responsible for the choosing? I take Arendt's point to be the somewhat pedantic one that choosing is not an act of will but rather that willing is the enactment of the choice. Perhaps we should talk of free choice rather than free will. In any case we are in agreement that the notion of free will is problematic.
This is part pointing out that "thought makes freedom disappear"; and that I take as part of an overall argument that the sort of internal freedom of the individual is incongruous, since it is missing the social arena in which to enact its choices.
It's not too dissimilar a point to Sartre, in that the fact remains that our choices are governed by nothing, not by thought nor by will, but by what she somewhat enigmatically calls the "principle"...
The principle, and hence freedom, is found, then, not in thought or in will but in action. And action occurs in the public sphere, not the private.
It does seem odd that @frank agrees with Arendt agrees, only to say that she is wrong.
Yes, that's true. And as for the French Revolution, the Terror followed it, and eventually Napoleon. This suggests a community is incapable of promoting individual freedom or inclined against it by its nature, absent law--which I suppose may be deemed communal. We can't give up the law, though. But retirement beckons, so perhaps soon. Regardless, the law's certainly an expression of sovereignty, so that won't work.
Maybe Stoic "freedom" truly is what she means. There is no sovereignty for the Stoic Sage. Nobody is sovereign over the Sage; the Sage is sovereign over nobody, and this constitutes Stoic freedom.
She could have just said so.
Oh, yeah, I never meant to imply that some of these ideas weren't neat. I simply play the role I am committed to as a philosopher in training. I have to test these assertions before people willing to defend them, so that in the case of someone being correct and I being wrong, I can integrate that into my epistemology. And I would agree, as well. It's quite clear that human psychopathology is an ineradicable element of human nature and until we figure out how to end child abuse forever, or create medicine that can cure it as it naturally emerges, we'll need a mechanism of defense. So, in practical terms, she is correct on that aspect. Freedom HAS emerged out of politics, which is the domain one would expect it to emerge from. But, the fact of the matter is, it actually emerged - going a level down closer to the base of things- from individual humans that could conceptualize a world outside of oppression and value it. Politics is down stream from valued conceptual frameworks. Brute force tyranny is not, it is conducted by those who desire freedom for themselves- there's freedom again see, that? - without regards to human ability and production that the recognition of sovereign boundaries not only induces, but is required for the domain of freedom to exist. The domain of freedom being where individuals congregate with the tacit recognition of the sovereignty of the individuals within said domain, and each individual has to individually value it, or it breaks down immediately in favor of brute force.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's without question. Again, this falls back to human psychopathy. Humans who lack ability and recognition of sovereign boundaries between individuals, will destroy the freedom that is natural to man, if left alone to exist within the context of his evolutionarily derived domain of existence. Thus, humans have to have a mechanism to repel said force. Now, that actually doesn't mean politics is required, there may be other options that we as a species haven't experimented with yet. But, she is right about the emergence of freedom as conceptual framework in tandem with politics, historically.
Yes, he is. He is not inhibited in any comparable manner to his subjects, this is just not true. It's specifically for this freedom that warlords assert themselves as rulers by brute for and suspicion.
Yes, uninhibted by legions of men while his subjects are forced to relinquish their labor earnings, and toil away in an immobile caste, or be sent of to die in war that King has no obligation to fight himself. This is simply just irrational. You wouldn't apply this same metric to Mercantilist robber Barons and the lords that gave them Charter, it's completely mental.
Quoting NOS4A2
No, true freedom comes when I'm not required to participate in the polis, and my will can thereby emerge without restriction, in accordance with the recgnition of the sovereign boundaries of others. The polis is the monopoly on force, it is the destroyer of the freedom intrinsic to your being, and of the will, it's what has always been doing so and has been used by Arendt to define freedom in relation to the application of said force To desire the gun of the polis, is to desire the power to destroy freedom that the brute lords wielded, it's a self-destructive position.
Quoting NOS4A2
My exact point. The polis (the state, political power) is the destroyer of freedom, not its guarantor. Hell, I could rest my case here...
Hey, this isn't an argument, and as you've simply insulted me again, instead of telling me what is awry in my assessment, or even telling me which assessment you're critiquing, I'm forced to conclude that you are either unable to, or afraid to because you've come to a determination on something that you don't want challenged to the point of possibly dismissing it.
I still have images of the Tongan Tsunami in my head.
Yes, it seems we owe free will to the Church Fathers. That in itself was worth the price of admission.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Well, if you can contrive to turn up at the same time as @Tobias, perhaps he will allow us to make a night of it.
No, you can't. The term will encompasses the sum total of human thought and action. And where as thought and action are controlled by the brain, and the brain is part of the body and not separate, it does not follow that the brain can oppress itself, only express itself based on a hierarchy of values and desires that are organized into action. In other words the will and "you," as you say, are the same expression of the brain.
This can help put things into perspective: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2017.00431/full
If I want to go left I can say no and go right. I can even build a wall to keep myself from entering left in my noctambule nights.
The brain controls nothing. Thoughts just appear. You can't control your thoughts.
And in which case you will not be oppressing your will, but fulfilling it. The control center responsible for pattern processing and executive functions, is part of a system called the emotion processing network of the brain. The pre frontal cortex is the center that gives you self perception, and the illusion that you and your will are separate. When in reality, the same pre frontal cortex is responsible for governing and organizing all non-executive functions in the same network. Meaning, they're all the same system that express the sum total of your actions and thoughts, or will. You can only fulfill your will, you can't oppress it. But, pattern processing and executive function allows for the adoption of values, and the more coherent the values are, the more the are going to override basic desires. You might think of people who all of a sudden come to Jesus and stop drinking and other unwholesome behaviors as an example of what I'm talking about. .
I don't know what to say to this.
Right, I don't say that there has been no point exploring thinking about free will vs determinism; it's just that the topic has been so thoroughly explored, done to death, so to speak, that I doubt we could come up with any new ideas on the issue.
Sartre, as you say, in thinking the self as 'no-thing' posits absolute freedom of the will. But the self is subject, if to nothing else, then at least to the constraints of nature. In any case, it seems obvious to me that selves are subject to all kinds of psychological, cultural, social and political constraints.
In the text following that quote Arendt shows the will to be incompatible with the political space, for what one wills is subject to change, yet the political space is one bound by agreement. The will is "non-political or even anti-political".
(Ah, I see you address this further down the page)
Hence,
This, it seems to me, is by way of articulating the antisocial consequences of what has been revealed as the Christian notion of free will.
This is nonsense. "Do unto others..." etc., and in Christian morality, one is to be held accountable for their acts; both by society and by God.
Yes, but your posts have improved markedly; perhaps my misbehaviour had an impact.
Interesting indeed. It was also the point nicely put by @Joshs However, than we are faced with the question why action occurs in public space but not in private. I am actually inclined to think that for Arendt freedom manifests itself in collective action, well, in individually being able to take part in collective action. Another interesting turn looms actually: the relegation of the private sphere. She accepts that apparently without any hesitation. I have the idea though that currently this notion is being critiqued (though I do not know enough of the subject).
Quoting Ciceronianus
By its nature, or perhaps, by the way we have bundled together ideas of community, sovereignty and freedom as Arendt suggests. However, that for me is also perhaps a tad overestimating the power of philosophy and conceptualization. It is a bit of an empirical question, how are communities that followed a different trajectory of development doing in terms of allowing everyone a place?
Law is an expression of sovereignty but also a relinquishing of it. The state also binds itself by law. However, I agree with you that sovereignty is central to law. Maybe legal anthropology is of help here. I do know that a lot of sociologists of law question the centrality of the state for law, following John Griffith. However I tend to hold on to a more classical centralized conception as well. How Arendt conceives of law I do not know. She certainly uses the discourse of rights, which according to me are also an expression of sovereignty... A lot of rethinking to do before you may retire Ciceronianus ;)
Well, again, values inform the will. As pattern processing mamals with executive function, we have the capacity to store concepts in memory to build coherent systems of value that inform behavior in a manner that often supercedes basic desires, or subconscious computation. This includes political values. The problem with political values, is that they are enforced by a one-way barrel. The only way that I see that will is compatible with politics, is the mutual respect for sovereign boundaries, enforced by a one-way-barrel. Meaning, the one thing that won't be dismissed as a political framework, is freedom itself. Which freedom doesn't encompass humans who are actively violating the freedoms of others, which is the issue, not changing will. But, the gun is seductive and the desire therein informs behavior of the looters.
And Arendt doesn't show the incompatibility in that passage, she simply asserts it without justification.
No, you're just growing less mad that I'm easily dismissing the arguments of this philosopher. I'm pleased to say that I'm looking forward to you finally presenting an argument here soon, now that you're cooling down.
That would be a truly joyous occasion! Talks and drinks... smokey, non-smokey... smooth and sharp...
This is a good indication as to why Arendt is dealing with a faulty description of "will". It leads to contradiction in the description of the self-same thing, in the form of the "duality within the self-same faculty". This is why "will" needs to be defined as distinct from those other basic capacities, like desire and reason, so Augustine proposed a tripartite mind, as memory, understanding (reason), and will.
The ironic, or seemingly paradoxical thing about the will is that it is not necessarily free, we must will it to be free, by making freedom of will a principle which we choose to follow. That is because by its very nature it is not bound by necessity, so we cannot propose a principle such as "free", and claim that the will is necessarily such, that would be self-defeating.
Of course not. If I want to go left and force myself not to go left but go right, I fulfill my free will-not. I don't want to go right. I go though. The fact that I go right doesn't mean I want to.
That is exactly right. These assertions from Arendt are being informed by outdated notions of will and freedom, across multiple philosophical interpretations, without the context of modern neuroscience. Will is the content of individual human thought and action, no separation. Self perception and concept integration is governed by the same neural structure as all of the emotional centers of the brain, which in symphony result in action and thought. The only scientifically consistent view of will that encompasses all of the previously understood ideas, as well as provides a clear understanding in our current time, I have asserted here on this thread: The will is the sum total of all individual human action and thought, the emergent expression of the content of the information the brain processes, integrates, values, and enacts, and all activities of the brain that contribute to that process. Nobody has addressed this in this thread.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
For the will to not necessarily be free, you will have to describe an instance where the brain is not in operation, integrating data, processessing stimuli, recalling memories of interest or value, regulating the body's core structure, organizing emotion, processing patterns for recognition, formulating values, anticipating threats, etc. The will is quite literally everything that the brain uses to contribute to cognition and action.
Meaning, freedom of will is going to be the natural state of the brain, without the trauma requisite to make it stop being applied. Thus, the principle to be integrated is freedom from the application of interpersonal force, or otherwise uninvited interference with the will's natural and independent expression.
If you do not want to go right, you will not do so, unless a separate desire is presented that would have you go right that supercedes the previous desire, which will correspond to your internal hierarchy of values. In which case you'd be fulfilling your desire, and that expression is an expression of your will. If you tell me you can go left as a demostration, you will be doing so out of a desire to demonstrate. The freedom of your will is me not interfering with you during the demostration. Your will is the expression of your desire to demonstrate.
It's the same as someone forcing me. I don't want to jump in the fire, but if they make, there is little I can do. They can be them or myself. I jump against my will without any need to demonstrate, as you claim I do.
So, if someone is forcing you to do something, your internal hierarchy of values will reorient your desire to initiate behavior which is, in accordance with your intelligence, likely to achieve the best outcome. In other words, life threatening situations cause a disruption in the natural process of will expression. You will only jump into the fire if you see absolutely no alternative, then and only then, if you value your life.
If they push me I don't have a free will. Likewise, I can be obsessed by internal voices who make me do things against my will. If I jump but don't want to it's by definition against my free will.
The pre-frontal cortex has been described as a ‘control center’, the executor of actions, but this a misnomer. It receives inputs from the rest of the brain , the body and the environment and forms expectations and anticipations in order to interpret this input as something recognizable, but is at the same time affected and altered by these inputs. So its decisions are not purely pre-figured by its prior state, as if it already knew what it wanted to will. Rather , we FIND ourselves willing or deciding. The distinction here is that there is no purely logical connection between the desire or thought that occurs to us and the ‘us’ that exists just prior to what pops into our head. Just as you say, the brain is never in a state of inactivity. Its activity is continually transforming the basis of its actions and thinking. The rational basis on which its decisions are being made is shifting its ground in spite of itself. This is why to will is always in some respect to be surprised by what one wills. This I think comes close to what Arendt means when she says action precedes rational deliberation.
The quote I gave earlier does employ the language you object to:
Your inclination to not have the same faculty at odds with itself certainly echoes a sensibility evident in the Greek philosophical tradition. The matter of sin being a choice between two possible lives is the source of the duality involved here. Otherwise, there is no choice.
It's you who uses the brain. You can move yourself because of it, think thoughts and feel feelings, or perceive the world in sound and vision. It controls bodily functions for you, but how can you control a thought? You cannot think what you want, because the moment you know what you wanna think you already think it.
That's specifically my point. Will is free and perpetually in operation unless force, or trauma is applied. Those internal voices are your voices, the voices of competing desires, interests, memories, and values being organized by the brain in the hierarchy.
I don't think so. Just like the Moon isn't mine, neither are the thoughts I experience or the dreams I have. The inner world is as distant from me as the world around me.
Strictly speaking, Arendt is giving a genealogy of the way political ideas about freedom became equated with free will. It is the equation she is militating against. The objective is not to give the last word on free will, Christian or otherwise. Her intention is to uncover a big mistake and move on with the problems of meaningful politics after correcting it.
No, you have only the control allotted to you through executive function by the pre frontal cortex. Most of your motion is subconscious, thoughts are predominantly not controlled but can be influenced through executive function. Thought emergence has latency as far as perception of it, but it is informed by memory, sensory receptive field expansion, things of that nature that help inform chains of thought that lead one from another.
They are generated by your brain which is a constituent element of you and the sole source of all cognition that distinguishes your will from everyone else's. You are simply not assessing this properly.
Here I disagree. Memories are just patterns of broadened synapses (connection strengths). Most thoughts follow these patterns, like all brain activities. There is a constant parallel sensory input, the world is projected into our brain world, but we can't control the new thoughts, though we can influence them. I don't consider my brain part of me, though useful.
All points well taken.
Regarding the Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt looked deeply at how both torturer and the tortured became products of the destruction of man as Man. I think her later works always kept that danger in view.
That is specifically what I said, "and is connected to the entire neural, and emotional processing networks of the body." The prefrontal cortex is the hub of the entire network that regulates emotions and subconscious activity that informs and regulates behavior. The point was that the control center responsible for executive action is the same control center that processes emotion that certain other areas of the brain, cingulate cortex, amygdala and other structure both cortical and subcortical are all responsible for; all of which inform behavior, thought, desire, and directed actions. This is not a misnomer, this is science: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6003711/
Quoting Joshs
Never said it was, I said that will was the sum total of all indivudal human action and thought, the emergent expression of the content of the information the brain processes, integrates, values, and enacts, and all activities of the brain that contribute to that process. This definition is informed by the assertions you made about the brain and the scientific understanding of the process as is presently understood, article above. It also dispenses with the mind-body dualism that has plagued this topic for centuries, there is no difference, it is an illusion generated by the perceptive capacities allotted to us by PFC that allows us to witness the patterns in our own behavior, as superior-pattern-processing mamal, and evaluate them. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141622/
Quoting Joshs
Yes there is, I just explained it and you can read for yourself what the phenomenology is. We do not find ourselves, we percieve ourselves and our behavioral patterns as a result of PFC executive action. There is no you that exists before the thought, you are the progenitor of said thought, via the brain. You find yourself as much as you find your eyeballs when you glance at yourself in the mirror, it's an illusion dude.
Quoting Joshs
That's because some of the content of YOUR will - the illusory you that you think you are finding when a thought pops up - is not the result of executive function, but subconscious activity, or olfactory memory stimulation, or immediate perception, and so on. It's all your will, just maybe not all your chosen will.
Quoting Joshs
She meant raw, praxiological action, as in movement and the initiation of behavior. What she didn't consider, is that there is no such state as inaction when it comes to a living being. The brain is in perpetual operation, as you have pointed out in my message. And action is informed by ALL activity of the brain in a vast network of processing. Meaning, it's not that action DOES precede rational deliberation, as non-rational deliberation is happening at all times, but that it CAN precede it. How is this? It turns out, that along with executive function, memory storage, and emotional processing also comes the ability of value placement, or neuro-economics. Values have the ability override more basic desire functions and replace them with ones that align with values. Meaning, if one values rational thought before action, over time that value placement, if truly valued, will overrride non-rational predicates for action, as far as executive function is concerned. In other words, she's flat wrong, and most people develop a value for healthy skepticism and trepidation prior to action early on, as a result of getting endlessy hurt as a kid doing stupid shit. Here's an article on neuro-economics, you'll love it:https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002174
So, no it isn't a misnomer, I haven't misunderstood Arendt, and I don't buy her ill-informed conclusions. Modern neuroscience demonstrates to us that our will is the expression of the content of our mind, that it is limited in executive agency, and that values are the method by which to override behaviors that are undesirable and replace them with new ones.
I'm sorry, dude. But, you're not equipped to have this discussion. Here, take these, I just posted them in an above forum. Read these and after that, if you haven't changed your mind, or come to different understandings, then this really isn't the place for you. Not trying to be mean, but this statement is something that can't be responded to.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6003711/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141622/
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002174
Don't be sorry... I know what I'm talking about,...dude.
I think you get along alright. Check out those journals, they're cutting edge frontier kind of stuff, no kidding.
From the third article:
"Over the past two decades, neuroscientists have increasingly turned their attention to the question of how the brain implements decisions between differently valued options. This emerging field, called neuroeconomics, has made quick progress in identifying a plethora of brain areas that track or are modulated by reward value."
This applies to dogs maybe. Obey the master and get a reward. Not to humans.
Nevertheless, interesting.
After a few days, the field around the corner at the end of the street got engraved into the brain of our dog. She knows a lot of its peculiarities. If I'm on the phone, she wants me to pay attention. She barks with crying voice. There is a continuous interacting between parallel incoming processes, via eyes and ears, and these processes running around in her brain. She sees her favorite treetrunk, the image falls in the memory trail it made earlier (strengthened connection between the neurons involved in earlier playing), she recognizes it, she remembers she can play with it (bite in it, carry it away, make me run after her...), and wants to run to it. It is time to go home though... I constrain her will. The processes in our brains never stop. If we dream neurons fire faster than in wake state. Same experience takes less time.
You understand that when they say "reward," they're talking about what happens in the brain as far as which chemicals are released into the synapses, and to what receptors they bind to issue a response that can be observed by the part of your brain that allows ofr external perception? Not a, "hey boy, get your treat," kinda thing. It's more, what happens in the brain to reinforce a behavior, so that it happens again.
For example, eating. The reason why you eat when you do, is because you are hungry. That feeling of hunger comes from a chemical that is released to ensure that you eat by initiating that feeling. And the good, relaxing feelings you get when you start eating when hungry, are also the result of chemicals being released to ensure you continue eating in the future. It's why drug addicts don't eat much, because those chemical processes are being hot wired by external chemical solutions that initiate those pathways in the brain prematurely or out of sync, which override their original function.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Cognitive science has gone through several evolutions. The first generation of cognitive theory I think is most compatible with your ideas about the relation between rationality, emotion and will. It thinks of mind as an input -output device that receives data, processes and stores it , and then outputs it as action. In this approach, affect is separate from and peripheral to the rational functions of cognition. More recently, embodied approaches view affect as not only inseparable from rationality , but what determines its sense and relevance. They abandon the idea of cognition as internal processing and representing of an outer world in favor of an integrated mind-body-world system. Volition is not fundamentally a calculative or logical process taking place within the brain but a matching process of interaction between person and environment.
Yeah, that's fundamnetally what the articles I posted suggest from data, when read together. And what I mean when I say "will is the sum total of all indivudal human action and thought, the emergent expression of the content of the information the brain processes, integrates, values, and enacts, and all activities of the brain that contribute to that process." Meaning, will is of itself so in accordamce with the functions of the brain that allow for emergence of thoughts, actions, and value placements.
I don't know if the notions of will and freedom here are outdated, I'd say they're just heavily influenced by determinism. The best a determinist can do toward a proper notion of free will is compatibilism. But trying to make a concept of free will which is compatible with determinist principles will inevitably lead to problems like the apparent paradox expressed by Banno.
Quoting Garrett Travers
I think you missed the point here Garrett. The reason why the will is not necessarily free, is that we are free to define "will" and "free" as we please. There is really nothing we can point to which "will" refers to, and nothing which "free" refers to, therefore the terms can be defined in a way in which "free" is not consistent with willed acts. Then the will is not free. However, some ways of describing will and freedom give us a better understanding of reality than others.
Quoting Garrett Travers
This is not actually true. Much human eating is just habituated activity. We eat at mealtime. And because we have designated mealtimes, we do not allow ourselves to get hungry. If you've ever fasted, you'd understand that the feeling of hunger is quite a bit different from the feeling you get at mealtime, before you eat. I believe that to understand the issues being discussed in this thread, it is necessary to differentiate such habituated activities, often learnt as societal norms (including education and ways of thinking) , from activities which are truly motivated by internal forces. When we assume that the habit is what moves the will, we deny our freedom to break a habit.
Quoting Paine
The problem with the passage you presented is that it defines "sin" in such a way that turning inward towards the maintenance of one's own well-being, is by definition sinful. This is the problem inherent within the distinction between apparent good, and real good, first proposed by Aristotle. In your passage, the real good would be the common good (contrary to which is "sin"), and the apparent good would be the private good (necessarily sinful). However, you'll see that Christian moral philosophy does not accept such a dichotomy, as the goal is to make the apparent good consistent with the real good.
However, if we maintain Platonic principles, the good is what moves the will toward understanding and accepting intelligible principles. And since this is a personal act of judgement and acceptance, it must be the internal, private good. Therefore, since the reality of the situation is that "the good" which moves the will is the private good, this must be represented as the true, or real good. And "the good" which is presented to us as the common good, being presented from an external source, is the apparent good, requiring judgement in relation to the internal private good, which ais the true good, is the good which moves the will to accept such common goods.
It is necessary that we proceed in this way, with the true good being the internal private good, to account for the fact that human beings often act in a way which is contrary to what is presented as the common good. The private good is what moves the will, so this must be represented as the real good. But to let the private good move the will is to "sin" in the words of your quote. And, we might even say that in the vast majority of instances, if the private good is inconsistent with the common good, such an act would truly be a sin.
But there is in some cases a discrepancy between the common good, as understood and represented by the human mind, and the good as would be understood by a more powerful mind, the human mind having some inherent deficiencies. In these cases it is necessary that an individual, with one's own mind, recognizes and understands the deficiency in what is presented as the common good. And because this comes from inside the mind of an individual, it is necessary to say that the true, or real good, is the internal, private good. Therefore the common good must be conformed to be consistent with the private good.
So, a little bit of information on this subject, as I happened to have the bandwidth available from work, school, and writing to make it to the end of Arendt's 30 page essay on freedom; Link below. It actually turns out that we've been, all of us, arguing with a phantom that does not exist. Arendt, through the entirety of the essay, never once actually makes an argument. That is because she is ONLY covering the geonological history of the terms and how their usage have changed between epochs and cultures. And it would be almost impossible to gather this unless you've reached, quite literally, the last page of the essay. As for the particular views on will and freedom that have been highlighted here in the form of argument, yes they're outdate. I mean that technically, they are not informed by the science, of which I have linked numerous times in ths thread with very few response, which divulges critical information on this topic. There is no apparent paradox that Banno expressed, the human will is of itself so. Any expression of the individual mind is the expression of of the same entity. The will can no more oppress itself, than can the ocean drown or flood itself. It is not an assertion that makes no sense. The tounge cannot taste itself, the eye cannot see itself, the stomach cannot digest itself. The will IS itself and cannot will itself to be anything else.
https://grattoncourses.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/hannah-arendt-what-is-freedom.pdf
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I beg to differ, within the combined context of the historical views, linguistic common usage, and modern cognitive neuroscience I am 100% confident that we can agree that will is the sum total of all human thought and action, the emergent expression of the content of the information that the brain processes, integrates, values, and enacts, and all activities of the brain that contribute to that process. I will be happy to build my argument again for you, which.... again, still has not been attempted to be challenged by more than one person, or so. And hasn't been bested in argument.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not, it's actually quite true, appetite is broadly regulated by the brain and the chemicals and structures associated with its operation are directly responsible for eating, except in cases of being overriden by exectutive function in the form of value placement, which is a topic for neuroeconomics, an article for which I've posted in this thread. Yes, sure you can habitualize times to eat, and yes you can upset the process via fasting, I've done all of that myself. That has nothing to do with why I said what I said. That was a low resolution understanding conveyed to someone not equipped to be in this discussion. As far as habituated activities, societal norms, and internal forces, this is the kind of statement that shows me that the reason my arguments aren't being address, is because they're straight up not even being read. I have already covered this and posted an up-to-date journal on the nature of neuroeconomics and explained a position on it. Nobody assumed habit moves will, habit is an element of will. Will is all individual expression of thought and action via the brain's processes.
Here's an article on hunger regulation: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2013.00103/full
Why do you speak of a 'passage presented by me' rather than address it as what St. Augustine says? To my knowledge, it is representative of what he says in other places. If you find this statement of his problematic, should that not be taken up as a challenge to his intent?
I disagree that turning 'toward its private good' is equivalent to "turning inward towards the maintenance of one's own well-being." Augustine says, " It turns to its own private good when it desires to be its own master. The will wanting to be its own master is not a concept in Aristotle's practical art of distinguishing what is good from what only seems to be. Turning 'inward' for Augustine is accepting that one must choose one life or another. The experience of the conflict is given through Paul's terms in the Letter to the Romans:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Please give an example of that language in Plato. In so far as doing bad things is the result of ignorance, isn't a 'faculty of choice' an idea that Socrates makes problematic? When will is spoken of as a cause, Socrates says things like:
The distance between Plato and Paul on these matters causes me to think that the term "Christian Platonism" is an oxymoron.
Are you saying that Arendt’s own notion of freedom as action is deterministic, or that her representation of Enlightenment concepts of intellect and will that she is critiquing are deterministic?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Much of our behavior is ‘habituated’ in that our desires are expectations projected forward from previous experience. But this is as true of motivation by ‘internal forces’ as it is of allegedly rote habit. In both cases, an into oak action is involved which implies both past history( habit) and a novel, creative element. Whether i eat out of huger for for some other reason, as long as the act is conscious, it matters to me in some way and has some sense to it.
I think for Arendt the action exposes my ‘will’ to what is other and outside of my already formulated conceptions (my sovereignty).
But in the morning, I'm not making waffles.
I agree. Your brain does not make you choose, it is you choosing.
"You" are your brain. The part of you controlling your heart beat and motor functions that isn't "you," is the same thing producing executive function, emotion, hunger, perception and everything else you do. The distinction made between functions of the brain and perceptions the brain produces of oneself within one's limited domain of agency, as if describing separate entities altogether, is nonsense. It's like woo woo level nonsense.
One could take the same sequence to say that the result thrust 'Christianity' into incoherence. Pascal spoke of it as scandal to reason. The early Church Fathers told the Gnostics to stop making sense.
The idea of the self as a battleground was the dissolution of a single world that explains our nature in the language of Greek thought. The duality makes sense in the terms of Manicheism where good and evil are essential components of creation. But that world is as far away from the Timaeus used to design Augustine's heaven as Paul of Tarsus is from Aristotle's Ethics.
No, I'm not. Self is more complex than that.
Nor do I see much use in bringing neuroscience into what is essential a discussion of intentionality.
Not so.
From the SEP entry on free will:
The term “free will” has emerged over the past two millennia as the canonical designator for a significant kind of control over one’s actions. Questions concerning the nature and existence of this kind of control (e.g., does it require and do we have the freedom to do otherwise or the power of self-determination?), and what its true significance is (is it necessary for moral responsibility or human dignity?) have been taken up in every period of Western philosophy and by many of the most important philosophical figures, such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant.
Questions of moral responsibility and freedom are inevitable in any society where a tradition of thinking about the human situation arises.
You have a brain, like you have a physical world to live in. You function, walk, do your things, between the world outside and the world inside, which you always carry along with you.
You don't see use in bringing neuroscience into a discussion about something that is produced by the brain..... Gotcha......
All of which, except external world, is controlled and maintained by the brain. That's why if an air bubble makes it's way to your brain, you go vegetative, because your brain that governs all that thought and motion, is now damaged. It's more accurate to say that you are your brain's passenger, as you can only even interact me the right now, and I you, because your brain produces pattern recognition and executive function at the highest level of operations. A concussion would change that pretty promptly. But, it is even more accurate to say you and your body are a single entity.
Nevertheless I think the notion of freedom she begins to develop interesting and useful. The idea is that the mundane course of events, the "natural process" is interrupted by occasional "unforeseeable and unpredictable" acts in which "men... establish a reality of their own".
Freedom has it's place here not as the compliment of politics but as its progenitor. It's a freedom freedom that comes from the necessity of choice, and not from sovereignty. It's not being free from the other, but being free with the other. Freedom can be thought of as achieving what we are capable of rather than in terms of the restrictions we place on each other.
There's a bridge here between Nussbaum's capabilities and existentialism.
I don't deny the inside world can get damaged. So can the outside physical world. Just send a huge bubble of wind or water through your house.
No, that's an utterly ludicrous analogy. It would be more akin to if a rock flew into your house, hit something that was serving as the foundation for the whole structure and all its functions, and the entire house collapsed. That's what happens. It isn't the "inside world" that gets damaged, it's the outside world that the brain is computing data from data presented to it that goes by-by forever, because the brain computing the outside world has been damaged. The illusion of the "inside world" is nothing more than the capacity of the brain for self recognition, in accordance with memory storage and supiro-pattern-processing.
...even were we to replace "psychology" with "neuroscience". If you explain your choices in terms of neuroscience, you have to change what you mean by "free", or leave it out altogether.
No, although for most that would be correct. If you remember, I regard freedom as nothing more than the freedom of the self-generated will (all actions and thoughts produced by the brain) to emerge, independent of interpersonal threat. I've said so numerous times, and have also said that absolute freedom is nonsense, that we have limited agency in accordance with executive function, which gives us a measurable degree of control over actions, thoughts, and memory retrieval. It is not I who has to adapt, it is in fact the rest of you who must integrate modern science and reconcile your views with these concepts. However, if you do not wish to do all of the intellectual heavy-lifting necessary, I happen to have done so for you here in this thread. The views I have presented to you here are the views of these concepts having been reconciled with modern science. But, who knows what other info will come in the future. You adapt to what is shown in science, and the most salient and sophisticted arguments.
The brain contains an inside version of the outside world. If the Sun goes red giant your outside world is destroyed. You can't life in it anymore. The brain doesn't compute. Outside physical structures can run around analogous on the neuron network. Space is the medium for physical processes, the neural network for the analogue process. For all physical processes there is a possible process on your neuron network. The number of paths the currents in your brain can run is enormous: about 10exp(10exp20)! A 1 followed by 10exp20 zeroes...
None of this is an argument against what I said.
You could make an interesting point then, if what you say is so, by showing the relation to the article instaed of just claiming it.
But you are claiming that we have free will and yet are not free?
Except that I consider the neuron processes as well as the processes around me as not being part of me. I have a relation to them but they don't constitute me. The brain world has the same relation to me as the physical world. I can think about the stars or see them.
Possibly, but the SEP article paints too broad strokes. There might be questions of control of the will, Plato's discussion of the tripartite nature of the soul comes to mind, but to be an objection against Arendt, it must be discussed in terms of freedom. The same word, freedom, must be used to designate the control of desire and the notion of will must be used, instead of for instance the faculty of ratio. The SEP article merely claims that questions of control over our own choices is a perennial question, not that they are couched in the terms freedom and will, which is Arendt's contention.
Have a read an let me know.
I between...
I am my thoughts and my feelings and my brain and my heart and my liver and my shoes and my actions and whatever else might be required...
No on both of these. I'm not claiming I have solved any problem. I'm saying I have created, using only the definitions, the historical understandings of the concepts, the relavent neuroscience, and my own logical capacities, a way to make freedom and will compatible as concepts, nothing more. Often times that is enough to shed light on something important.
I am saying that will is the result of all functions of the brain working and producing action, thought, emotion, and activity. That will is the sum total of all individual human action and thought. That the brain is perpetually producing these characteristics, even under duress. In the sense of perpetual brain activity, the will is always free, as the will is always being generated, unless one is dead, or brain dead. You might think of me holding a gun to your head and forcing you to do something, but if you do it it is infact your body doing it as directed by the brain and is still your will. Freedom from external human interference is what makes will free, in the sense that the natural emergence of will, within the context of its own evolutionary environment, can only be interupted by the will of another. Thus, free will is a workable concept, but total freedom of choice is not. The brain produces only a limited capacity for executive agency.
Indeed. In between. But that's in the eyes of the beholder only. I dance freely between my brain and the world and thank god that my heart still beats, my dreams still dream, my thoughts still think, and the ground beneath my feet is solid.
If the sum total of all your thought and action do not constitute you, then what possibly can?
The one I see in the mirror. I operate between my brain and the world.
No, your brain controls the entire body you see in the mirror. In fact, that which you are seeing in the mirror, is quite literally the sum total of all of your action and thought right then and there. All of which is controlled by the brain.
Frankly, this is simply disregarding established science. There's no way to address what you're saying. You are simply saying things that you wish to be true when no evidence exists to suggest that your body is separate from the brain that it is controlling and generating all of your perceptions, thoughts, and actions.
Yeah, I read that before and ignored it. Looks too Motherhood to be of much use. Might leave it there.
You quite literally cannot do anything you will not do. Including generate an argument.
Yes, but I only use these functions. If you consider yourself to be your body, I just exist between the brain and the outside world. The outside world is projected into the brain inside (via the sensory organs) me and the brain actively shapes its appearance.
That said, in the absence of external political or social forces controlling us, we can enjoy a felt freedom; would it matter if, on some externalist perspective alien to our actual lives, the feeling of freedom were thought to be an illusion?
Anyway it seems obvious to me that the question of agency or free will has a history which predates the deliberations and deliverance of the church fathers, and that was all I was responding to. I haven't made bold to comment on the article, since I haven't read it, but only on the generalized comments of others. I don't intend to read the article, so I won't discover whether Arendt makes the claim that the idea of free will originated with the church fathers, and that's OK.
Edit: I see @Banno now says the Arendt article does claim that "free will was introduced by St Peter to explain the internal conflict required by sin", and that there is a distinction to be made between the idea of free will and the idea of freedom. It's not clear to me what such a distinction could be if it is not merely the distinction between being subject, and not being subject, to externally imposed human constraint.
You shape the appearance of the outside world? In what manner? You make things change form, color? Telekinesis? Lou Kang style fire balls? Petronus charms? What are we talking about here?
No. The brain just shapes the sensory perceptions. Colors, shapes, sounds, motions, etc. The perceptions can also appear on their own, say in thoughts or dreams.
Yes, that's right. Your unique experiences and the values you adopt are used by the brain to inform future action. Overtime, the greater the reward (reward from a cognitive perspective) for behaviors informed by adopted values, the more often those preferred behaviors that align with values adopted through executive function are prioritized in the mental hierarchy of competing interests that are fighting for the brain's limited computing power. Meaning, the limited agency we do have can be used, and is used to build coherent systems of behavior that align with values we adopt ourselves consciously. Just look up neuroeconomics.
Okay, this aligns with what I've discussed. The brain controls colors, shapes, sounds, and motions. Where does the "you" part come in that you were mentioning?
Like I said, the you and me are the bodies in between.
It easy to say "the will is itself", but unless we can demonstrate that there is actually something real which is being referred to as "the will", such an assertion is pointless.
Quoting Garrett Travers
This makes absolutely no sense to me, to say that "will is the sum total of...". How can you add up a whole bunch of distinct things and say the total of all those things is what is called "will". That's like saying the sum total of all living things is the soul. It makes no sense. If you were adding a bunch of the same type of things, like when we say the sum total of all human beings equals "humanity", it would sort of make sense. But you are proposing to add together a whole bunch of different things, thoughts, activities, values, etc., and say all these different things together is "will". You might as well just say the human being is will, but that makes no sense.
Quoting Paine
It's been a long time since I've read any Augustine, and I'm not sure of the context of the passage you presented, therefore I am not able to address his intent. So I refer to the quoted passage as what is presented by you, through your intent.
Quoting Paine
Right, as I explained, "the will wanting to be its own master" is a faulty description, for the reasons I described. It is expressed in the passage with the distinction between "common good" and "private good", such that the "private good" is always sinful. This means that there is an inherent incompatibility between the common good and the private good. But this is faulty by Aristotelian principles, and those expressed by Aquinas, which were later accepted by Catholic moralists. According to this moral philosophy the apparent good may be consistent with the real good, and this is their stated goal of moral philosophy, to create such a consistency. So Augustine's expression here of a "private good" (described as the will wanting to be its own master) which is incompatible with the common good, is an unacceptable description, which was rejected by Catholic moralists, in favour of Aristotle's apparent good and real good, which are not a dichotomy, but may be compatible with each other. Then "wanting to be its own master" can be left as inappropriate because it's not the will itself which "wants".
Quoting Paine
In The Republic of Plato, the good is what makes intelligible objects intelligible, just like the sun makes visible objects visible. By that analogy, we can say that the good is what drives, or inspires understanding, as the will to understand, because understanding is what makes intelligible objects intelligible..
Quoting Paine
What Socrates demonstrated as problematic, is the idea that doing bad things is necessarily the result of ignorance. It is argued in many places by Plato, that we knowingly do what is wrong. This is his refutation of the idea that virtue is a sort of knowledge, and his method of discrediting the sophists who claim that virtue can be taught. Plato demonstrates that virtue is knowledge plus something else, and the something else turns out to be similar to will.
Quoting Paine
Paul was Jewish, and Paul played a big role in early Christianity. Accordingly, early Christianity adopted its moral principles from the Jewish tradition, not from either Plato nor Aristotle. I think it wasn't until Augustine, that Platonist moral principles were starting to be introduced into Christianity, but Plato didn't provide a coherent ethics, just some general practical principles of guidance. And it wasn't until even later that Aristotelian principles were introduced. Even in an evolving society, moral traditions can be very slow to change.
Christianity appears to me, to have a special feature which allows for indeterminate ethics. Instead of having a vast code of 'ought nots' like the ten commandments for example, it has one simple 'ought', 'love thy neighbour'. This allows that a wide variety of moral principles may be compatible and integrated into the religion as required, producing an evolving ethic. The indeterminateness in the ruling ideology is consistent with, and allows for the influence of, the free will. I think it is only later Christianity, the Inquisition, etc., that strict adherence to doctrine was enforced.
This highlights the problem with making general rules for future acts. In producing such general rules, the particular conditions of future situations cannot be foreseen. So it is more productive to create a general outline of the good, than trying to list all the particular instances of bad.
Quoting Joshs
I haven't read Arendt directly, only the article referenced in the op, and I think that article definitely expresses a determinist perspective, because it rejects freedom of choice as not even worth considering as a valid form of freedom. Statements like "Freedom is not located within the individual, but rather in the systems, or community, within which an individual operates", are clearly deterministic. This states that human beings are inherently unfree, but may provide themselves some illusion of freedom through the creation of required institutions.
Quoting Joshs
I agree, probably well over ninety nine percent of our activity is habituated in one way or another. Or, any given action is ninety nine percent habit. But to have a proper understanding of ourselves, we still need to account for that other creative aspect as well.
So take a quick look at the article, where Arendt presents an account which might have you reconsider what "seems obvious"...?
You are your shoes? The shoe store must be an existential nightmare for you.
:grin:
As if I haven't provided numerous current definitions, compared them to the ones in question, presented current journals in neuroscience, and argued my point right along side them to this point. I'm going to attempt this one more time with you.
You'll notice just from this page of definitions alone, that the term 'will' encompasses a vast range of emotions, actions, decisions to act, exercises of habit or natural inclination, and otherwise human phenomena that covers everything said human could ever do in their existence.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/will
You'll notice here that Arendt covers the entire history of the concept of freedom and will ranging from Kant, to Augustine, to Hegel, to Plato, to The Enlightenment and beyond that also covers the entire spectrum of conceivable human phenomena.
https://grattoncourses.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/hannah-arendt-what-is-freedom.pdf
You'll notice here that the brain is responsible for generating and regulating all human emotion and action, all of which is encompassed in the above two points of interest.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5405011/
You'll notice here that all of the generating and regulating of emotion is connected to and organized by the prefrontal cortex, which serves as the general control center for all of the brains functions. You'll also notice here that the prefrontal cortex provides a limited amount of control of initiation of action, memory storage and retrieval, and perception.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2017.00431/full
Keep in mind, this is all stuff I've already provided and explained.
Conclusion: Because the term 'will' describes and encompasses all human emotions and actions. And because those emotions and actions are controlled by the brain in a vast interconnected system that is not regulated by the conscious mind, which has very limited capacity for agency. And because the brain is self-perpetuating without fail by it's own genetically determined laws. The term 'will' simply describes the emergence of human behavior and action as generated and regulated by the brain. There is no "you" outside of the brain's operation, there is no 'will' outside of the brain's operation. There is only the brain's operation and the emergence of brain associated activity. Thus, the 'will' describes the sum total of individual human emotion and action, the emergent expression of all of the brain's operations and the processes that contribute to them.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This paragraph constitutes not even a single argument. "Makes no sense," not an argument. "Add up a whole bunch of distinct things," No, I didn't. The brain is controlling all of these "distinct" things, as explained above. "like saying the sum total of all living things is the soul," It's literally nothing like saying that, living things are not connected and controlled by a central hub that connects everything in the world and governs it. Your brain does exactly this in your body, this is nonsense."sum total of all human beings equals "humanity"," it's almost exactly like saying this, except now imagine all humans connected to a central hub of control and regulation, that's your brain."things, thoughts, activities, values, etc., " All of this and more is controlled by the brain and is emergent from the brain, together they form 'will.' "You might as well just say the human being is will." That is exactly what I am saying and it is 100% correct. You aren't anything at all outside of your thoughts and actions. That's why I said the sum total. Human = Will.
You say that as if it weren't exactly what you are. What are you if you are not your thoughts and actions? An inanimate object.
Funny, banno says "shoe" in a list of things that quite literally defines what he is as a living entity, in an attempt to strawman a position he hasn't been able to argue against. That's because I'm correct, he knows it, and he can't hang.
I've been scouring the SEP for evidence that shoes have free will.
At least they have soul.
I'm still me when unconscious.
It wasn't a definition.
And as I have explained to you here, unconscious is not a state of neural inactivity. When unconscious, you are still the expression of all the operations of your brain that are, in fact, producing all of what you are at that moment. That's why "You" can't speak, move, believe, or think in any way outside of your brain's control. "You" are whatever your brain demonstrates you are when unconscious, just as it does when you are conscious.
This looks just like a definition.
Philohilarity aside, thank you for the article.
Arendt always writes a wonderful prose and her voice has a mesmerizing dark majesty. Like most philosophers, she's likely mostly wrong. But the ring of the omniscient seeress is priceless. The Origins of Totalitarianism is the one I pick up when I want the music of a master.
I've been looking everywhere for an argument, no luck.
No. My body controls and it uses the brain. If I type these words, it's my body typing, my body steering my vingers, via the brain, not from the brain.
Too late. I've written you out of my will.
Under a certai definition of freedom. Here yoou equate every form of control with freedom. More control equals more quanta of freedom. However, that definition leads to absurd consequences because it means traffic lights would make you less free. If we define freedom as the capability to choose your own life paths than traffic lights suddenly add quanta of freedom.
Quoting Janus
That is a question tackled by some compatibilist philosophers I think. Possibly also by some in this thread. If you define freedom as freedom from natural impediments and control by other people, (or just control by other people) than by definition the will is free.
Quoting Janus
That is a dangerous way to go because others here are very silly compared to Arendt. I do not think it is obvious. Issues of control are discussed but not all control is freedom and freedom is defined differently throughout the ages that is I think the point of the article. I never come across a discussion in Greek philosophy about the problem of free will, control yes, but free will no. I know that for the church fathers it was a big issue. For Augustine and also for Boethius, in the context of the omniscience of God. that is really the only text I have looked at from the church fathers on that topic. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/
I think traffic lights do interfere with personal freedom. Red light means you cannot go ahead. My goal is to go ahead. I am being stopped in achieving my goal, by a control; the control is curtailing my freedom.
I am not saying that your surrounding argument is invalid, but this example does serve the exact opposite of the service you used it for.
I'm sorry if this disappoints you, but I find your conception of "will" to be completely incoherent. Premises which are essential for your conclusion, such as the proposition "the brain is self-perpetuating without fail by it's own genetically determined laws" are completely unacceptable. Self-perpetuating, and determined by genetics, contradict each other.
And your propensity for classing together a wide variety of different affections as having the very same cause (will) is equally unacceptable. This is nothing more than a modern version of the ancient argument for a sixth sense. Basically, the argument was that the imagination can be creative, therefore we need some sort of extra "sense" distinct from the five senses, to account for the creation of images not caused by sense organ, but created. This would be the sixth sense, the faculty which creates fictitious images.
You make "the will" something very similar to the sixth sense. Notice that the fictitious image created by the imagination can be an image from any of the five senses, sound, sight taste, etc., and there is posited a single faculty (sixth sense) which can create an image from any sense. That's what you do with "the will", you take all the different bodily activities, which are creative in nature, and you class them together under "the will". But this principle of yours is based on an assumed separation between the passive reaction of receiving a sense image, and the active creation of causing activity; a separation which cannot actually be made. So in the case of the sixth sense, there is an assumed separation between the parts of the image received by the real sense organ, and the parts created by the sixth sense, which is not there in reality. There are created parts inherent in the sense image. And the same principle holds for your description of "the will". You describe the prefrontal cortex as a "control center", as if you can limit the creative aspect to one central faculty. This is what the concept of "sixth sense" demonstrates to us as a problem.
Quoting Garrett Travers
This is a very clear expression of the problem described above "the brain is controlling all of these 'distinct' things". Here's an example of why this is wrong. Suppose there's a person with hearing side by side with a person with out hearing, and there's a sudden noise behind them. The person with hearing responds and the person without does not. You say that the brain controlled that activity which I called the response, but obviously you are overlooking the role of the ears. Since the person without hearing did not act, then it is very clear that the ears of the person who had active ears instead of incapacitated ears, played a role in controlling the activity of the person. And if you deny the role that ears play in controlling that activity, you also must deny the role that the external thing, the noise itself, plays. Therefore you have isolated the prefrontal cortex as the "control center", as if it exercises control over the entire living body, as an unaffected cause of activity, "the will", when this is a totally improper representation.
Quoting Garrett Travers
This is a very good indication of the problem I described above. Human beings which are connected to a central hub of control is not an acceptable representation of anything real. 'Connecting' humans in this way, so as to completely deny their capacity to decide their own activities would leave them as no longer human beings. So it is impossible to have human beings connected in this way. Any realistic description of the connection between human beings and a control hub, would allow back and forth communication between the individual and the controlling mechanism. This is because the "control" cannot be only one way, that would make the controlled individual something other than human, rendering the scenario contradictory. This is exactly the problem you have created with your description of "the brain", describing it as a one way control mechanism. You do not include the control which the individual parts have over the brain.
What Augustine is referring to is not the 'private good' as expressed by Aristotle. Augustine is separating the 'what is good for oneself' as oneself from the matters of self-interest involved with participation in human affairs. In regard to the happiness of an individual, Augustine says:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Point out a few of those places, please. Your observation does not square with the often-repeated perception of ignorance as a condition of the soul. The following was said amongst friends rather than argued against Sophists:
If find the incoherence with which you think to be dissapointing, mister ad hominem non-argument. Keep your insults to yourself, and just present something that actually opposes the position I have provided you.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not if the genetics of the brain are its own, dude. You aren't thinking clearly. The brain has an organic biological nature, derived from the process of evolution, encapsulated in the genetic code used to build the brain in utero, and then develop in accordance with that genetic code postpartum. It is a self-sustaining organ that is responsible for the maintenance of all other functions of the body. This is a fact whether or not you understand it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Will is not the cause, I explained the brain is the cause. Will is the expression of all neural activity. Read what I am saying, and stop telling me I'm saying something else.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Every word of this is a strawman. I'm not talking about any fucking sixth sense. I said the brain produces all activity of thought and action. What part of your ass are you pulling this analysis from?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, they are the expression of every function and process of the brain that gives rise to thought and action. There is no sixth sense and you have created a strawman and argued with it. The will is the entirety of that expression.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Are you serious? One person's ear doesn't work for the brain to process data received by it. That has nothing to do with the brain providing any expression of that data, or not. This scenario further validates what I'm saying. One person's brain is receiving data, the other's isn't, the one who receives sound data moves when it is received, and the other doesn't. Thanks for making my point.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Another attempt at refuting a strawman. The ears, much like the eyes are data receivers, they play no role on their own to produce action. Only that data being delivered to the brain will do so. All you've doen is prove my point.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Actually it is an accurate representation of the human and all of its functions in relation to the brain that all those functions are connected to, and controlled by. That's why YOUR examples were stupid, THEY didn't accurately represent anything that was being discussed. I took your example and made one that worked out of it in relation to what we were actually discussing, so that you could understand. Instead, you've misunderstood and decided to critique the example YOU gave, that I modified for your clarity.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, I did. I have mention executive function over and over again. This is the only domain of control that you have in regards to the brain. No matter how much you want to fight with neuroscience and believe anything that comes to your brain, nothing is going to change the fact that the brain is the direct control center of all functions of the body, including your thought and expression.
No, it quite literally doesn't. But, it doesn't matter because you're simply just going to dismiss the entire corpus of scientific work on the subject because your brain won't allow you to do anything else.
You got it the wrong way round. I don't allow my thoughts to think about all that science. I know how the brain functions. It's not that difficult. I have over 30 years experience with it! It's a neural network that's there for me, like the physical world. The neo-cortex is a nice extra feature!
That's a really funny way of saying "I have no clue what I'm talking about on this particular subject, I just go with how I feel about the stuff." Which is simply doing nothing other than demonstrating my point. But, have at it, dude. I've literally waited as long as I can possibly hold out on this thread for anything even remotely approaching an argument for why any of you believe what you do about consciousness. Science doesn't shape y'all's view, logic doesn't, arguments against your position don't, facts of basic reality don't, it's quite unbelievable, really. But, again, I'm not trying to be mean to you, I just don't think this is the right topic for you or the rest of the guys on here. Everyone simply seems to be operating with a very rudimentary understanding of the nature of cognition. But, just as a gesture to you, I'll leave with this journal that was publsihed last year that can put some of this stuff into perspective. You can actually just skim through it for the most part. It's a meta-analysis on the history of the views of consciousness from the perspective of neuroscience, and a conclusion from those and the author's own research that kind of sums everything up in an interesting way. Feel free to have a look if like:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351365249_WHAT_PRODUCES_CONSCIOUSNESS?_iepl%5BgeneralViewId%5D=lhn7ZjibDGnkfzBkMEcxCBfaDEZU94efInAd&_iepl%5Bcontexts%5D%5B0%5D=searchReact&_iepl%5BviewId%5D=6hj7dd19J1eHUhdAIOwfuUSjvB5fcDpSFdzK&_iepl%5BsearchType%5D=publication&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BcountLessEqual20%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BinteractedWithPosition3%5D=1&_iepl%5Bdata%5D%5BwithoutEnrichment%5D=1&_iepl%5Bposition%5D=3&_iepl%5BrgKey%5D=PB%3A351365249&_iepl%5BtargetEntityId%5D=PB%3A351365249&_iepl%5BinteractionType%5D=publicationTitle
p.s. you may need access to it from researchgate, but it should be public. If you can't access it and want to check it out, let me know I can send a pdf.
I have fairly good knowledge of the physics and chemistry of the brain. But that's contingent on the real state of affairs. I know the basic neo-cortex structures and have done a fair amount of personal experiments, even drug-induced, and read a lot about it. But personal experience shows me how the network actually functions. Just observe.
Yeah, I guess if that's really what you think. It's not like the human brain is the single most advanced system in the known universe that neuroscientists all over the world are trying desperately to understand. But, sure okay. Observation, and raw inductive observation at that, will do it I suppose.
Yes and that you are forced to draw that conclusion shows how implausible your definition of freedom is. It follows that a society in which we have well regulated traffic is a less free society than a society in which everyone just does something, meaning no one arrives at their destination. Every political and social philosopher I have read on the subject considers freedom as freedom from something, but also as freedom to reach the goals you have set for yourself. The traffic light example by the way is Charles Taylor's. Those goals are much easier to reach in a society with well planned roads than in societies one just has to fin out everything by oneself.
Sorry it wasn't clear, but I meant personal control, not external control.
Quoting Tobias
I consider freedom from external control to be freedom, as experienced, of course. Beyond that, the metaphysical question as to whether we are completely determined by brain activity over which we have no control is undecidable, in my view. How could it be tested?
Stopping at red traffic lights allows one to get to one's destination safely and quickly.
We have worked with a notion of freedom that pits one person against the others by imagining a battle between freedom and sovereignty. Arendt contrasts this with a notion of freedom as satisfying one's goals, achieving what one is capable of, by being part of a social space that not just enables but builds cooperation and capacity.
It would not be difficult to link this to Nussbaum's capabilities approach.
Hence, "If men wish to be free, it is precisely sovereignty they must renounce.”
Quoting Janus
But until now you may not have been aware that there were alternatives.
Not just satisfying goals but inventing new goals, and not just achieving what one is capable of but going beyond what one thought one was capable of.
“… action occurs in two different stages; its first stage is a beginning by which something new comes into the world.The Greek word apxav which covers beginning, leading, ruling, that is, the outstanding qualities of the free man, bears witness to an experience in which being free and the capacity to begin something new coincided.”
This is the same distinction Aristotle makes then. What one sees as good for oneself is called the apparent good. The common good, or good from the perspective of participation in human affairs is called the real good. To separate the two forms of "good" is a mistake. The goal of Christian moral philosophy, following Aquinas, is to unite the two, such that 'what is good for oneself' is apprehended as the very same thing as 'what is good in one's participation in human affairs', the real good. The person in which these two are united as one and the same, is the moral person.
Quoting Paine
I haven't the will to engage in this pointless exercise. Plato definitely points to this issue in his attacks on the sophists. And Augustine spends a considerable amount of time pondering this point, how it is possible that a human being can go ahead and do what they know is wrong. I don't understand your skepticism concerning this. Do you not believe that it is true that people can behave in this way? Have you not ever yourself, done something you know to be wrong, cheated, lied, stolen, or something like that? Or do you claim to be an angel?
Sure, ignorance or lack of understanding is a condition of the soul, but this is not the issue I am talking about. What I am talking about is a human soul who is informed, and understands, yet proceeds to act in a way which they know to be wrong. Acting wrongly out of ignorance, and intentionally acting wrongly (robbing the bank for example), are two very different things. We are not discussing the former, ignorance, we are talking about the latter, intentional bad acting. The fact that people intentionally act wrongly constitutes the substance of Plato's attack on the sophists who claim to be teaching virtue, supporting that claim with the further claim that virtue is a sort of knowledge.
We are in agreement there. It cannot. The only way we can philosophically say something about it is by asking a different question. For instance whether it matters at all whether we really really are determined, Strawson uses this approach. We can also ask what our belief in determinism vs our experience of freedom of choice means for our existential humanity or some such question. But no testing whether the world is determined or not is I would think impossible.
Since you obviously think that this paragraph supports your claim that the brain is "self-perpetuating without fail", I see no point in discussing this further.
Quoting Garrett Travers
To comment further on this is obviously pointless as well.
Quoting Garrett Travers
You obviously do not take criticism very well, but I'll try once more to help you see how far from reality what you argue actually is. A very slight chemical imbalance in a person's body will drastically alter a person's so-called "control center". But this chemical change which alters and therefore has some degree of control over the so-called control center, does not originate from the brain. So your insistence that the brain is controlling the rest of the body is completely inconsistent with the evidence. You'll never accept this though, you'll just continue spouting irrelevant nonsense.
The fact of having to act is of far more significance than the dubious question of whether what we do is determined or not. That we must act is what is certain. Sartre had that right. So it seems the thing to do is to build the capacity to act well. Hence virtue ethics.
Since life is self-perpetuating in accordance with its genetic code, by extension the brain, provided through evolution by natural selection, that would be wise of you if you had preconceived notions that included the brain not be self-perpetuating, because that would contradict reality. It only stops when it is dead.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Logically consistent argumentation is difficult, feel free to sit it out and rest.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, what I don't take well is when I say something, and then what I said is recreated by someone in a way that doesn't even remotely resemble what I said, and then argued against as if I had, there's a name for that by the way.
"But this chemical change which alters and therefore has some degree of control over the so-called control center, does not originate from the brain."
What does this mean? The chemical change takes place within the brain, the change happens to the chemicals made for and used by the brain - highly specific chemicals - and these chemical imbalances are understood to change thought and behavior. What is it that you think you're highlighting here? As clearly the only thing you've done is said that you agree with me in an insulting manner. Seriously, what are you saying with this assertion? Where does this chemical change come from if not the brain; which is a closed system of chemcials, bound by a semi-permeable membrane that only allows passage of said exclusive, highly specific chemicals? Please, provide a single example of what you mean, because I'm quite astonished by this claim.
But, do we not know enough about the laws of nature to conclude that the world is naturalistically determined?
The funny thing about this is that it just isn't applicable to me, even if I totally get what this is to mean from a historical perspective. Sovereignty as I have always used it is this definition: a self-governing state. Meaning, no outside government. That fundamentally describes what freedom in the recent Western, individualist tradition is all about, what the Constitution outlines. I don't know who or where the people are that actually fit in this category of thinkers.
Sovereignty is supreme power. It's not restricted to mere states.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=sovereign&ref=searchbar_searchhint
It's not an odd usage.
Actually I misread this. Since I said that the more control the more freedom, I had thought you thought I meant control per se, and I misread this as "would make you more free". But this brings up an interesting question: do traffic lights make you more or less free? Since I see freedom as being always contextual, I think the answer could be either. If there were no traffic lights and little traffic, then you would be more free to drive unimpeded (assuming that is what you desire). On the other hand traffic lights are designed to facilitate the flow of traffic, so if there is a lot of traffic they may afford you greater freedom.
So, as I said previously I think freedom is easy to understand, it is contexts and the will(s) which create them which are more difficult to elucidate.
Quoting Banno
No idea what you're trying to say here.
Quoting Tobias
I would say that what is important (from the POV of the individual) is the experience or feeling of freedom. And since the question cannot be answered then it doesn't matter. If it could be answered and the answer was that freedom (in the full libertarian sense) is completely illusory, then that might matter to individuals, since such a realization might demotivate or demoralize people. It would more definitely matter for the idea of moral responsibility, praise and blame.
Again, I accept the historical context of this definition. But 'state' is not restricted itself to the state that is government. I'm talking from an individual perspective. Just as the above definitions terms can be applied to the state of governance, so too can they be applied to the individual person, as in, authority over my life, rule of my life, independence from other people. That's the usage I employ. I'm wondering who these people are that restrict the usage of the word sovereignty that much, so as to skew the definition to the point where the term freedom is incompatible with it. And don't tell me to re-read Arendt, I already get that. I'm talking now, and who among us in the world.
I wonder if you have come across this alternate picture of freedom before, is all.
Crazy how much gets lost in individual translation of one's own language, isn't it? It's unfuckin believable...
The point was the definitons.
My curiosity is regarding just who this concept of relinquishing sovereignty is relevant to, considering that it isn't actually clear that people are very often delineating between sovereignty and freedom in their minds. Maybe "world leaders." Most people would say, like me, sovereignty is a description of freedom, as well as a term that has been historically tied to statehood. Which, even if you break that down, what are states meaning, historically speaking, by "sovereignty?" Something like, maybe, freedom of self-governance? Meaning, freedom for the state? It just isn't clear why this topic matters. Arendt's elaboration on the history of freedom and will as concepts alone would have been sufficient for the paper to be a good one.
Ah, right. I've started reading the Arendt article, since I have more time on my hands today. So far, I would say 'yes or maybe'. I think I may have actually come across this paper before, when I was an undergraduate at Sydney Uni I took a unit which included Arendt. But memory aint what it used to be!
On the other hand if you mean had I come across the idea of freedom as political freedom, or the freeing possibilities of politics, then yes, I had been aware of that, but I probably haven't given it as much thought as it might deserve.
Yep, none of us are perfect readers to be sure.
Whomever? From individual to state.
Got it. You cannot recall any specific instances in the text that supports your claim of Plato's intention.
Seeing as how my challenge is pointless, I will not darken your door again. May the road rise up gently to meet you.
I count Nussbaum's capability approach as one of the efforts toward a 'guaranteed public realm"
That doesn't make sense.
To be honest about the nature of the article, though, it is actually not quoting Arendt on an asserted position she was positing; she wasn't actually making an argument. The quotes come from this journal of hers, which is nothing more than a celebration of the history of freedom and will (human action), both as concepts, and as embodied principles throughout the ages. And she thoroughly covers the history of its usage. The entire time your read the thing, you're thinking she's about to make some heavy argument on the topic, she doesn't, and it isn't something that becomes clear until the last paragraph when she says:
"Objectively, that is, seen from the outside and without taking
into account that man is a beginning and a beginner, the chances that tomorrow will be like yesterday are always overwhelming. Not quite so overwhelming, to be sure, but very nearly so as the chances were that no earth would ever rise out of cosmic occurrences, that no life would develop out of inorganic processes, and
that no man would emerge out of the evolution of animal life. The decisive difference between the "infinite improbabilities" on which the reality of our earthly life rests and the miraculous character inherent in those events which establish historical reality is that, in the realm of human affairs, we know the author of the "miracles." It is men who perform them men who because they have received
the twofold gift of freedom and action can establish a reality of their own."
This is literally the last paragraph of the essay quoted in the article. It's actually kind of funny because she holds that Man IS free, irrespective of what restaints you put on him. That freedom is a self-evident fact of the nature of human life that cannot be undone, or revoked, or altered. Which is kind of the opposite of what people here have been arguing, and more in line with my view that will is an emergent aspect of the brain that never is in a state of inactivity, even if placed under duress, unless it is dead. Took me a while to get to the end of to notice, however.
Here's the essay: https://grattoncourses.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/hannah-arendt-what-is-freedom.pdf
Freedom? No, not freedom, Arendt shares my opinion on freedom. It's the concept of sovereignty that doesn't add anything of value, as far as I can tell. To people who aren't using the term sovereignty to mean the recognized and respected dominion of a state of armed thugs who predicate their dominion upon the threat of the use of brute force and murder, such a description doesn't make much sense. Those of us who understand sovereignty is as inherent to the human being as his/her own sense of smell, thought, and health are. Sovereignty describes your natural state over your own self, without any additional context. Which is why I can't taste your food, and you can't know my thoughts. You, by all natural standards, belong to, are resticted to, and are bound to your frame of existence and all elements therein until your last experience, which will be experienced exclusively by you.
Oh, you are welcome to come over for dinner, if you like. I made a vegetable lasagne yesterday, and have plenty left to share. But yes, as it stands, I cannot understand your thoughts. It seems you have change position somewhat since Quoting Garrett Travers
No, not at all. How would you mean?
Yeah, I just didn't know if you were drawing from the article, or the essay. Because the article is using the essay's content in what I can only conclude is a dishonest manner. The article is asserting something that isn't actually asserted by author in the essay, and doing so on Arendt's behalf.
Had a feeling you'd refrain from qualifying an assertion you knew didn't make sense.
This one here.
Quoting Garrett Travers
And this is yours. This statement doesn't make sense, especially with my statement being used as the premise.
...so you expect me to show how your apparent change of opinion makes sense...?
Obtuse. And uninteresting.
No, more like I know you can't, because such a thing hasn't happened, and I'm just toying with you because it's fun to watch someone squirm who attempts playing that kind of game with me. It's fun, you see?
Quoting Garrett Travers
You are allowed to change your mind. Indeed, it is a good thing.
The whole thing, as the last paragraph of the essay illustrates. Arendt isn't making an elaborate argument, she's presenting the history of the concepts of freedom and will throughout the ages, in a celebration of them.
Garrett, my brain is not your brain. And both of our brains have come into existence and will pass out of existence. "The brain" is not self-perpetuating.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Where did you learn biology? There is a constant flow of blood into and out of the brain. By no stretch of the imagination is it a "closed system of chemicals". Have you ever had an alcoholic beverage? I mean no offence to the children amongst us, but your argumentation appears like you have not yet obtained to the drinking age.
Quoting Paine
I believe it's pointless because I know that each reference I produce can be met with a counter reference implying something contrary, just like in our exchange on the other thread. Then, in the end it will come down to a question of the intent of the author. So, I think we ought to be able to discuss what we each believe to be the intent of the author, without quoting conflicting references, which turns into an endless process going nowhere.
Do you agree that it was Plato's intention to investigate into the truth of this matter, in his efforts to understand the practice of the sophists who claimed to teach virtue? And do you agree that the truth of the matter is that we can know and understand what is good, yet still proceed to behave in a contrary way, I.e. to do what is bad when we know what is good? If you agree with both of these, then why do you not agree that Plato's intent was to demonstrate the truth of the latter in his effort to show that the sophists were wrong when they claimed that virtue could be taught, as a type of knowledge?
To be free from interpersonal force is to be recognized in your sovereign boundaries. The word sovereignty covers both the state perspective of the word, which Arendt accurately criticized, and the individual perspective, which she did not make room for in her assessment of freedom. There is no delineation that has taken place between my two statements, they mean the exact same thing. Now, if you wish, you can elaborate on why you think there is a difference - which again, you won't do what your brain won't let you do, funny that - but as it stands, you've simply put two logically equivalent statements together, and proceeded to call that an argument. Which it isn't.
It only stops when it is dead, never before. Yes, it is self-perpetuating. Read what I am saying to you.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The brain, through natural processes, only allows in what it allows in. I recommend you do some research on this. Alcohol is passed through the blood stream, which is what the brain allows to pass. You placing alcohol in that system, by using the system as it's designed, changes nothing about the nature of the system itself. Again, what chemical process happens in the brain that you are referring to? Qualify your original assertion you made. And keep your goddamn insults to yourself. If you can't generate an argument without them, you've no place presenting one.
Self-perpetuating is to continue in existence indefinitely. If it dies it is not self-perpetuating.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Obviously it's not a closed system.
The brain is not a closed system neither is it self-perpetuating. Your argument fails, and the position you claim is nonsense.
That's... not what I read.
So you think the Arendt article is solely about politics? Why? As in, what about the article led you to restrict it in that way?
No, that's not what it means. Here's the definition: the continuation of something by itself without external agency or intervention. Now stop being stupid.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It doesn't actually matter what kind of system it is, what you're doing is called a redherring fallcy, open, closed, semi-permeable, doesn't matter. It allows only what it allows to pass into and out of itself. That's all there is to that. Not a single point I've mde to you about the nature of the brain producing all thought and action has been addressed. And you still haven't qualified your chemicals argument.
The brain is not "self-perpetuating" by any definition. The heart pumping blood is external agency. Who is being stupid here?
... What's not? Whad'ya read there in that? You see how you just presented a quote again as if it constituted an argument? Didn't I just call you out on that? QUA-LI-FY yo shit, or stop talking it.
Quoting Banno
No, nor did I say it was. I said her perspective on the term sovereignty is both predicated on the accurately criticized notion of state sovereignty, and pointless to the essay. It didn't need that assessment.
Hmm..... And what keeps the heart pumping.....?
......
Hold on, lemme think on this a bit...............
Now you seem to be catching on. Each depends on the other, so we cannot say that one controls the other. If the brain existed first, and created the heart to serve its purposes, then we might be able to say that the brain controls the heart. But that's not the case. So we cannot truthfully say that.
And we haven't even gotten to the issue you intentionally avoided, the relation between the brain and the senses.
No, that's not the case, man. The brain literally controls the heart through brain stem: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2015.0181
It also controls everything else.
So you say, but you failed in justifying this claim.
Sure, no problem. I actually already addressed this. The relationship is: the brain controls them: https://www.brainandspine.org.uk/information-and-support/anatomy-of-the-brain-and-spine/#:~:text=The%20parietal%20lobe%20gives%20you,part%20of%20the%20outside%20world.
No, I provided you an up-to-date scientific journal on the subject.
I take that back. I provided you numerous up-to-date scientific journals.
Appeal to authority, another failure.
Actually, you are in fact committing this fallacy:
Disregarding Known Science
This fallacy is committed when a person makes a claim that knowingly or unknowingly disregards well known science, science that weighs against the claim. They should know better. This fallacy is a form of the Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence.
https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#DisregardingKnownScience
I, on the other hand, am presenting documented science from researchers within the field of neuroscience. You, really are acting a fool, dude.
I told you, you're brain will not do what it will not do.
It's not a straight forward philosophical essay, as was noted earlier by @Ciceronianus and I. But it fits pretty well into Existentialisms approach to such issues. There is some background on SEP.
I might well agree with you on that. From a naturalistic metaphysical point of view, free will is difficult to understand to begin with. From the perspective that everything happens in law governed chains of cause and effect, free will is hard to fathom. It would mean that something out there magically escapes that chain and acts as an uncaused causer and lo and behold it resides within our brain... so from a naturalistic standpoint I think free will is very unlikely to begin with and all the sciences based on it, like neurosciences seem to confirm that idea. the naturalistic metaphysics is the metaphysical position of the sciences today and for good reason.
The problem is that that particular brand of metaphysics cannot make sense of the particular experience of freedom of choice. Saying it is an illusion will not help because an illusion tends to disappear when it is punctured. The experience of choice and freedom is irreducible to illusion though. In philosophy the phrase is that the first person is irreducible to the third person perspective. At least that is the take I have on free will. For me it is part of a bigger problem / human condition but those ideas I will hold to myself for now.
Quoting Janus
Sure I think the question has existential importance. Strawson reasons it away and so I do not embrace his approach. In Strawson's view though we need the registers of freedom and of determinism and use them to assess the behavior of others. whether the world is really really determined we cannot know and therefore it would be merely impoverishing if we would do away with the register of freedom and treat everyone as if they were determined. My take on it is different though, though I arrive at more or less the same conclusion.
As for the traffic lights example, sure, traffic lights could also be used to make people less free. We could in theory prevent a whole class of people from going to work by hindering their community with traffic lights, than it would make them less free. What I think you arrive at though is not that teh definition of freedom is contextual, the actual assessment of who is free and who is not is contextual, determined by the facts of the case.
@banno No disagreement with you there. Indeed I am on the same page. I do not really know why that necessarily would lead to virtue ethics though and I like to ask you that question. Why would it lead to virtue ethics? Not to quibble with you because I am quite partial to virtue ethics as well, but to see why you think there is a connection there that first better with virtue ethics than with say utilitarianism or deontology.
Yes, that is the problem, isn't it? What are you going to believe, your own experience of thinking, acting, and living, which demonstrates the reality of free will, or some half baked notion that the world is "naturalistically determined"?
But that's a question for another thread: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12257/free-will-and-other-popular-delusions-or-not
Well I do not think the second notion is that half baked. I also do not believe that my experience necessarily proves the reality of something, so I do think we are in a genuine philosophical conundrum.
I don't think will is an illusion, I think self as distinct from will is an illusion. Freedom of choice makes sense within the context of the brain as the source of consciousness, subconsciousness, and all other expressions that characterize the human body, which includes self-perception and executive action. The problem is arising almost entirely from this traditional view point of regarding each of these as somehow distinct, even though they all have the same source and are bound to the same, singular body. The irreducibility of 'from first to third,' is clearly not salient. You know this as someone who sleeps, you know this as someone who understands if the brain is damaged we lose faculties, you know this as someone who's aware of alzheimer's, the list goes on. If your perceptions can be reoriented to recognize that consciousness and will are functions of the brain, just like all of your other functions, then the image of the nature of both will, and freedom becomes a great deal more clear. And just for the record, there is not a single shred of evidence in cognitive neuroscience, that I can find, that does not support this claim. I quite genuinely beseech you to find me anything at all, that is up-to-date, that would give this position reason for pause, or reconfiguration.
I actually did not define freedom.Quoting Tobias
I think the issue is more subtle. Not everything that allows or helps you achieve your goals in a society is freedom. In fact, society imposes non-freedoms on you.
The basic problem is that it is not freedom in every action in a society that you gets you to achieve your goals. You are HELPED to achieve your goals, which involves the curtailing of some of your freedoms. To call everything that helps you along -- such as law, order, morals and peer pressure -- while curtailing your freedom -- from going through red lights, from beating up others, from taking things away from them -- freedom, is a gross misuse of the word.
Quoting Tobias
Quoting Banno
A line of thought rather than an argument. Both deontology and consequentialism present algorithmic methods for deciding moral cases. There's two things that count against this: firstly that we do not act algorithmically; and secondly that we ought not act algorithmically.
Look at what we actually do when making a decision with a moral dimension and it will quickly become apparent that we do not commonly sit first and go through a process of investigation and deduction in order to reach a decision. Choices usually need to be made far too quickly for such a process of ratiocination. The moral reasoning behind an action is more often than not post hoc.
@ god must be atheist's article might give one pause when considering whether we ought follow a rule. But there are considerations that are to do with the nature of rule following, as found in my old mate Wittgenstein: "No course of action can be determined by a rule, because every course of action can be made out to conform to the rule... What this shows is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation but which is exhibited by what we call obeying a rule and going against it". Hence deontology and consequentialism are not of themselves up to the task of telling us what to do; each is to be grasped by our exhibiting what it is to follow the rule.
So, choosing to follow the rules of deontology or consequentialism does not tell us what to do in a particular case; we must also interpret the circumstances of that case and choose how to implement the rule.
All this to say that acting morally is not an algorithmic process, it is not just doing what the rule says.
How then to proceed? By becoming the sort of person who makes choices with which one can agree; by building on one's capacity to act with virtue. If one works on one's honesty, integrity, courage, charity, and so on, one is in a better position to act well. Choose deontology or consequentialism or whatever, one will be better placed to implement such rules if one builds on virtue.
In much the same way that a judge who simply, algorithmically, applies the law will eventually act unjustly, one who chooses to apply deontology or consequentialism algorithmically will fins themselves acting against their duty or the greater happiness. Virtue provides the humanising feedback that allows us to ask if duty or happiness are the right thing to do in a particular circumstance.
One might do well to set aside the historical deconstruction informative and thought provoking as it might be.
There is an ethical problem with freedom as construed in liberal thought. If freedom is founded on sovereignty, then my freedom can only be won at the cost of your sovereignty. This is an approach that sets each individual against all the others. We see the result in the dissolution of the common wealth in those nations that claim a liberal heritage.
Better, then to see freedom as a building of the capacity to achieve, to become more than one already is, both individually and as part of that common wealth. We achieve freedom so considered by building the capacity of those around us to be free.
Right, though I haven't said the definition of freedom simpliciter is contextual; I meant that who is defined as being free, and how we might be defined as being free on one perspective and not on another is where the contextuality comes into play.
The American concept of freedom is rooted in the need for unity in the face of diversity. The Bill of Rights provides a government divided against itself. A citizen can appeal to the government to be protected from the government. This is civil rights.
You need to think of societies as being made up of opposing forces. Peace and stability are the balancing of forces rather than executing some ideal principle.
Hmm. The article is an invitation to notice, in contrast, that society is overwhelmingly about cooperation.
Pretty much. But see 's post, positing that society is constituted by opposing forces. Does society stand on conflict, or on cooperation? Whence the growth of inequity and the problems ensuing therefrom?
The difference is between a picture of society as you against everyone else, or a picture of society as collective growth.
Cheers.
We need to take care not to downplay the rules. They are in a way the sense, the conscience, made explicit so that it is part of the public space.
Just as you can't have freedom without a context of constraints, you can't have cooperation without a context of opposing interests.
What I'm advocating is second nature for the determinist: put away your condemnations and see the ways that every citizen is compelled by circumstances, culture, and history.
If you can't do that, shut up about free will because it's one of your hinge propositions.
Did you read the article?
Hobbes would say that your first option is not a society but a war. The agreement to not have a war is to accept a binding force. The argument of Thomas Paine was that such a binding could happen without cancelling the natural ambition of individuals to gain their own advantage. In that sense, the instruments of cooperation are forms of rearranging the components that lead Hobbes to justify monarchy as the best polity. The war could be avoided by other means than establishing an absolute source of authority.
It occurs to me that these chaps thought well, but in a linear fashion, so the power structures tended to be hierarchical.
It might be better to think of power distribution in terms of a series of loops. The separation of the powers prevents any individual achieving hegemony, democratic institutions dragging the whole towards a moderately equitable outcome. On this account what is missing is a loop that redistributes wealth caught by corporate entities, resulting in monopolistic practices.
Thanks for finally replying to me.
I don't think I ever said that moral acts are algorithmic processes, but now that you say that, I believe they are. It's just that the algorithms are complex, and our cognitive examinations can't fathom them.
Maybe you are referring to the argument in which I said moral acts are evolution-based? I think you may still be hung up on those.
Yes, I maintain the same stance as before, but I think I miscommunicated my meaning. Moral acts indeed are manifold, and no rule can be found that applies to the details of every particular case. Long words like deontology and consequentialism aside, that is true. However, the mechanics of moral judgment are so, that a basic biologically ingrained set of rules (basically to preserve the safety and surety one's DNA's future derivatives) that are present in mammals and birds as well, has been developed in humans to other areas of life, such as to accept socially ingrained morality.
This is new, and I appreciate that you may have a natural aversion to this idea, because this has not been in your readings, particularly because it is (or may be) my own original idea.
In my opinion moral behaviour that society imposes on us would not have any effect on anyone, should a mutation to alter our functioning not have happened. We do internalize some social ethics, and reject some others. In every culture, if I may assert. And every culture may have different moral codes. But the basic evolutionary step was to make individuals accept that they have to conform to some ethical behaviour that society attempts to make them to accept.
Thus, it is not some sort of moral ethical decision tree or moral ethical algorithm that I invoked that would be developed to guide man in every different ethical dilemma or challenge; I invoked this pivotal mutation that had made humans ethical beings that respond to internalizing social ethics.
Your dissatisfaction with these chaps may or may not match up with that expressed by Arendt.
She finds Paine to be insufficient while Rousseau is dismissed as just being nuts. Perhaps that has something do with Paine being pragmatic. At the end of Common Sense, he says that groups of individuals have three ways of influencing outcomes: They can develop forms of representation, join a military, or participate in a mob. The singularity of being a king compared to the singularity of being an individual does not fill in the big blank in between. In any case, Arendt's general dissatisfaction with the chaps, as a group, goes back to this observation in the essay:
No. You misunderstand. You don't have to give up sovereignty. You can be free and sovereign at the same time. But only if you isolate yourself from each and everyone. Freedom and sovereignty can't be achieved in company of other people though. To let the others have freedom and sovereignty you have to give up your own to some extent. Which means no one has true freedom and sovereignty, unless forced with power. To find the right balance, so everyone has at least a feeling of having enough freedom and sovereignty, be it individual or groupswise, is the true challenge.
It's not, Rand highlighted it in her epistemology decades ago. But, consider this. From a cognitivie perspective, the process of concept generation takes place as the brain becomes familiarized with a domain of interest that has been engaged with for long enough across time. Concept generation is itself a reformulation of what we think constitutes either proper behavior or thought appropriate within that domain, as a means to achieve what ethics was fundamentally laid down to do. That being to produce the best behavior. Concept generation is an ethical process by nature, it is the ethical process. So, it isn't just that we have biological imperatives that constitute self-preservation from an instinctual level, we have a system of concept generation built into us to make up for where instinct fails, to serve the exact same purpose.
Quoting god must be atheist
Yes, this is kind of the issue with ethics as a whole. The human reaches the developmental capacity to generate concepts between 12-17 ish, dependeing on the individual. Meaning, before the human is even able to develop his/her own concepts on ethics, the people around him/her have already foisted a good deal of info on them that has been categorized into domains of predisposition in accordance with the feelings associated with the info. Meaning, because of our ignorance of human nature, we've historically disrupted the process of allowing the natural emergence of concepts, and instead have manipulated the vulnerable human mind into adopting our own. Depending on who the "our" is in that equation. In other words, your last sentence there is fundamentally the root of all evil. It is the action taken on the part of the strong against the vulnerable to stifle the natural operation of the mechanisms in our minds that naturally produce concepts for informing better behavior that the individual human being can use to provide greater results for him/herself, and by proxy those who benefit from such behavior.
Quoting god must be atheist
Except it is very algorithmic, and does require a tree of considerations. The ability to generate concepts that inform behavior requires a high enough resolution of understanding of whatever domain that concept is exploring behavior or thought within. All of which forms a feedback loop of information within the mind that has been prioritzed by emotional valence and objective correspondence that all coheres in the mind as a concatenation of info exchange, arranged by differing value. It is as "tree" as tree gets. Those who do not, or choose not to understand this, simply are not informed of the neural processes that give rise to ethical exploration, full stop.
It's not that he misunderstands, or that I do for that matter. He's simply talking about a different conception of sovereignty than what Arendt is on about. Historically speaking, she's as correct as correct gets. For Man to be free, he must relinquish the idea of the sovereign state. That authority fundamentally destroyes freedom. But, what Frankly is talking about is self-ownership, individual sovereignty. For some reason the concept slips everyone's mind in this thread. Self-ownership, which is the state of being you exist in as determined by nature, such being recognized is the pre-requisite of freedom. There is no freedom if the human will is not permitted to emerge, uninhibited, as an expression of itself, to itself, by itself, and for no other reason if so chosen. And there's no ethical justifiaction for such force to be applied. Either each individual is entitled to his own body and consciousness, or freedom is a pipe dream that is just waiting on the next lout with a gun to come take away because he can't bear the same responsibility of owning himself.
So @Banno notes a society that strikes him as "every man for himself". The opposite of that is selflessness; a sheep like tendency to fall quietly in line (per folklore this is a British trait, and the US culture is an extrapolation of parts of the British culture.)
So a hypervigilance about freedom is not the poor outcome of Augustinianism (who on earth thinks that's how anthropology works?) but rather it comes from fears in the present, in this case fear of one's own tendency to accept tyranny without protest.
@Banno I think you should read this post about five times, because it's very insightful. :grin:
This is a friendly and polite notification that if you reply to my posts, others may pick up on it, but I won't.
I simply don't read your posts. That's about the size of it.
And
Quoting god must be atheist
Are mutually exclusive statements.
The basic reason for rejecting a place for sociobiology in ethics remains: even if our genes demand that we act in a certain way, it remains open for us to do otherwise.
I did. It isn't.
Yes it is.
I’m not sure how a freedom founded on sovereignty can only be won at a cost to another’s sovereignty. If each of us are (or ought to be) sovereign over our own actions, and therefor is (or ought to be) free, it seems to me the ethical act would be to give sovereignty instead of purchase it.
Arendt doesn’t describe freedom as a building of the capacity to achieve, but as a capacity to begin. Beginning does not necessitate achieving anymore than it necessitates failing. So I would say your “building of the capacity to achieve” falls more under her Christian conception of “freedom for the sake of salvation” as it appears in her genealogy.
Sure, but
"action and beginning are essentially the same"...
The link between the capacity to begin and the capacity to act is apparent. The link to Nassbaum is my own, after @Paine
Quoting Banno
I believe you refer to these two instances in my post:
Quoting god must be atheist
Quoting god must be atheist
I left out a major part in my first quoted text. The processes are algorithmic in the sense that the decision is based on the circumstances as well; in a way that the decision can be traced back (by a very smart "mind") from the actual act backwards in time to the constituent causing parts, and then one can see how those causing parts fit together to produce the act. Conversely, if the "smart mind" was aware of the causing parts, it could correctly predict the ensuing act. Without a decision tree or algorithm this task would be impossible.
In the second part I attempted to explain that the mutation that guides ethical behaviour is not a hard-and-fast command to how to behave; therefore I denied that it is some moral ethical decision tree that's at play.
In summary, the decision tree that I don't deny is there is processing of all causational components; and the denial of the decision tree is that it is SOLELY based on a pre-existing command by ethical mutation.
These are subtle differences, and one can argue that in the original text, from which i quoted, I ought to have been more careful in the wording.
The evolutionary change I suggested is nowhere near what you suggest here I suggested. I merely suggested in the article that there was a mechanism in place originally; that was fast and hard-wired; and its mechanism was transported from one application in behavour to a different application of behaviour. The second application (to which it was transported) is not hard-and-fast in behaviour; it is rather that that the reward and punishment system after any moral behaviour is the mehcanism that was inherited from the hard-wired system.
It is all there, and because it's a brand new concept, it requires (I am sorry to say) very careful reading. New concepts are normally resisted in acceptance, but before that phase, they are often misunderstood entirely.
Then I stand by the thrust of the post, that virtue ethics better suits ethical problem solving.
I suggest this article.
Quoting Banno
You need a good night's sleep, Banno.
I apologize, but I can't agree to something I don't understand.
I have no formal training in philosophy, and you seem to have.
You have to come down to my level on this if you wish to elicit an agreement. Otherwise just let it go.
I was referring to the article you cited for @Tobias, here;
DO you need an explanation of the difference between an algorithm and an heuristic? Or of virtue ethics?
No thank you. Instead, it would be helpful if you could explain in simple, street-level terms what you mean. But I won't hold you to it, you do it if you feel like it.
you referenced something without telling me what you were talking about; a little while later you gave an ambiguous answer what you were talking about; and the third time you blurted out what you were talking about.
It's a little bit like playing the game "Mastermind" and using the wrong pegs three times and still expecting the other bloke to guess the solution correctly.
Please don't do this. This is impolite and unnecessarily confusing your debating partner.
I linked directly to the article to which I was referring. Look: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/652160
I apologise for assuming you read the post you commented on...:grimace:
Then you ask me, "What article?"
You need a good night's sleep, like I said earlier.
If you were making this mistake in a formal academic setting, I believe you would be penalized for that.
I had published one article in two versions here as a thread. Since you referred to the article as mine, I thought you meant the one I had created. There was no reason for me to check my own article.
This was precise, at the same time as ambiguous. Okay, I admit you referenced it, but your wording was so worded that I rightfully assumed that you referenced my article, not an article I quoted.
To be honest, I glided over your referencing, since I assumed you talked about my article... how on earth would someone read "god must atheist's article" as an article which is not god must be atheist's article?
No. I meant the article I linked to in the sentence in which I mentioned it.
Cheers. :grimace:
I got you already. Cheers.
Nelson Mandela - Reflections on Working Toward Peace
Interesting.
--Abraham Lincoln