Improving Critique of Pure Reason with (More) Myths

After studying Kant for a short time the manner in which he talks about our faculties had to be read as a myth (story).  The process of intuition giving objects that are then understood (a priori) and so delivered in an orderly manner was not meant to be taken literally as a sequence, but has more the character of stories Socrates would defer to that he couldn't justify, such as the doctrine of recollection in the Meno.

This reading made the most sense due to Kant's acknowledgement that all knowledge begins with experience, yet not that all knowledge arises from it.  Another way of approaching this is the following: if pure intuition, or concept, wasn't combined already into experience there would be no vantage point from which to discover it, and this means that these things only have there definite sense if they are seen together.

Kant speaks of his interest in making his work sensible to the reader.  Would other stories perhaps make it more sensible?  Kant will often allow different accounts to light up the same thing (e.g., the formulations of the Categorical Imperative), and so it seems we don't need to tell a new story as if it must oppose the old one: these stories are not to be seen as facts that oppose each other, but as guides for the understanding.  Plato, too, seems to have recognized this and seems to make little effort to have the myths he tell be mutually consistent.

Kant provides an opportunity for a different story in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, particularly with regard to the judgment of taste.  Rather than a story about the a priori processing of material, we can instead see the object immediately presenced as interesting apart from a concept.  This interest draws us into conceptualization that first employs the empirical (objective) understanding.  This objective understanding is exactly the basis for an analysis of the form of understanding.  There are some interesting benefits of using such a description that fit very well with Kant's philosophy.

One thing we can benefit from is seeing the givenness of the object as clearly preceding the analysis on it.  Kant says analysis assumes prior synthesis, and this should not imply that analysis depends upon a literal bringing together of material.  We should see this assumption of analysis as the manner in which the activity of analysis guides itself in separating the material, not as a dependency on a speculative processing of material in the subject. This leads to another benefit regarding the understanding of 'subject' in Kant.

Even today there is a temptation to read Kant as another problematic idealist (i.e., Berkeley).  Part of Kant's problem is this subject centric narrative he uses.  Starting from the object of taste, we have something closer to the thoughts expressed in the refutation of idealism: that the conception of the subject depends on something outside us.  However, this narrative doesn't leave the subject as some pure result, rather it would be the 'I' of the 'I think' (objectivity) that is discovered: we have a definite existence apart from explicit empirical determinations, but with the beautiful object we are brought into our first (objective) empirical understanding, and all at once into an understanding of ourselves as thinking objectively.  This way of bringing about the thinking can show us another benefit regarding understanding. 

For Kant, the categories concern the form of understanding of objects of experience.  Nothing particular is thought by the categories alone. Instead the categories describe the basis upon which one can judge additional attributes.  The object of taste is exactly that upon which our understanding is first engaged freely (in spontaneity) to determine the object.  Having the object given first as that upon which we judge can help us see the categories more clearly for what they are and how we discover them: they are the form of the understanding and we discover them from an analysis of the objects understood objectively in experience.  This further avoids the interpretation of categories as existing in the head, and part of a mechanical process on data from senses that produces experience.

Another benefit of our narrative is that it opens up a relation to objects that has more possibilities than passing over to understanding. For example, from this narrative there is room for considering things as equipment in an environment.  This is harder to do when the narrative always delivers the thing to you as understood objectively as such and so particularly in the character of the understanding guided by categories employed in theoretical knowledge. This may open a space to understand topics such as equipmentality through Kant, and also to make use of other thinkers to clear this ground as well.

Ultimately Kant did not want us to repeat his work, but hoped that the work he was doing would help build a common ground for attaining to the more important goals he saw for mankind: expansion of our understanding, perpetual peace, enlightenment, the Highest Good, &c.  In the Prolegomena, Kant asks for help from future teachers of critique.  Kant does not want teachers of his book, but of the science that exists in idea, and which Kant's book of the same name was merely one attempt at working out. We can't hope to help the exposition of critique by merely interpreting and criticizing Kant's narrative, nor can we do it if we must feel alternative narratives can't be given in the spirit of genuine critique. We can continue the worthy project of critique by giving it a clearer exposition, and so more stories from which to develop understand.  I hope that I have suggested the value in this as much as I have given an example.  

Plato's Call for Philosophical Friendship

A major topic of concern in my so-called philosophical work is the problem of community. Philosophy is unable to exist without a community of thinkers in discourse. However, a community of discourse can be envisioned in many ways and it is important to consider which ones have been taken to be suitable for philosophy. Plato's work seems in great part to be concerned with this problem of philosophical community, and since I feel a kinship towards him as regards the problems philosophical community seem to face I will take him as a guide.

Plato frequently distinguishes between dialectic and debate (and their respective cultures) explicitly and through illustrating these different cultures dramatically. Plato continually affirms dialectic over debate. I see the culture of dialectic in Plato as concerned with truth, and as being a true philosophical culture.

In Plato, dialectic is not concerned with refutation but rather with the disclosure of truth. Discourse (logos) purports to disclose truth, yet it can fail. Socrates' method of dialectic (which even has more than one style) detects such failure by submitting the discourse to questions that seek the grounds of such disclosure. 

A typical result of Socrates' style of dialectic is that no ground is discovered in the discourse of the interlocutor. This does not mean that there actually is no ground, but at least that it is obscured. There are a number of different responses to being presented with the groundlessness of a position (as well as many ways to discover it), but they all seem to contain an element of confusion and a response to that confusion. 

If the grounds of a discourse are not brought to light through dialectic confusion results. Interlocutors deal with this confusion in a number of ways both positive (wonder, interest, friendship, &c) and negative (recalcitrance, filibustering, suspicion, &c). The confusion typical positive outcome suggest something like an anxiety about now knowing whereby one wants to know. This knowing or acknowledged ignorance is a genuine concern for truth where truth was understood as what was unable to be uncovered in the dialectic.

Much of Plato's writing seems intended to promote the positive responses to the confusion of dialectic and justify them over the negative responses. There is another way of reading the results of dialectic that wasn't clearly available or of interest to Plato: evaluation by rules of (more or less)formal logic. When one looks to the discussion with a view primarily to its correctness, one losses access to the work being done to attain to the ground of the discourse and instead only anticipates the errors that the interlocutor may stumble into.

The confusion that interlocutors fall into (in Plato and in every day discourse) is not primordially the result of the violation of rules. These days we are hyper-aware of logical rules. Rules of this kind only seem to emerge from diagnosing the ways a discourse can become confused and appear ungrounded. A discourse seeks to disclose something, and discovering its ungroundedness is essentially discovering the forgetfulness of what it was trying to show through the discourse. This kind of forgetfulness is not simply the violation of formal logic, but yet these violations - since they have a regularity - can be read out of the discourse.

On the basis of developing a more or less formal understanding of discourse there is a new attitude one can take that doesn't necessarily concern itself with disclosure but with keeping to the rules, and even playing within the rules. One can present a discourse that avoids those pitfalls and can be persuasive without being concerned with the truth (rhetoric), or introduce paradoxes that intentionally confuse (eristics). With these external guidelines there is the potential for a kind of sport of discourse; this discourse is not concerned with the truth, but with control, power and gain. The culture built around this type of discourse is that of debate or sophistry.

Plato seems to see the negative attitudes of confronting confusion in discourse as promoting or at least accompanying a culture of sophistry. Plato strives to illustrate the needfulness and grounds for true philosophical discourse. He clarifies that which awakens speech into its capacity to disclose: things. He also works out the presuppositions of these things in their capacity to be disclosed through discourse: forms (ideas). 

Plato continually illustrates the difficulty the lover of truth faces in being received with the right attitude. Socrates is continually misunderstood, both by the sophists he discusses with, and by his own friends. It hardly needs to be pointed out that this confusion about Socrates' attitude contributes to his own death, both in the source of his accusation of impiety and in the misunderstanding of his own self-defense.

There seems to be a prejudice against truth that naturally arises from fear and misunderstanding of the anxiety that is the call to the truth. One feels confused and feels thrown out of the truth, but the pain of falling out of the truth is also the invitation or interest of getting back in.

When one grounds philosophy in a system of logic one begins to forget the importance of discourse in its disclosing character, and the sort of community that is required for a discourse at all, let alone a discourse guided by a love of wisdom. Philosophy of this sort is more like sophistry and debate. It no longer concerns itself primarily with disclosing truth, and merely runs along the rails that will keep it from contradictions.

Logic has gained a standing that seems unassailable, and it is correct for logic to be unassailable within certain bounds. It is not appropriate to found the essence of discourse, the attitude towards truth or philosophy itself by this kind of logic.

On Hypothesis and Questioning

I want to discuss 'hypothesis', and this will be my attempt to set out some thoughts concerning it.  I want this to expand how I think of science, while still keeping it in close contact with how I think of philosophy, and particularly, metaphysics (as the study of the Being of beings).

Hypothesis is often used in terms of a prediction we make, and then test through experiment.  I don't know how recently this came to be the standard usage, and I am not interested in rejecting it but understanding why it has become natural for us to think of things as predictable.  I am going back to some usage I have seen in Kant and Plato which inspired me, and seeing if I can get better insight into my own thought about both science, and my work in metaphysics.

Hypo-thesis has a nice etymology: under-placing.  In this way you could imagine a hypothesis as a foundation for a building - something that one allows something else to stand.  I would like to emphasize this under-placing through a different image so that I can avail myself of certain language that I think will be helpful to develop other thoughts I have related to the subject.

Imagine a completely white space, brightly lit, so that you cannot see any differentiation in the field of view.  You are looking forward as a black backdrop is lowered some distance behind you.  As this happens, you see a number of all white objects that were in the field of view that were hitherto invisible (due to their non-contrasting with the environment) have now become visible.  I would like to consider the black backdrop here, which allows the white objects to stand out (exist, presence themselves), as illustrating hypothesis.

hypotheses allow things to show themselves.  A scientific hypothesis, taken in this sense, is a way of constraining the environment in advance in order to see something that stands out.  I do not want to consider hypotheses as physical equipment used to reveal things (so the black backdrop is only a metaphor): a light switch is not a hypothesis.  A hypothesis is rather a way of thinking of our environment in advance in a planned way - a way of constraining the environment in order that it seems different to us while we operate under the hypothesis.

In Plato's Meno, Socrates and Meno are unable to decide what virtue is, but Meno still persuades Socrates to answer if virtue can be taught.  Socrates advises that they continue as a geometer by operating under a hypothesis.  They agree to suppose that knowledge considered valuable, and teachable, will be taught, so that if virtue is both valuable and teachable then we should discover it being taught.  But it is not taught, and good men have bad sons.  If we agree or disagree with the hypothesis does not matter here.  What I am interested in is how something is used to reduce the field of inquiry to just those things which are being taught, and upon looking at this reduced field not finding virtue there, the conclusion that virtue cannot be taught is decided.

For complicated reasons (which I do not understand) we say that if a certain statistical regularity shows itself (through data gathered in a graph that reveals a bump or cluster), then we have reason to suppose that there is a higgs-boson particle.  This is a hypothesis.  This data is not gathered at random, but depends on many other hypothesis that have constrained the environment so precisely that, at CERN, we have built a particle accelerator on these hypotheses.  Presently, we have no other way of hunting around for the higgs-boson, and this particle accelerator served the need to to let the particle stand out, and in a way, first exist.  All of these scientific operations clearly suppose the regularity of nature, but nature is not regular - no events ever repeat.  We do not hold to hypotheses because nature operates in a regular manner: only by holding to a hypothesis can beings become predictable and regular.  If we forget this we risk forgetting how science works.

For many of us, in our school days, we measured the volume of things by seeing the displacement of something in water.  Perhaps we remember Archimedes' eurika story, as well.  In our experiment we already knew in advance that a displacement in water signified the amount of space that an object takes up.  Having this understanding in advance allowed us to operate in our environment in a certain way to provide answers to questions we were given to ask.  For Archimedes, who had a lingering problem that he was trying to solve, his own displacing of water in a bath tub led him to realize that he had found the answer.  Such fortunate accidents do not just happen, but with Archimedes, as with the story of Newton, our own questioning state of mind leads to such dawning consciousness.  Our own questioning operates on the environment in order to reveal in a way that a hypothesis does, but without knowing in advance what such an answer will look like, and so different from us in our classroom experiments.

Kant says that no hypotheses are allowed in his critical enterprise.  What does this tell us about his approach?  While operating under no pre-consideration of things, he is yet asking.  He is not trying to constrain the field of beings in order to simply let some beings appear, or for them to appear in a special way - he just wants things to be as they are.  However, as soon as he begins to provide his interpretation of what emerges in this space, he sticks to one part of beings - the immediate presence to intuition (sense) - as a guide.  This can distort, for his readers, the original view that he had towards the Being of beings, a view also required for him to write the second and third critiques.  (The third seeming to approach most closely to a pure interpretation of presencing with the judgment of taste.)  This may help illustrate how I think the basic difference between a special science and the general science of metaphysics (or ontology).

Special sciences, already operate in advance with an understanding of their hypothesis, and constrain the view to let certain beings appear.  Metaphysics, on the other hand, does not hold hypotheses, but asks concerning the Being of beings.  Sometimes this asking is just in regard to the Being of beings in a certain discipline (what is it to be a being of mathematical physics?), while sometimes it is with regard to a pure view to beings as such.  But even with our most pure view to beings, they are already in advance something that is able to be taken up by us into our asking, and so already we can see that they have a character that is able to be questioned (a questionable character).  This tells us about the pure Being of beings, and also about us and how we emerge in relation to the Being of beings as thinkers.

The Practical Dialectic in Kant and Plato

   This will be a simple attempt to expand my understanding of thinkers by thinking them through each other, and also an illustration of such thinking through.  This procedure runs along these lines: structures in philosophical thought are actually few in number, despite the rich variety in language, and so when two philosophers have thought about the same subject, it can be helpful to compare the structures they employ to see if they are actually indicate results that are only implied in the other, or which can be seen by structuring elements in one system by those in another.  The comparison here is between Kant and Plato, and concerns the highest Good in Kant and Beauty itself (which is also the True, Good, &c) in Plato, and how both thinkers see these highest ideas as providing for the highest objectives of human life.

   Kant sees man's practical life divided between two universal ends that are in conflict: virtue and happiness.  To be virtuous means to obey the autonomous moral law (duty), while happiness is the fulfillment of our heteronomous desires.  These universal aims are in conflict since our desires may always lead us astray from our duty.  These conflicts in human nature have been recognized through the history of philosophy, and attempts have been made to resolve the conflict intellectually.  Kant contrasts the attempt of Stoics in supposing that virtue is happiness with that of Epicureans in supposing that happiness is virtue and finds that both the popular Stoic and Epicurean positions ignore one side of the conflict, rather than actually resolve the struggle between autonomy and heteronomy.

   Kant names the fulfillment of perfect virtue and happiness the "highest Good", and notes that striving for its attainment is in our nature.  However, this goal cannot be accomplished by us, and so requires supernatural assistance for its possibility.

   For Plato, there are primarily two ways of thinking 'love': as philos and eros.  Philos is associated by us with friendship, and for Plato I will emphasize the motto (maybe maxim), "friends share all things in common" (Phaedrus, Lysis).  Eros is thought by us in connection with erotic love, and Plato considers it more broadly as the result of our feeling the lack (Symposium, Phaedrus).  I will associate philos with the demands of autonomy (virtue), and eros with heteronomy (happiness), and thereby use Kant's practical dialectic as a foil to predict some thing we can expect in these terms.

   Plato understands love (eros) of Beauty itself to be obtainable, and so it is not an ideal that guides us onward indefinitely.  Perfect fulfillment of heteronomous desire is an unobtainable ideal in Kant, and so not to be made equivalent with loving Beauty itself.  We should understand education in eros as the unveiling of new kinds of eros, and so new things that we lack and pursue.

   Beauty is manifest in all objects of desire, however, but there is an exclusivity involved in the love of finite things which does not exist for Beauty itself.  Still, even when we attain a love Beauty itself, we are still susceptible to finite objects of desire, and so are tempted to exclude others from them.  For Kant, a limit on our ability to attain to perfect virtue is exactly this constant possibility of desire for things, and so the struggle to attain a love of Beauty itself parallels the development of virtue somehow.  Now, erotic love is still heteronomous, and so the cultivation of it at any level will never suffice for autonomy, and so we should see if the cultivation of eros provides a foundation for virtue rather than its attainment.

   It is, at first, hard to see how philos has a relationship to the cultivation of virtue.  But, supposing that the cultivation of eros develops the ground for virtuous practice, we may find how this cultivation concerns philos.  Considering the motto, "friends share all things in common", we can project the development of relationships between people where conflict arises due to limited resources.  The perfect management of these resources, so far as we must have them, will be a progress towards universal freedom sustained mutually between agents, as well as an economy of objects desired.  If we were to only love things that were limited, then it would require a great deal of laws to keep us in a relation as friends (but this would itself not work without love of law - even begrudgingly).  However, so far as we can attain to a love (eros) of things which are not subject to limited resources, then sharing becomes much easier.  Here we can clearly see how the cultivation of eros lays the ground for the pursuit of philos as a maximum in sharing, freedom under laws, and how a perfect development of eros (so that we only love Beauty itself) would produce no need for laws.  However, so long as we are finite beings, we have finite needs which prevent us from a perfect love of Beauty itself.

   To review: if friends are to share all things in common, we will have great difficulty so far as we find ourselves needful of things that are limited and of which we have a limited amount.  The cultivation of loving (eros) Beauty itself (Good, Truth, &c) orients us towards a domain of things that are not subject to limitations.  This means that the cultivation of eros is at the same time the development of philos, but this development will still be on the side of a single individual, and so only makes an individual suitable to be a part of a community of friends without creating that community.  This can indicate the importance of education in Plato, and that education should not be seen in terms of passing on knowledge of finite things or even particular cultural mores, but rather is for cultivating eros to allow for better friends, and citizens (this also should be understood relative to letting things stand in their own light, as in the allegory of the cave`).

   Reflecting off of this insight into Plato's thought we can find insight into Kant.  We can see that Kant's description of virtue in the Metaphysics of Morals as the cultivation of our inclination for duty is exactly this cultivation of eros in Plato.  The universality of the Categorical Imperative illustrates how Kant considers duty to involve such a possibility of a community of friends in relation to individual developments of virtue.  Situating the universality of the moral law in these terms of the conditions of maximum sharing in common (philos) represent Kant's understanding of morals more accurately, and avoids the harmful reception of Kant himself pronouncing what one ought to do.

   Happiness (in Kant) is only attainable so far as we can bring about conditions of universal philos in ourselves and others, and for this we will always be striving in this life in our cultivation of eros or virtue.  Perhaps this life long striving revealed in Plato can provide us a good basis to move on to understanding the afterlife myths that involve the familial relationship he draws between the laws of a state and those of the afterlife (Crito), or the striving after the forms (Phaedrus), or the expression of power to free us from long standing tyranny (Republic), or Socrates easygoing relation to death (Phaedo).

Facing the Ambiguity of "the Good"

   In my experience, the platonic insistence that all things go towards the Good is polarizing: people either think it is either a very helpful or completely empty sentiment.  As one who finds talk of the Good important, I would like to attempt an apology.

   Frequently, those who find the Good useless as a theme, confront those who appreciate it with the question: "what is the Good?"  Those who are comfortable with the discourse about the Good are very happy to answer that it is indeterminate.  However, if this is as far as the conversation goes it is frustrating for everyone — especially if this same conversation repeats frequently.  How can something indeterminate be helpful?

   Rather than taking the Good as a peculiar fact claim or occult object, I think it is helpful to consider it an expression concerning the philosophical life.  The Good signifies the highest possible 'thing' to reflect on, and while I must leave this "highest possible thing" as something undetermined, I can at least say that the upshot of the discourse about the Good, and particularly that all things go towards the Good, is that there is nothing which is excluded from this highest reflection.

   Far from suggesting the discovery of some particular thing that everything is guided towards, those who concern themselves with reflection on the Good should be characterized as seeking to understand how all things relate themselves to what is best, even in conditions where we continually need to re-evaluate what Good is.  While it seems unhelpful to be guided in reflection by something unspecific as a particular, consider the following:  why do we not have this same concern with the 'all things' portion of the relation to the Good, since we clearly do now know what constitutes all things?

   When we hear 'all things' we do not see before us an aggregate  of all objects, but rather 'all things' serves to guide us in appropriating things into the context of reflection.  In the same way 'the Good' should not call to mind some particular Good, but rather should serve to guide our reflection over everything that is mediately good towards the hazy depths of whatever is good in itself.  The combination of 'all things' and 'the Good' in the claim that all things go towards the Good, leads to a connecting of the pursuit of our interests in the world, with our interest in how we are ultimately concerned with the world, and primarily claims that these two halves - the world and the best - are to be understood as best as possible together.

   The Good should stand as a constant reminder for much more difficult and pressing work than dispute over the term 'Good' being useful or not.  However, far from suggesting that anyone adopt the use of 'Good', I am rather trying to provide some direction back to concerns that we can all rightfully share in common whenever this discourse is causing fractures in philosophizing together.  These pursuits should be more important to us than simply defending the term 'Good', but when it is being used, those who have the will to understand should try to allow themselves to see that it is suggesting something that we all can and should participate in.

A Discourse on 'Rational' and 'Irrational'

(I found the original passage in the Aristotle's Physics (thanks John) that I had in mind, and it did not mention this distinction as between the rational and irrational, but I will pursue it as such, anyway, since I don't need Aristotle's permission.  For the relevant passage, see Physics Book θ, 251a30.  Also, Book θ is amazing generally.)

   Here is a distinction between rational and irrational:

The rational has many possible effects

The irrational has only one possible effect

   By this, we can say that heat is irrational because it can only bring about heat, but knowledge is rational because it can bring about many different things.

  A recent conversation about this distinction developed it and suggested a number of things that seem peculiar, but may shed some light as a discourse which can cut across the history of philosophy.  I have decided to develop the distinction from that conversation in the following way:

Something absolutely rational is not determinable by us, since it is that from which all possibility itself depends upon.

   Something absolutely irrational is something conceived such that it is entirely determined.  For something to be entirely determined requires that we cannot think of any other possibility for the thing that is either not already understood in it, or is contradictory to it.  (It is impossible - for us - to determine any particular so precisely.)

   I also add the notion of relatively rational, which is how we actually think objects in our finite way.  In this case we have outstanding possibilities which we can think concerning the things which we can think of as determined, but are unknown to us.

   As an additional note, I am thinking 'rational' and 'irrational' here as relating back to the Greek 'logos' (discourse), and not to 'nous' (mind).  This is very important, and I will spend the rest of this post detailing how it is important that 'discourse' is given a central role in this.  (I am understanding 'logos' with an etymological significance of 'gathering'.)

   Generally, I will think of discourse in terms of the manner in which we speak of things.  When we have more and more precise discourse, that is, more determined discourse, we find that it is less and less rational since the terms have more and more narrow uses the more we try to constrain them.  In human discourse, through language, we must necessarily think certain determinations through what we say, and so human discourse is already relatively irrational (in different degrees).

   Pure logical notation is very rational precisely because it minimally determines particulars, and for merely this reason.  A discourse which tries to speak about particulars, such as a first hand description or historical chronicle, are less rational, since they become more and more particular as to how the objects in the discourse are determined.  

   As a discourse becomes less rational, the possibility of contradictions multiply, and the more rational the discourse the fewer possible contradictions.

   When we think of 'God' we are thinking of something that is absolutely rational, and so something we cannot capture in discourse since all discourse must be determinate in at least some manner.  We are also thinking of an extreme which stands as an opposite to all contradiction, since with the absolutely rational no contradiction is possible.  It is interesting and needful to distinguish this kind of opposition to contradiction from what it means when we say other things can't contradict themselves, for example, when we say that what exists never contradicts itself.

   When we say that existence contains no contradictions, we do so while being able to think of alternate possible realities which do contradict what is.  However, with the absolutely rational, which we cannot actually think, we can at least negatively say that we could conceive of no other possibility since it is that which is compatible with the whole realm of  possibilities - even those which we cannot conceive of except for negatively.

Some Random Historical Comments:

   Plato's conception of forms as being the most perfect should not be understood in terms of the absolutely irrational, or totally determined, but in terms of the the absolutely rational or indeterminate.

   This discourse seems helpful for understanding Leibniz' insistence on the importance of possibles, and perhaps can provide some clarity for how he conceives of God as related to all of the possibles, since even for God there are more possibilities.  This is in contrast to Spinoza, where everything follows from Gods nature, and so there is only one possible way things can be, which means that there is no absolutely rational thing in the sense developed above in relation to God.

   Kant's understanding of noumena, or the problematic, would be that which is the most rational, but by being the most rational it is undeterminable by us while being exactly what our reason strives for.

   We can see man, as the rational animal, in terms of being the animal who has less specifically determined about him, and so this definition from Aristotle can be seen as very similar to Nietzsche's own, that we are the hitherto undetermined animal.

   For Hegel, the difference between being and nothing seems to be between the absolutely rational and irrational.

Concerning A-Moral Situations

   Most situations in life lack a clear moral imperative.  Do you feel a moral compulsion regarding the manner with which you walk down the street, or is it clear what you ought to do with yourself during an elevator ride?  These a-moral situations can be easily overlooked concerning the possibility of their acquiring a moral character, and perhaps this is a problem.  I want to simply reflect on this and draw some implications that I think are interesting.

   It is possible for any situation to acquire a moral character.  We cannot predict what filling the gaps in our understanding will do to how we see situations.  However, granting that any situation may eventually be understood as moral, is there some reason why we should seek to uncover the moral character of every situation?  Before considering this more, I would like to consider just the matter of a situation acquiring a different moral character.

   My most often used example of a sudden shift in the moral character of situation is as follows: imagine a murder in progress which you feel you feel compelled to prevent by a sense of duty (we can ignore whether or not you decide to take action).  Now, imagine you hear, "Cut, cut, cut! What do you think you're doing here?  We're in the middle of a shoot!"  Clearly, you will have realized that the situation was not what you originally supposed, and while you will still feel that you should help people out when an injustice is being done to them, this was not actually a case of injustice, but acting.

   For a long time, situations like this have led me to consider some possible implications concerning the relationship between our theoretical and practical characters.  The moral character of a situation is not discovered like theoretical characters which appear, but emerge as a moral feeling in relation to the understanding of the situation (in a manner well described by Kant's Categorical Imperative).  Our duty itself is never questionable, but our understanding of the situation necessarily is unless we grant ourselves omniscience; because of this, we must ask: does a recognition of our theoretical limitations throw our determinations of duty into doubt, not because we judge incorrectly from a moral standpoint, but because we do not understand the world well enough?  Does this lead to a requirement to understand the world better?

   From the perspective of Kant's critical philosophy, this practical-theoretical feedback loop, which we are all familiar with from experience, can help us to illustrate some of Kant's picture of the relationship between our judgments more acutely.  However, from the perspective of our lives there are different difficulties we face, since we cannot wait until we omniscient before acting from fear of doing something wrong - even pursuing knowledge requires action.  

   When we expand our consideration from shifts in our moral understanding to cases that are currently without a moral determination, we have a question if we should be trying to find out the moral implications involved, and in what order and with what procedure we should go about it (if we should take any special action at all).  

   There are places in the history of philosophy that may be able to be cleared up by considering this further: Plato's determination (and Aristotle's agreement) that all things go towards the good; Descartes, in the Fourth Meditation, discussing how it would be best for every situation to be morally determined; Leibniz' determination of everything actual as being brought into its actuality by the ultimate determination of Goodness.  These things won't all be clarified in the same way, and to the same end, but considering what possible moral determination everything may potentially have, and seeing if we are constrained to feel they all do and why can shed a lot of light here.

Kant and Themes of Conflict in the Human Condition

   This is (yet another) attempt to broaden the thoughts one may have when considering Kant's work. The approach is to consider the work from a different perspective than simple exposition of arguments, or clarification of particulars of the system. Here I am more interested in looking at results that may have a more immediate transformational effect on how we think about ourselves. I want to lay out some tensions in the human condition that Kant's work recognizes, as well as some other tensions that are brought to the fore that aren't necessarily discussed.  These tensions are very important to me, since these are the places in Kant's work that point to where our own lives demand attention.
   If there is any wonder that Kant is interested in tension or conflict in human existence, we have only to recall the opening paragraph of the Critique of Pure Reason:
HUMAN reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.

   On the tensions I will illustrate, an indefinite amount of time could be spent wrestling - even once we have a manner of speaking about them.  Just because Kant clarifies how to speak about some idea, does not mean that it no longer is to be counted among our deepest challenges.  Difficulties that are resolved by Kant discursively only let us see the challenge we face in a more personal way.  It seems that good philosophizing should help us to better confront the challenges of being who we are.

Seemingly Impossible Demands of Reason:
   This first conflict is the most noted that Kant works on, and is concerned with the limits of what Kant calls "theoretical reason".  The limits of this type of reason allow us to relieve ourself of certain approaches to questions that, while meaningful, have been burdened with an unquestioned method of pursuing their answer. Kant refers to the method that is to be avoided as 'Dogmatism'.
   When discussing theoretical reason, Kant restricts the discourse to cognitions so far as they of objects of (at least possible) experience - objects for which we have a possible (empirical) intuition.  The first Critique spends its greatest amount of time clarifying the elements of such objects of possible experience before advancing on to the limits. Once the critique clarifies the elements and limits of this experience, it presents the ideas which are problematic for reason and which make claim to the existence of certain objects - soul, World, and God - which Kant calls transcendental illusions.  These are illusions not in their being false, or fake, but only in their not being able to be given in a possible experience, yet being treated as objects of a possible experience.
   The resolution to these ideas is to clarify that we cannot know anything about them, through theoretical reason, without being able to attain an intuition that will give their object.  For theoretical reason we should not be concerned with the existence of the ideas, rather, they serve as ideas of the sum total of different minds of knowledge.  That these ideas are meaningful even without any possibility of their object being given theoretically should suggest that the scope of thought transcends merely the theoretical, however, in transcending the theoretical we cannot speak of objects as being understood in that theoretical domain, that is, as existing.

Insufficiency of Theoretical Reason
   Alongside the development of the limits of theoretical reason in the Critique of Pure Reason is also a sense of the insufficiency of this sort of reason to the concerns we have with the ideas. What the above resolved led to the realization that these ideas, while they do not have a right to, and are transcendent for, theoretical reason, they yet are of concern to us. This is exactly what the opening of the Preface to the Critique suggests.  When I am concerned with what 'I' should do, and therefore, with myself, I am not concerned with some object of possible experience, but rather with that very transcendental illusion that was denied with theoretical reason.  However, I am not concerned with it as an illusion, necessarily, and so my treatment of this object is not to be considered theoretical  - I am not asking if I can come to know my 'self' in a possible experience when I ask what ought I do.
   To raise this in a more contemporary domain: even if I were to locate, on a brain scan, my illusory idea of 'I', and were to exclaim that I had finally found the 'I', I would still directly show that I had not, for the 'I' that I identified with while doing my research was not material - is not a real thing - so I cannot find a real thing that corresponds to it without reifying the illusion and committing an error.  If we are to say that the 'I' found in the brain scan is the cause of the 'I' which I think myself to be, then it must mean the thought of it that I experience, for it certainly does not mean the idea, which we already know does not exist.  Yet we identify with the idea, and cannot avoid doing this. Maybe it is even better to say that the 'self', which is a mere idea identifies us.  While we can learn a lot from the project of discovering the 'I' in the brain, if it carried on without attending to the nature of the 'I' as an idea, is a continued project of reifying the soul that simply masquerades as a project that will show that it does not exist.  We already know that it does not 'exist', but this is precisely the problem that we mean to confront when we realize we also cannot help identifying as it. (I am confident that scientists are not so concerned with finding the 'I' in the sense of the idea, as they undoubtedly have a more sophisticated notion of the 'object' they are tracking down. Rather I am suspicious of poor journalism, and popular scientific works, which sensationalizes things in that direction.)
   With the clarification that Kant gives to theoretical reason, this problem of who we are becomes much more acute, and adds to the impulse to transition into what Kant calls "practical reason". It seems to me that this difficulty of self (which will relate to the problems with World, and God) will make it hard for us to accept the sort of beings we are, since we can't accumulate knowledge about ourselves the way we can about things. We can be in doubt about ourselves in a distinctly different way than we can with objects.

Happiness, Virtue and the Highest Good
   As the dialectical issue in Practical Reason, Kant cites the relationship between virtue and happiness and the attempts to reduce one to the other in order to bring ourselves to a state of peace concerning our conflicting demands.
   As humans, we want to be happy, but we also are called on to be good.  There is no guarantee that these two ends that we take up will contribute to each other, and often (as we see in tragedy) they are in deep conflict.  Kant criticizes the Stoics and Epicureans (in his interpretation of them) for dismissing the real character of either happiness or virtue in order to set this turmoil to rest.  I might say that these ancients are accused of saying ignorance is bliss, but each choosing a different thing to be ignorant of (there is a problem of choosing ignorance which should have us reflect once again on what the ancients really did say).
   Stoics say, for example, to remind yourself that nothing is of value itself except that we give value to it, and so we should not allow ourselves to be affected by that which is out of our control, and that this virtue of being stoic will lead to happiness.  Epicureans say the opposite, that the more we understand how to make ourselves happy we will find that being happy is the only virtue.  (There are ways of understanding these thoughts as not being in conflict, and as not necessarily conflicting with Kant, but I will pass over that here accepting Kant's interpretation for the purpose of discussing Kant's thought.)
   Kant notes that our demand to be good not guaranteeing our happiness seems an unfortunate state of affairs for mankind, but yet it may be the most fortunate, for it is in this tension that a virtuous person - one who seeks to do his duty - finds and rests in faith over the course of his pursuit for virtue and happiness.
   If we cannot truly deny either that we must do what is good, and that we will to be happy, then we are saddled with a faith that these can be brought into harmony with one another; this is what Kant calls the "Highest Good".  By accepting what we are as beings with a nature in inner conflict concerning ends (given the conditions of the world) we must despair or have faith in the suitability of our ends which we have even if we cannot guarantee that we can accomplish them.  If we despair or have faith does nothing to change our ends, and that we will seek them.

What Ought I do? and Understanding the determination of the Subject:
   Even though this goes against popular interpretation, it must be said that Kant does not decide the particulars of what we ought to do.  Kant is quite clear that he cannot decide matters for us, and neither can we decide as if it were a choice, yet this is in tension with this: that we do know what we ought to do.  There is no subtle sophistry to get around us doing what we ought to do,  and the burden is always on each individual to do what they ought to do.  This is the first tension, of actually living up to our duty and being virtuous - but there is a twist, for a tension that is opened up for me in studying Kant, which is not also treated by him directly (in my knowledge - and I am still looking).
   How we interpret a situation plays a tremendous role in what ought to be done. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that these interpretations do not neatly fall in the domain of either theoretical or practical cognition of objects.  In the Critique of (the Power of) Judgment, interpretations are due to the nature of the faculties of the subject ( see the Critique of the Teleological Judgment).  We might want to say that we encounter the objects and we tell a story about them. This is correct enough, but what allows us first to tell the story is how the objects determine us, how we are made who we are in the way in which we encounter the objects. (For a generic expression of this, see Kant's Refutation of Idealism in the first Critique, which seems to concern what Kant would call reflective judgment.) So, how is the subject determined?  In what ways is the subjects determined?  The third Critique deals with some of the beginning elements of this search.
   We already have experience that includes our interpretation, and this is a condition on us pursuing (loving) wisdom to begin with.  This concern with what I am loosely calling "the interpretation"  calls everything that was clarified before into question once again.  It does not upset, or "disprove", or reject anything, but it just demands that we look back at the whole understandingly, and with an interest in understanding better.
   Considering this question with reference to some later thinkers may be helpful as well. Heidegger spends a great deal of effort asking about questions of the determination of the subject, by language, by technology, &c. The question is not about what 'causes' the subject, as it were, but what first lets the subjects be what it is by means of what I was calling a reflective judgment (Kant's terminology). Looking back, as well, Plato's thought of forms and participation probably holds an important key for this as well. (Certainly much of the rest of the history of Philosophy can enlighten us as well, but I mention here only what I am most familiar with.)

*      *      *

   I have restricted myself to developing concerns that are found in the three Critiques, but there are many more dark places that have had light shown on them by Kant, and that call on us to shine our lamps on them ourselves.

Overcoming the Problem of Mysticism in Logic

(Another recent post titled 'Man is the Animal that Speaks' is also related to some of the thoughts here.)

   Whenever you hear the complaint, or reassurance, that logic cannot be proved or is unjustifiable, you are hearing a mystic speak. Mystics speak of things that are closed off from normal discourse, and this accounts for the rather indirect and puzzling ways in which mystics speak. Properly understanding the mysticism of logic can go a great length in clarifying if its mystery is necessary or an accident of history. My intention here is not to avoid the mystery, but to better see it for what it is and to suggest a new beginning. I mean to move very rapidly and in a very aggressive mode.
   (If it is not immediately obvious why one may maintain that logic cannot be justified, here is the normal account put rather crudely: logic would require logic to justify itself, which is circular, therefore, impossible.)
   Let us look at a 'logical law' which apparently cannot be justified. When someone says "there is a square circle" nothing occurs that would indicate a contradiction, yet we recognize it. Ultimately, it is because we cannot imagine such a shape that we encounter this as a contradiction, but we do not even go through the effort to try since these terms conflict formally (symbolically) for us now.
   Why are the "contradictory" terms able to appear side by side with no complaint from reality? Put briefly, the words do not contradict absolutely, but only relative to their meanings in our attempt to imagine. If we were to substitute the meaning of 'red' for 'square' then we would no longer have difficulty imagining such an object. The process of being unable to imagine certain combinations of meanings has been generalized and formalized into logic of the sort that we encounter - and even worse, teach - as some sort of fundamental, unjustifiable, mysterious component of the 'rational'.
   Now, we may of course ask: why must such justification be in terms of logic? It certainly seems that formality itself should not demand a formal proof, and that the lack of such a proof is not a problem on the part of formality. Maybe the person who demands the proof should be charged with inconsistency? I agree, and the above was meant to show this to some degree.  However, it seems that the mystics have control over logic even in this counter complaint, and we should be very puzzled to find ourselves mystics ourselves as we oppose mysticism in logic.  
   The formalization of logic (possibly starting in Aristotle's Organon) did not intend to create a mystery cult, but only seemed to want to illustrate some of the existing norms for clear communication.
   A long standing project of mine is to establish logic anew, this time keeping logic more closely tied to 'discourse' (λόγος). I have a hypothesis that a great deal of disagreements are really misunderstandings - in fact, I would maintain that most disputes in Philosophy are purely misunderstandings. These disputes are held up from being completed by the mysticism of logic. What would it look like to overcome these hurdles in the mysticism of logic? Perhaps people will be able to pursue wisdom with each other rather than have to characterize each other under 'isms' so that they can fit a nice mutual exclusion in formal logic? Maybe people will notice that these isms aren't opposed as much as people may secretly want them to be (why? In order to be correct? We affirm ourselves at the expense of others quite frequently).
   As logicians we should be interested in clear discourse - discourse that serves its purpose of communicating, and helping people to get along and mutually benefit each other in cooperation. We should expect no way of showing that a person is correct or incorrect in what they say through any sort of process called logical, we can only interpret what we took it to mean, and how what it meant is something possible for us and the speaker.
   If someone says, "there is a cup on the table, and there is no cup on the table", the general impulse is to see a contradiction and to throw the red flag labeled 'false'. However, logic can never show what is correct or incorrect. The mysticism of logic has blocked us off from clarify what it means for this sentence to be problematic. How does logic pretend to do this? We take the statement "the cup is on the table" and assign it the character 'A', and then "the cup is not on the table" is taken to be "~A". Then we interpret the sentence, formally, as "A & ~A", which is a manifest contradiction. We then stop here, self-satisfied in our grasp of the clever method of formalizing these statements.
   If we do not wish to take the formal route, we can note that the meaning of the 'contradictory' sentence implies that if I look at the table I will both see and not see a cup there, and this is something that I cannot imagine. Perhaps this person intends to speak of two different tables, or two different cups? Perhaps the passage of time is left out or only implied in the sentence? There are other options for understanding the sentence, for who would say such a thing?
   Try to imagine a being for whom a cup could be and not be on a table at the same time. While we certainly could not imagine the way this being experiences, we can at least posit such an being. The discourse available between us and this entity is problematic, and it will be hard to know the proper way to act on the suggestions of such a being. Now, given that we can imagine such a being, we can see that we find the impossibility of the statement above to be grounded on a certain way of understanding the possibilities for the person who says it to us: we assume that, like us, the cup can either be or not be on the table, and not both. This is where we have a chance to discuss the role of logic.
   Logic will investigate the sorts of assumptions we have of other speakers and the ways in which beings like us can discuss things. Perhaps this is Aristotle's intention by his categories that illustrate basic kinds of determinations of objects. Logic can also have an empirical part which examines the ways in which people do tend to talk about things, and to this we can attach our formal apparatus (hopefully with some hesitation).
   Here I would like to break off and change topics to a brief discussion of the ancient Greeks. The word we translate as truth from the Greek is alethia (ἀλήθεια). This word more literally means 'un-covering'. In Greek the word we translate as false is pseudos (ψεῦδος) which more literally means dissembling (lying). We can recognize right away how different these words are from our casual usage of their translated counter parts.
   Plato, who did not have a science of logic, understood that the only thing convincing in discourse as what is true (what un-covers). Clearly he does not mean by truth here what we assign to propositions as a result of our formal process, or even correspondence; rather, Plato refers to how words are only understood on the basis of how things are un-covered for us (loosely, the way in which we can experience the world). Plato affirms that we cannot understand things in a way that is beyond our capacity to experience (except for negatively - by claiming our own finite nature). This is certainly something to meditate on as we try to found logic anew.

Socrates and the Rejection of the Majority

   Plato portrays Socrates as alienating himself and his interlocutors from the majority of people by suggesting that you should not consider the opinions of the many. There is a lot of insight that can be gained from a more appreciative interpretation of Socrates treatment of the many, for while it is easy to see the rejection of the opinions of the many as elitism, it may make more sense to see this alienation as serving a number of other purposes. Three of these interpretive candidates are as follows: first, in rejecting the many, Socrates' means to show his interest in considering things in principle; second, this habit is a part of a broader tactic for bringing people together in discussion rather than opposition in debate; third, we should notice that the many are continually outstanding, that is, whoever Socrates speaks with is not counted as unworthy, and rather is put on an equal footing. I wish to explore some of my thoughts on these briefly here, but first I will spend a moment addressing what I think of some hints of elitism in Plato.
   It is certainly fair to consider a complaint of elitism regarding Plato, but many of the points where one finds such a concern may be avoided. For example, above the entrance to Plato's academy was inscribed, "Let None But Geometers Enter Here". This could certainly be seen as intellectual elitism, but I have my doubts since in the Meno Geometry is shown to be among the things that all people know regardless of their station in life. There is also accusations of elitism directed at Plato in what is considered his division of the perfect state in the Republic. This accusation also seems suspect, since the elite class in the Republic would be those who were best suited to sacrifice themselves for the state, not an elitism of intellectuals. The Philosopher King is not a creative intellectual free to do what he wishes, but rather someone who only serves the interests of the state which can be determined by its end, while the guardians must have the capacity to unfailingly follow orders that are in the interests of the state. For these sorts of reasons I would at least like to leave it an open question if we must see elitism as playing a clear role in Plato's thought. (Note: I don't wish to rule out any reading here, but only to raise the bar on what should be considered an informed reading if we are to accuse Plato of elitism.)
   Socrates' rejection of the many seems to have some roots in his youth, as it was part of a lesson given by Parmenides (in the dialogue of that name by Plato). In this lesson, Parmenides asks Socrates if he only considers the forms in relation to the virtues, and other ideas of that caliber, or if he also considers if there are forms of things like mud. Socrates answers that he is worried to consider the later without falling into absurdities, to which Parmenides replies that he will learn not to care what the many think of him, and that then he will be able to think about these other forms that are more mundane. (This advice from Parmenides looks forward all the way to Heidegger's Being and Time, which spends a great deal of effort in discussing the average and mundane. This will come up again later.) With this we can move to my first suggestion.
   The first of the options I suggested for interpreting Socrates' habit of holding the majority at a distance was his interest in considering things in principle (possibly inherited from Parmenides) in order to truly understand them. The dialogue Euthydemus shows two men, Euthydemus and his brother Dionysodorus, giving eristic arguments. At the end of the dialogue Socrates has the following exchange with Crito to close off the dialogue:

SOCRATES: Dear Crito, do you not know that in every profession the inferior sort are numerous and good for nothing, and the good are few and beyond all price: for example, are not gymnastic and rhetoric and money-making and the art of the general, noble arts?

CRITO: Certainly they are, in my judgment.

SOCRATES: Well, and do you not see that in each of these arts the many are ridiculous performers?

CRITO: Yes, indeed, that is very true.

SOCRATES: And will you on this account shun all these pursuits yourself and refuse to allow them to your son?

CRITO: That would not be reasonable, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Do you then be reasonable, Crito, and do not mind whether the teachers of philosophy are good or bad, but think only of philosophy herself. Try and examine her well and truly, and if she be evil seek to turn away all men from her, and not your sons only; but if she be what I believe that she is, then follow her and serve her, you and your house, as the saying is, and be of good cheer.

   This exchange is not the first time that Socrates turns Crito away from the many in order to consider something itself. In the dialogue named after Crito, Socrates summons up the laws of Athens themselves and holds a conversation between the three of them (while he also speaks for the laws). (Crito particularly seems to get lost on the mores of the many and to be forgetful of these talks with Socrates. Near the end of the Phaedo, Crito asks what Socrates wishes be done with him when he has died, forgetting or ignoring the contents of the conversation that has just occurred. Socrates reply is, "Catch me if you can.")
   It seems that Plato's emphasis on considering things in principle regards how to govern oneself by principles, and that this has a great deal to do with being wise. Much more could be said about this, but I will instead continue to my second consideration of Socrates attitude of towards the many.
   Socrates seems to want to avoid conflict in his discussion and rather favors a common pursuit where everyone benefits. Socrates employs this tactic in variety situations and in a number of ways. In the later part of the Protagoras, Socrates attempts to work with Protagoras by giving an external complaint from the many who hold a common opinion about the nature of good and evil. Socrates is able to answer the many along with Protagoras as a comrade, which is in sharp contrast to the earlier part of the dialogue when Protagoras' combativeness almost brings the dialogue to an early end. The example from the Crito where Socrates summons up the laws as a third party to the conversation with Crito can also serve here. In many other places where Socrates is confronted with a difficulty from one of the interlocutors it is common for him to call on another (and often younger and more beautiful) party present at the discussion to help him through a dialectic. We find such a tactic used in the Phaedo when Socrates asks for help from Phaedo when he is confronted by the problems of both Simmias and Cebes. (Also, in this crucial moment he mentions the dangers of misology that can occur from encountering bad arguments, and rejecting reason giving from particulars. This is much like the end of the Euthydemus.)
   Socrates' technique is not always shown as working out successfully, however, and can upset interlocutors from time to time because Socrates ends up looking evasive, and not wanting to take a stand and debate (which may be the whole point). In the first book of the Republic, Thrasymachus has a reaction of incredible outrage to Socrates attempt to be evasive. There are a number of options available for interpreting what Plato means to say through encounters such as the one with Thrasymachus, but that can be held off on for another time as I proceed to discuss the third and last interpretive suggestion.
   This may be the most subtle of the suggestions, but potentially the most revealing and interesting for me as an interpreter of the history of Philosophy. The many that Socrates so often insists on ignoring are never actually present in the dialogues. No matter who Socrates meets he is always willing to speak to them as equals (and often as unequals, as Socrates will be interested in learning whatever wisdom he can from those who claim to have it). The reason why I find this to be such an interesting suggestion, is that in some sense it means that Socrates is considering the many in principle, or as a sort of idea that every human has, and that can be used as a contrast to really understand ourselves, and the world, in principle. Once again, this theme seems to suggest what Heidegger is doing in considering the average in his Being and Time, as well as the themes of the authentic and inauthentic. As a philologist, seeing how Plato and Heidegger can be mutually informative for each other on this matter is a delight to consider. What other ways of thinking about this problem of the average can Plato open up for us in seeing how the tradition follows after Plato's treatment of the many? There seems to be a great deal of potential here that will only come after much more work.
   While I clearly do not read Plato as an elitist, there is, in fact, a great risk of intellectual elitism which comes along with inheriting Socrates as an idol of sorts, and in using this idol as a way to instruct others. This risk is what I hope to help avoid and criticize. The typical example of it is to use questioning as a means of provoking an interlocutor to think for themselves while you keep the answer you are looking for to yourself. This sort of deceit is something that is often interpreted as the motive of Socrates. I see this as a mistake, since Socrates almost always speaks to the contrary of this, and is always upset by the idea of wisdom being withheld from him. Instead, if we must assign such a motive, we must assign it to Plato. I often refer to this as a sentimental approach to Socrates, and perhaps Plato was the first in a long line of sentimental, Socratic philosophers. However, part of Plato's genius seem to be in writing in dialogue form so he can produce the effect he wants (this sentimental motive) while having a character that is sincerely ignorant. Hopefully we can all aspire to loving wisdom, and not instead just loving holding wisdom over the heads of others - something that may result in Aesop's fable regarding sour grapes.

The Problem of 'The Problem of Knowledge'

   The problem of knowledge is often characterized as asking how is it that we can know anything, or something with certainty, or that something exists, &c.  This problem generates a lot of frustration both in the form of paradoxes such as the Gettier Problem, and ridiculous situations such as someone pointing to an object and saying "how do you know that's really there?".  As queer as these situations may be, there is always a sense in which they are valid for us to entertain, yet we usually dismiss them and "go on with our lives".  How is it that this 'problem' we recognize does not dog us in everything we do?  How are we still confident in our daily lives?  To answer these tangents simply: the the problem of knowledge is better grasped by us in an implicit manner than is it in an explicit manner.
   What does grasping the question better implicitly rather than explicitly mean?  To put it one way, if we explicitly take the problem of knowledge to be something that should cripple us in our daily lives, then our ability to just go on with our lives is a direct refutation of that formulation, and reveals an implicit understanding of the problem.
   When young, students of Philosophy come to expect the flippant response one finds when they raise the question of knowledge to a general audience, and have been satisfied to also then be flippant about the public. However, that the problem of knowledge actually is no problem for those who propound it should provide us with direction in evaluating the problem (rather than aggravating it as Epistemology professors I have known do).
   Descartes is taken as a forefather of the problem of knowledge, yet Descartes does not side with the problem against knowledge. However, much earlier than Descartes, Plato asked about knowledge in his work Theaetetus, and this masterpiece can be very helpful to us today in reforming our approach the question of knowledge. Unfortunately, I often encounter this dialogue interpreted so that it is infected by our more contemporary understanding of the problem of knowledge.
   In the dialogue, Socrates is discussing what knowledge is and the first answer that his interlocutor Theaetetus (a youth with a resemblance to Socrates) gives is that knowing is 'perceiving'. (I use perceiving here in a loose sense.) In many ways this answer is comparable to the Cogito of Descartes, though with a different emphasis.
   Apart from "I think, I am", an understanding of Descartes Cogito shows that there is quite a bit that we cannot doubt. We can doubt that there 'really' are objects, but we cannot doubt that it seems that there are objects; we cannot doubt any of our cognitions qua cognitions, though we can doubt the content. Theaetetus' answer is like this, but where Descartes reaches this point with reference to his capacity to doubt, Theaetetus instead begins with something like the Cogito. Descartes proceeds to try to find his way back to an assurance in real things, while Theaetetus and Socrates inquiry leads them instead to finding the problem of knowledge to be how we can account for error. It is this question of how we can be in error that more rightfully should be called the problem of knowledge.
   It is easy to point out, as many have, that if we are to have a problem of knowledge then there must already be knowledge, and an understanding of it, such that there can be a problem; having a problem of knowledge minimally implies knowledge of the problem. This is where the problem of knowledge as the question of how we can be in error is much more interesting than the more skeptical question which depends upon an understanding of knowledge that already assumes its existence to be dubious.
   This new problem of knowledge supposes that we also know what it is like to be in error. In the Theaetetus, it is recognized that we take some people to be wiser than others, and that if knowledge is 'perception', then everyone would be equally wise since they would equally have 'perception'. Out of this a theory of 'judgment' is articulated out of which comes a new way in which we see that we get it wrong: sometimes we take something we perceive to be something that it later turns out not to be. We may see Theaetetus in the distance and judge him to be Socrates - how does this happen? Now models are presented in relation to how we might make this particular error - the famous tabula rasa and the aviary and a model based on court room arguments (incorrectly equated with justified true belief); all of these fail to satisfy the argument.
   The importance of the method on display in the Theaetetus is that the argument proceeds from something known which is then compared to the understanding of knowledge. The lack in the starting point is measured against what is trying to be obtained, and the pursuit follows between two points that are known in order to try to fill in the gaps. It will be impossible to formulate a general theory for how we are wrong in any particular way, but it is possible for us to articulate different kinds of error (e.g., mistaken identity), and the general sources of these errors in relation to some mistake of procedure. There is also a question about what the structure of any error is like - a metaphysical orientation to the question.
   Concerning how we err metaphysically, Heidegger shows explicitly something that Kant shows implicitly: that our average way of being has a tendency to cover up our authentic possibilities. Put in a Kantian mode, our theoretical approach to knowledge is fundamentally unsuited for grasping the practical - being guided by a purely theoretical method covers up the practical and hinders us in advancing in practical concerns. For Heidegger there is nothing bad about averageness, just as for Kant there is nothing bad about theoretical reason, but these things can become sources of error for us through obfuscation; this makes for an important addition to what is said in the Theaetetus.

Should Socrates Have Escaped?

Whenever I discuss Plato's Crito the typical reaction I find is of disappointment in Socrates for not escaping his sentence. We all feel - even know - that Socrates is innocent, and recognize an injustice that is being committed against him. If Socrates really supports justice then should he not escape so that the innocent are not punished? Is it not our duty to disobey orders that are unjust?

Socrates may appear hypocritical in not sparing his own life when it is to be taken unjustly, but I think that nothing is farther from the case. Socrates was certainly falsely accused (as he himself admits), but he is right to submit himself to the law; the reason for this is nothing draconian, nor is it some fantastic fear that Athens would topple if this one man were to disobey. The reason is that Socrates truly does care about justice and the Crito shows us what this means to Socrates.

For all of those who say that Socrates should escape in the name of justice, I, along with Socrates, will suggest that they are great enemies of justice. This philosophical point is totally lost in the typical reading. Furthermore, most subtle points and problems of the Crito are lost, such as the problem of the expert of justice and the relationship of the laws of Athens to their "brothers" in Hades. I hope briefly to provide my reasons for holding this view of the Crito. (Another issue with this faulty reading of the consistency of Socrates' own character is called into question, and therefore Plato's greatness as an artist.)

Assumptions of the Interpretation:

First of all, I assume that we should believe Socrates when he says that leaving Athens would lead to a life not worth living, for he did choose death over exile; however, this still allows us to wonder what it was about escaping from jail and leaving Athens that would have made life not worth living. Here are the two options that I see as available, the first being the most common one that I encounter.

1. Socrates did not want to be called a hypocrite by the many. It was a pride in not wanting to be proved wrong that led him to succumb to the law.
2. Socrates lived life in a way, and towards an ideal, that was in fact impossible without the state as he conceived of it. It is a genuine love for the state that prevents him from leaving.

From these options the second is the most appropriate reading. The clearest reason is that the first shows Socrates being concerned with the opinions of the many while this way of acting is explicitly ridiculed. Recall that in the beginning of the dialogue Crito complains about what everyone will think of him for not saving his friend; Socrates maintains that it is experts that we should listen to, not the mob. Who is the expert that they have recourse to? We can discuss this later.

Even though we have sided with the second of these it is not yet clear what exactly the state is such that it is necessary for a life well lived. An important element of the dialogue is how the many who actually constitute the state are contrasted with the state in its ideal or principle form. Socrates shows concern for matters in principle over how they are given their representation consistently - this is almost the entire use of the theory of forms for guiding thought. We should consider, now, in what way the state is required for a life well lived.

The Possibility of Justice:

Crito tries to convince Socrates that he should leave for more reasons than a fear of gossip; some of these reasons are noble in appearance. For example, Socrates should continue the education of his children. When Socrates invokes the Laws of Athens to speak for themselves they reply to Crito point-by-point. On the matter of education, they reply that the state is what makes education possible to begin with! How could we abandon the state in order to attend to our children's education? Now, we can easily say that Socrates escape from jail will not prevent Socrates from educating his children in another state, however, this is not the point; what are they being educated for if not for a life in a state? (Does this help show us the relationship between education, the state and a life well lived?) We must invoke the difference of the concrete implementation of the state, and the state in principle.

I have said already that it is clear that a single person breaking the laws does not bring down the state in its physical manifestation, but for those who break the law they ruin the state in principle for themselves. We cannot maintain that we are a subject of the state if we also maintain that I have authority over the state. If Socrates can teach us one thing here it is consistency.

If we abandon the state in principle we truly abandon it and make justice impossible; it is the ideal of the state which guides progress and actually is compelling, not the fallible many. Once we abandon the state in principle and no longer pursue it ourselves, we only have private affairs. These private affairs may be given the appearance of public affairs, but never can be while lacking the support of the ideal of the state. (How little do any of us live in a state today in these Socratic terms.) If we care about the state as Socrates does, we cannot forsake the principle without also forsaking justice itself which depends upon it. To destroy the possibility of the state in principle for us whenever we disagreeing with the many and are injured by their misjudgments is to have never really lived in a state. The poor judgment against Socrates is only a failure of justice, this is something that could only happen if justice itself is possible. Socrates maintains that justice requires a state in principle.

This tells us something very important. To live in a state to begin with is not a real circumstance. Just being in a group of people who are all able to make mistakes and poor judgments is not a state. Living in a state is rather ideal, and only insofar as we submit ourselves to that ideal can we conceive of something like justice. With this main argument finished, I will address some other topics important in the Crito. (Update from Comment Thread Concerning an Aim of my Interpretation: Submission to the state is very peculiar, we sacrifice our freedom to the state for some greater security (freedom in a different sense). We must understand Socrates as having submitted himself to the state in this way and then the question of what we really get in return for our submission opens up as an additional and larger question (maybe addressed in Plato's Republic). I think it is a valuable exercise to consider what it is that we require to live a good life, and if the ways in which we are submitted to our state (or any authority) actually contribute to that personal well-being, or if this submission only produces new ways of being insecure so that we actually have a net loss in freedom. Certainly we have seen examples of states where it would be better not to be in one at all. The Crito does not address these concerns directly, but provides an avenue of opening these questions. My interest in defending Socrates decision on the grounds I have are in the interest of this broader question that is more compelling to me.)

The Expert of Justice:

The examples of experts that Plato provides in other dialogues are professionals, such as doctors, but in matters where the skills are virtue and wisdom we find that Socrates defies the normal notion of experts - experts are lacking. Rather the experts become the forms towards which we much come to understand through our pursuit of virtue or wisdom.

In the Crito, Socrates is clear that he has been wronged not by the laws, but by the many; there is no expert among the many (Socrates included), and so the laws themselves come forward as expert (yet, mark that Socrates himself is speaking for them). This can suggest a problem of democracy to some, but I rather see it as displaying a risk that faces democracy, but not an inherent problem.

The reading of this as problematic is that there is actually no person who is an expert on justice, and so democracy is always unjust. Of course, no matter what form of government you have the ruling class will not be experts in justice, so this should fall flat as a problem with democracy, but all government.

Perhaps the risk is that each person takes themselves to be an expert of justice and no longer works towards an ideal. By each person taking themselves to be the expert the possibility of dialogue (as opposed to debate) is diminished, the hostility within the state among all these supposed experts increases, and all men work only for private interests and not the state - like Crito is doing in this very dialogue.

The Laws of Hades:

In the last moments of the dialogue, the laws of Athens say that they are the brothers of the laws of Hades - of the afterlife. The relationship between moral laws and civil laws are drawn here. I will do nothing more than mention that this relates to the Phaedo, which also has a different theodicy for why we must have immortal souls. I feel like there is a lot of work to be done to understand this further.

Kant's Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Right:

As an addition, this reading of the Crito gives me a new way to appreciate the arguments about punishment in Kant's work that normally seem so harsh. I will not spend any time on this here, but I cannot shake the feeling that the Crito is essential to understanding Kant's thought here.