What is this, this grey world? Is it an illusion; some trick of the eye that makes a simple life hard for the soul? Who's tricking us? Tells us the way things are is the way things have to be? Does unfairness have a place in a perfect world?
How can heads and tails be on both sides at the same time? Are we flipping in the air too fast to tell right from wrong, life from death? Does God use us to fight his war like we use eachother to fight ours? Why'd He throw us in the first place, leaving our fate a certainty but unknowable? What's it matter who's side we fall on?
Spinning on our sides wondering what becomes of us when we land, while the world and time passes by. I take my gaze away from the destination around the bend, and see all that has come to present along the road; marvel at creation, this ocean of eternal being, we always belong to.
October 29, 2010
September 10, 2010
Empathy and Objectivity
The purpose of this post is to expose a potential problem with our standards of objectivity, in light of how this relates to our call to empathize with others. In short, empathy involves not merely caring for another (sympathy) nor "hearing them out", but relating to them as if you were living what they were living through (or you have done so, and this is how you empathize). The topic of objectivity may seem utterly unrelated, but, if the objective stance is authoritative universally, it should at the very least, not conflict with our stance of empathizing with others.
Being objective is the stance that, one sees things are they are in-themselves, viewing the object itself, free of subjective bias. Objective itself is an adjective denoting "object-like", so we need to ask, what is required of us to be objective in our stance; in order to even begin how this relates to empathy. The focus here is not the epistemological features of the objective stance, but its first-person features (phenomenological). This is proper to our inquiry here, as the goal is to expose "is there a conflict between objectivity and empathy?", as empathy is a personal, first-person experience and activity.
Objectivity requires us to take a stance of being a spectator, looking upon the world, as if we are in a theater (theoria). The world is presented-at-hand before us, and we employ the tools of our understanding according to logic to make what we observe intelligible. We run experiments, tests and such to explore if our ideas about the world are right, but always maintain this distance from the world.
Empathy requires us to enter the living-world of another person, enter their subjectivity and see it as like our own. Here we have both a sense of transcendence as we do in the theoretical attitude (the other person) but also immanence as well, in that, they are immanently present in their lives, and we seek to share this with them. Here logic and understanding as a distant observer actually will cause problems and alienation from the one we try to empathize with. Feeling is vital here, and more so, feeling cannot be discounted as not meaningful or valid.
This general overview of the two stances is enough for now, to introduce the topic, as was the goal here. If the theoretical attitude requires complete transcendence of the spectator, and empathy requires immanence and sharing with another living-world (subjectivity). This seems to suggest a conflict between the objective attitude that we believe is self-evidently an authority and our moral need to empathize with others. How can I empathize if I have lost my subjectivity? Empathy in this attitude is meaningless, as all we have to empathize is viz logic; the meaning one experiences through empathy (viz feeling) is completely obliterated in the theoretical attitude.
The issue here is not a mere conflict, but to show that the epistemological authority of the theoretical attitude conflicts with our moral duties, which suggests serious problems for the theoretical attitude. Morality concerns (ideally) our highest values and sense of human meaning, in a practical sense (whether it be in regards to our telos or duty). If the theoretical attitude conflicts with this, the theoretical attitude begins to loose its footing and enters dangers of being nihilistic (which modern materialism and naturalism is leading towards).
No, this argument in no way proves the theoretical attitude is epistemologically faulty (then this would be a mere ad hominem argument) , rather, it is that epistemology and morality seem at odds when practiced. To add to this, we seem morally obligated to be good even when we don't fully understand the Good; as we cannot sit in a theoretical lull of skepticism when important issues play by us, we are already engaged in the world, and thus are thrust into needing to take a stand, even when we are not fully informed.
The point here is not an endorsement of subjectivism at all, nor that the theoretical attitude is even wrong; merely that a problem exists. Reason is essentially unified to remain valid and coherent, and while we can encounter the world in many ways, these ways must cohere with each other.
We need to explain why the theoretical attitude seems ill-suited for moral issues, and what does this imply?
Being objective is the stance that, one sees things are they are in-themselves, viewing the object itself, free of subjective bias. Objective itself is an adjective denoting "object-like", so we need to ask, what is required of us to be objective in our stance; in order to even begin how this relates to empathy. The focus here is not the epistemological features of the objective stance, but its first-person features (phenomenological). This is proper to our inquiry here, as the goal is to expose "is there a conflict between objectivity and empathy?", as empathy is a personal, first-person experience and activity.
Objectivity requires us to take a stance of being a spectator, looking upon the world, as if we are in a theater (theoria). The world is presented-at-hand before us, and we employ the tools of our understanding according to logic to make what we observe intelligible. We run experiments, tests and such to explore if our ideas about the world are right, but always maintain this distance from the world.
Empathy requires us to enter the living-world of another person, enter their subjectivity and see it as like our own. Here we have both a sense of transcendence as we do in the theoretical attitude (the other person) but also immanence as well, in that, they are immanently present in their lives, and we seek to share this with them. Here logic and understanding as a distant observer actually will cause problems and alienation from the one we try to empathize with. Feeling is vital here, and more so, feeling cannot be discounted as not meaningful or valid.
This general overview of the two stances is enough for now, to introduce the topic, as was the goal here. If the theoretical attitude requires complete transcendence of the spectator, and empathy requires immanence and sharing with another living-world (subjectivity). This seems to suggest a conflict between the objective attitude that we believe is self-evidently an authority and our moral need to empathize with others. How can I empathize if I have lost my subjectivity? Empathy in this attitude is meaningless, as all we have to empathize is viz logic; the meaning one experiences through empathy (viz feeling) is completely obliterated in the theoretical attitude.
The issue here is not a mere conflict, but to show that the epistemological authority of the theoretical attitude conflicts with our moral duties, which suggests serious problems for the theoretical attitude. Morality concerns (ideally) our highest values and sense of human meaning, in a practical sense (whether it be in regards to our telos or duty). If the theoretical attitude conflicts with this, the theoretical attitude begins to loose its footing and enters dangers of being nihilistic (which modern materialism and naturalism is leading towards).
No, this argument in no way proves the theoretical attitude is epistemologically faulty (then this would be a mere ad hominem argument) , rather, it is that epistemology and morality seem at odds when practiced. To add to this, we seem morally obligated to be good even when we don't fully understand the Good; as we cannot sit in a theoretical lull of skepticism when important issues play by us, we are already engaged in the world, and thus are thrust into needing to take a stand, even when we are not fully informed.
The point here is not an endorsement of subjectivism at all, nor that the theoretical attitude is even wrong; merely that a problem exists. Reason is essentially unified to remain valid and coherent, and while we can encounter the world in many ways, these ways must cohere with each other.
We need to explain why the theoretical attitude seems ill-suited for moral issues, and what does this imply?
September 3, 2010
Welcome to the Den!
Hello everyone, and welcome to The Thinkers Den, a blog for individuals who wish to continue their intellectual inquiries on the web.
All opinions and perspectives are welcomed, and encouraged. This blog was created with the intention of allowing for a variety of different ideas, thoughts, and theories to be discussed and expanded upon at their own pace, thus allowing the individual to pick and choose to respond to topics of special interest to her.
Those contributing to the posts are under no obligation to commit to a certain number of posts per week/month/year/etc. Rather we would have you take your time developing ideas and responses so come and go at your own leisure.
A couple of pointers for newcomers to the world of BLOG.
1. You can save drafts of your posts before officially publishing it and having it displayed on the main page. You will find saved drafts under the edit posts tab. If you do save a post and publish it at a later date, make sure to change the date and time of the post from the date of creation to the date you are publishing it, found under the "post options" tab in the bottom left corner of the "New Post" and "Edit Posts" screens.
2. The main page of the blog only displays a limited number of posts at a time. Previously published posts can be found in the Blog Archive on the right hand side of the screen, organized by date published.
3. If you are responding to another person's post, please respond in the comments area at the bottom of that post, and not with a new post. This will help keep topics and discussions organized and easy to follow. New posts should be limited to new ideas/theories, or topics of discussions that have not yet been touched upon.
4. If there is a video you would like people to watch, you have several options: you may display the link to the video or, if the video has an option to embed(all youtube videos do), you can copy the embed code from the host website, and then paste it in the "Edit Html" tab at the top right corner of the "New Post" and "Edit Posts" screens. Click the "preview" button and you should see a video screen instead of text to know you have embedded the video correctly.
All opinions and perspectives are welcomed, and encouraged. This blog was created with the intention of allowing for a variety of different ideas, thoughts, and theories to be discussed and expanded upon at their own pace, thus allowing the individual to pick and choose to respond to topics of special interest to her.
Those contributing to the posts are under no obligation to commit to a certain number of posts per week/month/year/etc. Rather we would have you take your time developing ideas and responses so come and go at your own leisure.
A couple of pointers for newcomers to the world of BLOG.
1. You can save drafts of your posts before officially publishing it and having it displayed on the main page. You will find saved drafts under the edit posts tab. If you do save a post and publish it at a later date, make sure to change the date and time of the post from the date of creation to the date you are publishing it, found under the "post options" tab in the bottom left corner of the "New Post" and "Edit Posts" screens.
2. The main page of the blog only displays a limited number of posts at a time. Previously published posts can be found in the Blog Archive on the right hand side of the screen, organized by date published.
3. If you are responding to another person's post, please respond in the comments area at the bottom of that post, and not with a new post. This will help keep topics and discussions organized and easy to follow. New posts should be limited to new ideas/theories, or topics of discussions that have not yet been touched upon.
4. If there is a video you would like people to watch, you have several options: you may display the link to the video or, if the video has an option to embed(all youtube videos do), you can copy the embed code from the host website, and then paste it in the "Edit Html" tab at the top right corner of the "New Post" and "Edit Posts" screens. Click the "preview" button and you should see a video screen instead of text to know you have embedded the video correctly.
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