Harry Frankfurt, Princeton Professor of Philosophy and author of The Reason for Love (more popularly, On Bullshit) says that it isn't that we have reasons for loving. Rather, it is simply that love gives us reasons. Cited as an analogy to the capitulation necessary for religious faith, this idea was brought forward by my "Philosophy of Religion" TA in discussion today. As pointed out also by John Cottingham in The Spiritual Dimension, Blaise Pascal--the famous 17th century mathematician and Catholic convert--also says, "La coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point." Or, in English, "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know at all." Love amongst humans seems to be a very fitting metaphor for religion in this case because both require an openness and capitulation of the self into intellectually murky territory.
Before I begin, it's probably important to note what I mean by "love." Although I'm mostly talking about romantic love (for the sake of simplicity), I mean to include any sort of inexplicable love. True frienship, for example, would be included in this conception of "love" because we have some feeling of affinity for which we cannot completely explain. "Friends" who exist solely for some conscious purpose (e.g. helping with homework) obviously are excluded.
Independent of the religious arguments these claims about love and rationality were cited for, this idea of a primacy of love over rationality is an interesting one.* The argument made for the primacy of love is a compelling and heartfelt human one. The fact that love has been studied extensively in the disciplines of philosophy, sociology, psychology, neuroscience, etc. without any comprehensive or unifying theory can be seen as evidence that love somehow defies rational understanding. Even evolutionary biologists, who may argue that love is merely a set of chemical reactions in the brain that were bred into us as an evolutionary tool for survival of the species, can not possibly claim to understand the entirety of the emotion. After all, breaking it down into hormonal components--while potentially revealing about certain aspects of love or human nature--can never really encapsulate the entirety of the phenomenon.
Nevertheless, despite how resistant to rationality love may be, the body of work conducted around the phenomenon of love also shows how interested we are in coming to some sort of rational understanding of it. This impulse to provide an explantion grounded in reason of a fundamentally unreasonable feeling (or fundamentally complex feeling such that reason alone is insufficient in comprehending it) seems to be quite natural. While rationality may not be able to provide a definitive and fully comprehensive reason for love, it can certainly help us to better understand it and perhaps have a better awareness of our own love.
Can love, then, really transcend rationality, or have some sort of primacy over it? Or does rationality legitimately have a place in understanding and analyzing the phenomenon of love? Not to be cliché, but it seems like the answer is properly a combination of both. In a way, we can say that love transcends our rationality in that we can never understand our feelings of love when internal to the system, i.e. when we are loving. To put it another way, we don't (rationally, at least) choose who or what we love. But to say that love is completely independent of rationality would also be absurd, although this rationality can likely only serve as an agent of reflection, and no more. Rationality dictating love seems to entirely defeat the purpose and circumvent the definition of love. However, this claim doesn't seem to invalidate the intellectual effort spent on understanding, as Queen would call it, this "crazy little thing called love."
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*Cottingham argues for the primacy of praxis, or religious practice as a way of having religious faith without sacrificing rationality. That argument doesn't seem to really apply in the same way to love. We are then, therefore, left with the the primacy of either love or rationality, and unlikely both. [See Ch.1 of The Spiritual Dimension.]
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Internet and Alienation
Is the internet an additional source of Marxist "alienation"?
By "internet," I'm mostly thinking about social networking sites that are all the rage these days--Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc.--but, for the purposes of this post, the "internet" encompasses all socially relevant applications of the world wide web where people can relate to one another and engage in a two-way communication. NYTimes.com, for example, while a wonderful website, would not be considered in this question because its main purpose is the dissemination of information and the internet is used only as a medium of delivery and not a forum where people can come together for some particular purpose. Of course, one could argue that the "comments" and discussions there are a form of social connection, which is true. The point of the example, however, is to illustrate the part of the internet I'm considering in my analysis of the possible alienation that it brings about.
Benefits of social networking on the internet abound. The popular argument for the internet seems to be the way in which it allows people to connect across geographical proximity and gives a greater access to a greater number of people. In that way, the internet allows for a flourishing of particularity, as Hegel might put it. The internet parallels capitalism rather closely, allowing for a degree of anonymity and equality (of even physical qualities, which is unique to this virtual world) while simultaneously providing for a wide swath of individual, particular interests. It's not difficult to see how the internet provides opportunities that would not be possible without it.
On the other hand, Marx's theory of alienation seems to apply quite appropriately to this relatively new form of social activity. In a way, the internet acts as an "intermediary" between humans, separating humans from direct contact with each other, much in the way that God acts as an intermediary in Bruno Bauer's argument on the Jewish question. Does the internet, then, take away from our lives as "species-beings," or our human essence? Does it alienate us from one another the same way capitalism brings about alienation of labor?
As we become more reliant on cyber-social relationships and spend more time in front of the screen, shouldn't we be wary of the consequences of this new system? Not that we can stop the internet from developing or from people taking advantage of new developments, but how can we conceive of it in such a way so that it doesn't fall into all of the same traps that capitalism has? How can we balance our cyber and physical lives, so that we can enjoy the benefits of the internet without suffering from the possible alienation?
By "internet," I'm mostly thinking about social networking sites that are all the rage these days--Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc.--but, for the purposes of this post, the "internet" encompasses all socially relevant applications of the world wide web where people can relate to one another and engage in a two-way communication. NYTimes.com, for example, while a wonderful website, would not be considered in this question because its main purpose is the dissemination of information and the internet is used only as a medium of delivery and not a forum where people can come together for some particular purpose. Of course, one could argue that the "comments" and discussions there are a form of social connection, which is true. The point of the example, however, is to illustrate the part of the internet I'm considering in my analysis of the possible alienation that it brings about.
Benefits of social networking on the internet abound. The popular argument for the internet seems to be the way in which it allows people to connect across geographical proximity and gives a greater access to a greater number of people. In that way, the internet allows for a flourishing of particularity, as Hegel might put it. The internet parallels capitalism rather closely, allowing for a degree of anonymity and equality (of even physical qualities, which is unique to this virtual world) while simultaneously providing for a wide swath of individual, particular interests. It's not difficult to see how the internet provides opportunities that would not be possible without it.
On the other hand, Marx's theory of alienation seems to apply quite appropriately to this relatively new form of social activity. In a way, the internet acts as an "intermediary" between humans, separating humans from direct contact with each other, much in the way that God acts as an intermediary in Bruno Bauer's argument on the Jewish question. Does the internet, then, take away from our lives as "species-beings," or our human essence? Does it alienate us from one another the same way capitalism brings about alienation of labor?
As we become more reliant on cyber-social relationships and spend more time in front of the screen, shouldn't we be wary of the consequences of this new system? Not that we can stop the internet from developing or from people taking advantage of new developments, but how can we conceive of it in such a way so that it doesn't fall into all of the same traps that capitalism has? How can we balance our cyber and physical lives, so that we can enjoy the benefits of the internet without suffering from the possible alienation?
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Number One
Truth is, I've started many blogs in my life. None seem to have lasted, partly because I'm bad at commitment and partly because my obsessive standards for publishing on the scarily exposed world wide web have served as a hindrance in my being heard at all. Alas, those days are over! Following this post will hopefully be a (beautifully chaotic, maybe?) jumble of thoughts and ramblings on matters of philosophical significance.
So, why "philosophizings"? The definition the Merriam-Webster gives for "philosophize" is as follows:
1. to reason in the manner of a philosopher
2. to expound a moralizing and often superficial philosophy
I figured my credentials don't yet allow me to call what I'm doing true philosophy, although I promise I will try. Though my pretentious style of writing may contradict my aim, it is one of (humorous, perhaps?) humility. Furthermore, in being self-conscious of the derision directed at my constant ramblings, I thought I would deflect such criticisms by immediately acknowledging the fact that what am about to say can easily be construed as the expounding of essentially bullshit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah life's so easy in the ivory tower, you say. But hey, someone has to step off the hamster wheel from time to time to realize, "Shit, we're going in circles!"
So I say, philosophize on!
So, why "philosophizings"? The definition the Merriam-Webster gives for "philosophize" is as follows:
1. to reason in the manner of a philosopher
2. to expound a moralizing and often superficial philosophy
I figured my credentials don't yet allow me to call what I'm doing true philosophy, although I promise I will try. Though my pretentious style of writing may contradict my aim, it is one of (humorous, perhaps?) humility. Furthermore, in being self-conscious of the derision directed at my constant ramblings, I thought I would deflect such criticisms by immediately acknowledging the fact that what am about to say can easily be construed as the expounding of essentially bullshit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah life's so easy in the ivory tower, you say. But hey, someone has to step off the hamster wheel from time to time to realize, "Shit, we're going in circles!"
So I say, philosophize on!
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