First off experience like the sense of living an existence can only be conjecturally derived from the readings. As the authors for the most part concentrate on experience as thought process. Here they have a great affinity with Hume who immediately preceded them. For Emerson's part as a transcedentalist of sorts, he does establish that a man's character is reflected in his experiences.
Emerson is part of the 'Great Man in History' clique that believes in the rugged individual, the basic unit of society, as essential for establishing value in society. He is, as are most of the Pragmatists, an Empiriscist of sorts in that the world is only as we experience it. Pierce is more helpful in his concept of the Integrity of Experience. That Experience may be circumscibed by doubt. But here both Pierce and the other Pragmatists take issue with the concept of Descartes that "I think, therefore I am". They write considerably on the notion of "all experience emanantating from thought". Pierce thinks the idea in thought is based in language and goes a good ways toward developing his sense of cause from the origins of the idea found in language.
James is a bit more direct, perhaps being later and more informed than the others. He states clearly in 'A world of Pure Experience' that he considers himself a 'radical empiriscist' taking Hume but another step forward and then concludes he may be, or this line of thought may be realy natural realism. A concept or category one is led to think he is setting up as a straw man in the begining of his article. In that article he clearly sides with the idea that Existence precedes Essence and as such is a precuror to the Existentialist like Nietzsche and Hiedigger of the 1900s. They do not so much take up the argument with Descartes as to 'I think, therefore I am' so much as if I know, how do I know I know. This comes out in James' article on the world of pure experience and some of the more difficult work in Pierce.
Emerson, poet and man of the world he is does not so much engage in this debate but firmly places the instrument of change in the individual. All oppose the idea of necessity and could be considered indeterminist rather than determinist in the great scheme of things. Hence not only opposed to Hegel on that count but critical of Kant and his Categorical Impiratives likewise.
CHAPTER TWO :(CULTURE AND THE STATE) By Tim Fitzgerald
Most of our ideas establishing all our major institutions in the United States, regardless of our multi-culturalism, come almost exclusively from Western Europe. Much of that continues today, based on a globalized world community, dependant on media broadcasters and world markets that would make Alexander the Great envious of our privilege. And privilege it6 is, as long as poverty pockets in Third World societies old and new remain docile and ambivalent toward Post Industrial fate. Yet it was the creative mind, the learned intellect that first felt the handicap and limitation of the ruling elite in mercantile times. And it was to this dilemma that the Philosophes applied their knowledge, embracing Newtonian Mechanics as the metaphor for life. But as products of their times, had they the foresight to see what lay ahead? We know they did not all agree on either the objectives or the outcomes.
It remained a point of dispute whether capitalism or socialism were the best form of organization to achi8eve these democratic ideals throughout the 19th century � the world in that last five hundred years having been mapped, re-settled, divided and governed, as a result of the profound discovery of the New World and re-opening trade with the Indies. (Strark, Hegel). As that time, Tomas More had asked, Can we do better, in his short �Utopia� and thinkers have puzzled over that question ever since. The Nation / State really just a fiction to mobilize the populace for the glory of the sovereign and ruling elite, it did not in fact exist prior to the founding of the New World, or there about. So we come to ask, was all the blood shed on all the fields of battle worth the whistle, or was it as Shakespeare had it �Sound and fury signifying nothing?� Each nation / state bending its efforts to provide in these post modern times for the growth of the populace, and enrichment of the masses: but alas, all is not as Marx suggested, �from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.� Must mans consciousness be developed for progress, and all cultural ethos determine the parameters of social growth (Gramsci)
We are in fact going through a �Sea Change� of differences and are not only on the threshold of a new kind of culture, embdoyi8ng a revolution � meaning Revolution in thought and action � but also a new mode of Production, New forms of social organization, new forces of Production that brought these about. There is also a new personality, a new kind of world citizen, not considered since the dawn of the written word emerging before the birth of the City of Ur and the time of Gilgamesh. Rousseau thought man is basically good, corrupted only by his institutions he establishes to govern his life. This thesis adopts that view. Had the thinking of and prior to the Enlightenment decieved us and led us astray. The implications of such a radical departure from the established paradigm may have on the effects on our national and international politics is significant.
Marx's theory of the historical Dialectic may be actually correct if culture as a subject is placed on an equal footing with the mode of Production in determining the nature of society, This has immense consequences in shaping our values and expectations for the future of man, and this requires re-evaluation of very deeply held beliefs and values stemming from our Judaic /Christian roots, its impact on our �work ethic� and how that originated in the Protestant Reformation. (Gorski) We may have to confront the possibility we are not the only nation blessed with the tide of history but that alternative life styles may lead to other ways of organizing our culture and the values supported by our society. This includes the re-examination of the role of the entrepreneur, and his place in society as an initiator of action � and the consequences that many have to our culture with the development of a corporate organization replacing the entrepreneur as the building block of our economy.
This has vast implications for the Supply Side paradigm in the Keynesian equation, faced with the possibility bureaucratic organization may be the only possible way to galvanize society and the world community to productive action. This is a radical departure from the view accepte4d and established by the Age of Reason and rationale handed down from Enlightenment thinkers. And we must, if we are to come to terms with the impact of this paradigm, re-examine their views in light of their impact on society and the world society of the 21st century. This will of course impact the Third World, so said, and the relations such cultural expectation s have upon the developing world. These are cultures with deeply different views than those ushered in by the Industrial Revolution and will have a dramatic impact on the thinking of those people. By challenging the Age of Reason to explain itself, we will empower ourselves to be released from its grip on the shaping of our daily lives. And it�s paradigmatic foreshadowing of our sense of self and the governing purposes of the West and the World Community. And yet such an exercise holds out hope that if we take direct action, and authority for the impact of the global culture on our individual lives, wed may yet spare the world another century of blood-letting parallel to the last. The state is conceptually one of the oldest notions in Western Civilization, according to Hegel. Beginning with Plato and a Aristotle, the �polis� or Republic is thought of a s the governing body of the City-State of ancient Greece My medieval times, in Italy, the State is governed by single head, Power is sought as an all consuming end, and Machiavelli, author of �the Prince� claims �it is better to be feared, than loved� to hold the reigns of authority. After the French Revolution Hegel reacts to the philosophers who sought to place sovereignty in the hands of the People; in the writings of such 18th century thinkers as Voltaire and Rousseau. Hegel refutes the argument of Hobbes and Locke, that freedom comes from a social contact struck in the state of Nature. Stating that freedom comes only from the state Hegel insists that nothing can arise from the 'Noble Savage' except from duty. Stating that the State is the Divine 'Spirit on earth' and not a creation of men.
Hegel goes on to agree with Locke�s argument that the State was not like the family, and had a head that functions like the patriarch of a household. This Hegel states is untrue, and that authority comes from the �state structure, and does not emanate from the will of the majority, Thus anticipating de Tocqueville dialogue on the issue of minority views and rights in a democracy. Clearly Hegel comes down on the side of a monarchy as opposed to a democracy in the formulation of the State. Interjecting as he does, that the state is practically God on earth, and that obedience is owed to the sovereign above all other duties. Implying that the sovereign is, in effect, God�s representative on earth. It is God in history whose work we see spelled out in the blood split over the earth to fulfill God�s plan through divine action. (Hegel) For Hegel it matters not what the will of Man is, only that he knows good and evil and is here to reconcile himself with Reason, Justice and Freedom, stating that the Universal is the outcome of the particular and the determinant. The state basing the realization of freedom, that being Gods� freedom. Freedom being the positive realization of the divine being. Culture that 'divine spirit' and the laws and institutions of the State the rights of its citizens.
Dilthey takes issue with Hegel in this respect. Dilthey says, �The realm of life, treated as a temporal and causal construction objectified in time, is history," WE know history as activity of persons in the course of the past. That we know these people as we know ourselves and that we may apply a cognitive relationship to its existence because we are like those that history records. Thus the validity of the thinking of the Age of Reason is first challenged by the history it makes. History understood by Dilthey as the social experience we have with other people. It is appreciated by our values determined from attitudes toward life and the past. Our appreciation of its purpose stems from our awareness of reality. This is a function of mind, or mind consciousness that reflects our inner understanding � ultimately of ourselves. (Dilthey)
Thus history is based on the perceptions of historians to place patterns of behavior in an ordered choro0nology and may be compatible with Hegel in that sense. This is arrived at by understanding the individual as rational, his actions, desires and motivations � hence will to power � coming from a basis of reason and cognition. Such knowledge expands with our own life experience and knowledge of the past coming with an increased awareness of the present life receding into time. Writers of history, as with writers of autobiography, striving to attain a sense of the human condition by their understanding of past human interactions and experience. Historians work, not only of persons in the past, but of themselves and their present environment. As with all human studies resting upon the relationship of experience, expression and understanding. It being incumbent upon the historian to bring together the values and purpose of human time to relate what is common in the event (s) and in the nature of the i8ndividuals existence in life. Such history differs from Hegel and prior thinkers, in removing from such human studies the onerous task of being scientific in the sense of seeking a causal relationship to human activity. That activity according to Dilthy being outside of scientific investigation and the e knowing that comes with the activity of the physical world. Such dialogue leading to a reading of the essence of the human condition and what it means, to man, to be man.
This is critical in our approach to the Age of Reason and what was being debated in the Enlightenment. Whether history is a science is much disputed issue amongst those that study Man and social organizations, going back to August Comte and whether science emanating from Positive philosophy excluded History as a positive science. Beginning with the development of the thought of man, Comete suggests the idea of science progressed from theological, to the metaphysical, to the Positive. Maintaining each discipline within the sciences must progress fro the primitive theological to the more advanced, positive, by stages. Hegel too advocated the progress of history through stages as was accepted by Karl Marx. Both Comte and Hegel basing their philosophy on the development of the Idea but Hegel saying it is the evolution of the Spirit with respect to the attainment of Freedom realized or expressed by the State. Whereas Comte develops his theory as emanating fro the trunk of a single set of concepts universal throughout the sciences themselves. Topics like History and Political Science, the study of institutions over time, for instance, relegated by Comte outside the sciences of a Positive type but still governed by Metaphysical phi8losophy. And Hegel would seem to apply.
Hegel stating that history moves from the freedom of one, to Freedom of the Few, then to Freedom of all in stages. Very similar to the idea professed by Comte in his notion of progress, except that Hegel omits China and India as participating in this �historical dialectic.� Betraying his ethnocentrism, Hegel argues that as there was no State in India, there was no pursuit of Freedom, hence it existed only inn prehistory. As did, according to Hegel, China. Only those cultures that realized their own self-consciousness sand fulfilled their identity having history for Hegel. Hence there would be no Universals applicable to the �concept � of history, but only the slaughter bench of mans sacrifice for the cunning of Reason according to Hegel. History being precluded from the social physics, as it could not be described with the exactness of math=emetics, a requirement of Comte for the sciences he included in his positive philosophy. Nietzsche takes Hegel to task for this view in his 'Advantage and Disadvantage o History for life.' The key word here is 'for life' as Nietzsche sees the record of the past in its role in serving the present as a justification for its existence. Whether for Monumental, Antiquarian or Critical reasons Nietzsche is critical himself of Germany embarking on history as 'science' and the nature of historical education for the young nation. Yet it was the study of history laid down by German scholars such as Von Rank that the United States based their own understanding of their story and their history.
A scholar of Greek antiquity, Nietzsche points out in effect, "Who are we to judge the might and the great in their role in founding civilization?" Looking in particular at Hegel, Nietzsche states only one who creates great history has the right to record it. If Hegel is right and he was living in the 'end of times' Nietzsche states that Germany is unqualified to pass judgment at a Last Judgment of the worth of men and the merits of historical action. To judge those things one must have been capable of such great events themselves, and Germany, he argues pointing at Hegel, has too short a history to be able to make such a momentous judgment. As with Nietzsche�s other writings at one point he says "Only strong personalities can endure history, the weak are completely extinguished by it." In another place "�Its value is just this, to describe with insight a known, perhaps common theme, an everyday melody, to elevate it, rise to a comprehensive symbol. And so let a whole world of depth of meaning, power and beauty be guessed in it."
Dilthey agrees re-establishing the role of the individual in his concept of 'human studies' thus challenging Hegel himself. In his mind centered process of uniting experience, knowledge, and understanding, he asserts if history is a science it has unique fundamentals separate from the hard sciences. This generates individual concepts in the life of the mind that contribute to the cooperative association of the community, broadening and enriching our concept of life and living. Dilthey stating that the 'mind-constructed world' that is being conceived creates a general outlook or point of view (POV) unique to the culture, the political institutions and the Epoch the subject concerns. (Dilthey)
This many-sidedness, Dilthey asserts, creates connections by which the historian can generalize about man�s condition through empathy and self knowledge of what it means to be human, stressing the interdependency of this knowledge and focusing on the individuality of what it means to be human. This is a bottom up interpretation of the West and man as opposed to a hypothetical top down approach used by Hobbes and Locke. For Dilthey and later thinkers like Heidegger it is time in human studies, a fact that does not exist in the hard sciences that makes the study of man a unique science with characteristics that differ from other studies. Hence man can learn from history and develop certain patterns of events which the historian can recognize and for with should be the subject of historical study. If it is the proper subject for history it is consequentially the proper subject for all the social sciences which emanate from the fountainhead of history.
Emerson sums this up nicely when he asserts "we sympathize in the great moments of history" because we are men and have an affinity to other men. We share the depths of his tragedy and the heights of his accomplishments because what it means to be human speaks to all the species. He goes on to say in the great debate of whether art imitates life that man borrows from the state of nature in shaping his culture from his surroundings reflected in his art and his life. Man for Emerson is the great achievement of life itself. He says the world exists for the education on each man. Of each man, not just the Napoleons and the Platos but a living laboratory for each person to find in himself the common thread of his humanity, of what it means to be alive and living. Thus he says that "all history is subjective�there is properly no history, only biography."
"History must be this or it is nothing." Again stating that history is the record of the individual and that each person has his own 'history' and that the differences between man is in their principle of association. The way they identify each subject, the way they recognized each fact. There being on the surface an infinite variety of things and the center a simplicity of cause. Thus we may conclude that man makes his culture. It is not the spirit of God as Hegel would have it. That this culture describes for each person his sense of identity and purpose and that it rides with culture as with the mode of production the nature of society and the kind or texture man�s life on earth will depend.
Experience as noted by Emerson, Pierce, and James.
First off experience like the sense of living an existence can only be conjecturally derived from the readings as the authors for the most part concentrate on experience as thought process. Here they have a great affinity with Hume, who immediately prrceded them. For Emerson's part as a transcedentalist of sorts he does establish that a man's character is reflected in his experiences. Emerson is part of the 'Great man in history' clique that believes in the rugged individual, the basic unit of society as essential for establishing value in society. He is, as are most of the Pragmatists, an Empiriscist of sorts in that the world is only as we experience it. Pierce is more helpful in his concept of the Integrity of Experience. That Experience may be circumscibed by doubt. Here both Peirce and the other Pragmatists take issue with the concept of Descartes that "I think, therefore I am". They write considerably on the notion is all expereicne emanentating from thought. Pierce thinks the idea in the thought is based in language and goes a good ways toward developing his sense of cause from the origins of the idea found in language.
James is a bit more direct perhaps being later and more informed than the others. He states clearly in 'A world of Pure Experience' that he considers himself a 'radical empirascist' taking Hume but another step forward and concludes he or this line of thought may be realy natural realism. A concept or category that one is led to think he is setting up as a straw man in the begining of his article.
In that article he clearly sides with the idea that Existence precedes essance and as such is a precursor to the Existenitalist like Nietzsche and Hiedigger of the 20th Century. They do not so much take up the argument with Descartes as to 'I think, therefore I am' so much as if I know, how do I know that I know. THis comes out in James article on the world of pure experience and some of the more difficult work in Pierce.
Emerson, poet and man of the world that he is does not so much engage in this debate but firmly places the instrument of change in the individual. All oppose the idea of necessity and could be considered indetermininist rather than determinsist in the great scheme of things. Hence not only opposed to Hegel on that count but critical of Kant and his Categroical imparatives likewise.
