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MichelleLuoFirstPaper 11 - 22 Apr 2012 - Main.MichelleLuo
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| | | "The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of scepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality, and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These "antirealist" doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry. One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity. Rather than seeking primarily to arrive at accurate representations of a common world, the individual turns toward trying to provide honest representations of himself. Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being true to his own nature. It is as though he decides that since it makes no sense to try to be true to the facts, he must therefore try instead to be true to himself.
But it is preposterous to imagine that we ourselves are determinate, and hence susceptible both to correct and to incorrect descriptions, while supposing that the ascription of determinacy to anything else has been exposed as a mistake. As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things,and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them. Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know. Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to sceptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial - notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit." | |
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> | -- RumbidzaiMaweni - 21 Apr 2012
Omg this is blowing my mind! As you know, I'm all about applying objective scales to things/people ("the objective reality" as I see it), while being horribly delusional about my own desires/characteristics/experiences, so this totally totally resonates with me!
Frankfurt is right on that "there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know." I contradict my self-representations so often (and get called out for it by people close to me, like you, so often) that I no longer have delusions about any successful pursuit of this "alternative ideal of sincerity."
I don't think logical reasoning itself is problematic. The problem is when legal decisionmaking is based solely on logic, when it should be based on desired social outcomes ("The life of the law has not been logic but experience" -Holmes). "As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them." I think this parallels the relationship between law and society. Law is like the conscious being, which is closer to the truth and further from bullshit when it tries to be true to social facts. As Eben said, judicial decisions lie at the intersection of a collection of social forces and all interpretation requires additional social information. Accessing the objective reality means getting to the social forces outside of the "conscious being," perhaps through unconscious mental processes.
Gotta think about this more...
-- MichelleLuo - 21 Apr 2012 |
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