Oh What a Wonderful World I Since when I first read Bertolt Brecht's words, which I shall now quo... more Oh What a Wonderful World I Since when I first read Bertolt Brecht's words, which I shall now quote, they have echoed through my heart and mind. He wrote "we who would build the foundations of kindliness could not always afford to be kind." That was true and is something to be taken assiduously to heart and to head. Yet for my close friend George Kateb, a very knowledgeable, perceptive, humanely-minded, and politically and philosophically astute political theorist, Brecht's remark was chilling and disturbing. For Friedrich Nietzsche, as I would surmise, to be for kindliness should meet the same contempt as he had for talk of pity or compassion. But for me Brecht's words ring true and movingly so and are also sustained by hard-nosed non-evasive reflection.
Kai Nielsen argues that one can be moral without being religious. Yet he also contends that reaso... more Kai Nielsen argues that one can be moral without being religious. Yet he also contends that reason cannot provide self-evident justifications for being moral. Given reason's limitations, should religious myth be used to encourage moral behavior? Grant Havers argues that although some human beings do not need religion as a foundation for their moral acts, it does not logically follow that all human beings can be moral without some mythical support. Benign Platonism, which builds on the Platonic teaching of the " noble fiction, " defends the political usage of religious myth as a foundation for morality in an age beset by the resurgence of religion. Havers' paper is followed by a response by Nielsen and a final reply by Havers.
A very, very, very long time in the future some very intelligent and perhaps humanlike creatures,... more A very, very, very long time in the future some very intelligent and perhaps humanlike creatures, only more intelligent and more technologically advanced creatures than us now living creatures, on another planet will take a look at our planet and see just a huge barren round rock, much as Mars is now observed by us. These future observers of our planet will view the just visible tangled ruins of what was once They will conclude that what they are looking at are the ruins of structures once made by some kind of reasonably intelligent creatures perhaps in some way something like themselves. This, as sun heat diminishes (as Bertrand Russell once observed), is what our planet will be like. But as their equivalent of our scientists study this huge round rock with the remnants of the structures we have made and of the for them present conditions of our planet generally on view, they will conclude that some intelligent creatures must have made these structures. But they may speculate that these creatures became extinct long ago perhaps by their own actions and made themselves extinct long before conditions on this planet (the Earth) would have made their non-existence necessary by the heat diminishment from the sun. These observers might well conclude that these earthlings were an irrational lot to be so self-destructive early in the day. Moreover, they would surely be right. Is this the course we are foolishly and destructively taking? It looks like it. But we human animals will never know. Our non-existence, our demise, may be like that of the dinosaurs except theirs which was caused by non-human sources. Perhaps, for example, by a clash with a very big meteor? But more likely it will be caused for us by human-induced climate
This article has three interrelated parts. Part One is an examination of the varied things that c... more This article has three interrelated parts. Part One is an examination of the varied things that cosmopolitanism is and has been. This, as seen in Part Three, sits uncomfortably with what most philosophers and political scientists (including myself) have said about cosmopolitanism. In Part Two I set out my crafted and, I hope, reasonably rationalized characterization and defense of cosmopolitanism, and I argue that we philosophers need to get out of our armchairs at least in this domain and in good anthropological, sociological and historical fashion study our social world. We theoreticians of cosmopolitanism, even if we are pragmatists or neo-pragmatists or Wittgensteinians, must not stand in an anthropological and historical vacuum.
I Wittgenstein does not say that we should, or even can, reform a whole language—to say nothing o... more I Wittgenstein does not say that we should, or even can, reform a whole language—to say nothing of all languages—into a Carnap-style ideal language. For Wittgenstein, there can be no ideal language or even any point in reforming language. We cannot reform a whole language: the forms of language which are the forms of life. We just inescapably have that. But that is not to say that in using our ordinary language we can make no piecemeal changes which we might regard as reforms or delete some conceptions, typically, at least in effect, metaphysical or ontological conceptions which impede or block our understanding of our ordinary use. We have no understanding here apart from our ordinary language use or some specialist uses dependent on our ordinary use of language. We should set aside anything which stands in the way of such uses of which our ordinary uses are the most fundamental ones. Indeed, we can intelligibly do no other. Our forms of language which are our forms of life are crucial here. They cannot be set aside. There is no understanding, no justification, no possibility of analysis without them. We cannot attain intelligibility without them; there is no transcending them without at the same time presupposing them. However, we can scrub our language confusion free, gainsaying perfect and complete clarity. We must, for what clarification we can get, go piecemeal case by case, relying on our ordinary uses in doing so, for breaking particular blockages. This includes epistemological and
I What would a decent world order look like and how can we, if we can, achieve and sustain those ... more I What would a decent world order look like and how can we, if we can, achieve and sustain those things that make for decency or at least something of it? That is a difficult matter. It is not unreasonable to be skeptical here. Some people, indeed many people, say (and I am inclined to say as well) that a better world is possible. Indeed, not a few people chant that. Still, what ideas do we have for achieving any of those things that make frequently for decency? I do not say of any of them that they are impossible to achieve. But I do say the prospects are generally bleak. (In the face of that, what should we struggle to do and how?) But surely whatever we do we should not quiet down and resignedly accept the status quo. Our world is too much of a horror for us to do that. Perhaps, very perhaps, we will fail and the horror will continue to flourish and even increase. But we must (morally must) not become couch potatoes. We must struggle to eradicate this horror. We must fight, and fight intelligently, against it. We must not resignedly just accept this horror. Our world is too much of a horror for us to do that. We must not avoid seeing evil, we must not avoid hearing of evil and, of course, we must not do evil. Plainly there is evil galore. We must not kid ourselves about that. To do so is a gross failure in non-evasive living and seeing. But we must not, if at all, just chant morally or moralize. We must gain an understanding and the ability to apply some of the mechanisms or techniques that make changes in an emancipatory direction feasible and indeed actual. Here we should take some lessons here from Thorsten Veblen.
It has often been said that people draw their moral strength from religion. Such sayers usually g... more It has often been said that people draw their moral strength from religion. Such sayers usually go on to say that is what religion usually does for many people. It psychologically and morally grounds them. It, they say, is the means by which they make sense of their lives and of the world around them and of their place in it and of their relationships to others. For many it is the bedrock of their community and their identity. I agree with this, old atheist that I am. And I also agree that in one degree or another it is true about all cultures and about most people in all cultures. Anthropology teaches us that. But not everyone in every culture is like this. There will always be some who will sit uneasily around their tribal campfires. This will even be so for the most homogenous cultures. They will have their skeptics and critics, though in some places more than in others. Everywhere there will be or have been those who do not warm themselves around the tribal campfire. This is increasingly so as modernity with its advantages in education meanders along. The Alasdair MacIntyres and Charles Taylors of the world have been unable to stop it or to do much to slow it down. Darwin (his wishes to the contrary notwithstanding), Marx, Freud, Weber and Durkheim along with the physical sciences have left their mark. I have spent a large part of my life trying to show there are purely secular alternatives to religion that are better. And this is not to Dworkin-like have a religion without God. We do not need any kind of religious orientation, not even Theravada Buddhism, to make sense of our lives and of the world around us or to find our grounding and its bedrock in community and identity. I have tried to show, pace Kierkegaard, that we do not have to crucify or disregard our intellects to make sense of our lives and to have a secure identity in the world or to have a secure orientation as to how to try to act in it. We do not need religious faith
John Dewey was a resolute opponent of dualisms. The existence/value, fact/value, is/ought distinc... more John Dewey was a resolute opponent of dualisms. The existence/value, fact/value, is/ought distinction was no exception. In The Quest for Certainty, there occur some canonical arguments against these hallowed distinctions—or more accurately put, the making of them into distinctions such that they are also dichotomies such that there could be no derivation of values from facts. The non-derivability of value from fact was even a hallowed distinction of such fellow naturalists as David Hume and Axel Hägerström. I shall start by offering some attention to how Dewey conducts his case there (the place, and rightly, which has taken the most critical examination from critics of his ethical theory). I shall then turn to two criticisms of it made by Morton White, both in 1949, and then to a detailed response to White made by Sidney Hook from a Deweyian perspective (and assented to by Dewey himself), followed by a consideration of a response (1950) made by Dewey himself when he was 90 and only discovered by White when Dewey's posthumous work was published. After that I will briefly consider a response made some forty years later, after White had finally learned of the reply to White Dewey. Together we will have marshalled here key arguments around Dewey's work on fact and value—on his attempt to break Hume's fork. After getting the core of the matter here before us, I shall (a) assess the soundness of Dewey's view and (b) try to say something about what should be said concerning the is and the ought, about the relation between the desired and the desirable, the enjoyed and the enjoyable, and what is taken to have worth and what is worthwhile—all within the limits of naturalism alone.
I The history of ideas should not try to tell that Hinduism (in any of its varieties) nor Buddhis... more I The history of ideas should not try to tell that Hinduism (in any of its varieties) nor Buddhism (in any of its varieties) nor Judaism (in any of its varieties) nor Christianity (in any of its varieties) nor Islam (in any of its varieties) nor any other religion has got it right, yielding a knowledge or understanding of the one true religion, nor that any one has the proper grip on it or that taken collectively that they have the proper grasp on the truth concerning religion. Religious Studies professors should also not maintain, argue or assume alternatively that agnosticism, atheism or nihilism has the truth or is the truth concerning religion. That also cannot be a part of their mandate. Nor should they set forth an overall skepticism here. They rather should clearly articulate what these things are, have been and how these religions and critiques differ from each other and from having purely secular attitudes that are neutral and perhaps even ignorant of matters, vis-à-vis religion as well as refrain from anti-religion or skepticism vis-à-vis religion. This is exactly the attitude towards religion that should be taken in a culture of laicity. It limits, and this is also the task of religious studies, in the articulation of religious ideas to
Oh What a Wonderful World I Since when I first read Bertolt Brecht's words, which I shall now quo... more Oh What a Wonderful World I Since when I first read Bertolt Brecht's words, which I shall now quote, they have echoed through my heart and mind. He wrote "we who would build the foundations of kindliness could not always afford to be kind." That was true and is something to be taken assiduously to heart and to head. Yet for my close friend George Kateb, a very knowledgeable, perceptive, humanely-minded, and politically and philosophically astute political theorist, Brecht's remark was chilling and disturbing. For Friedrich Nietzsche, as I would surmise, to be for kindliness should meet the same contempt as he had for talk of pity or compassion. But for me Brecht's words ring true and movingly so and are also sustained by hard-nosed non-evasive reflection.
Kai Nielsen argues that one can be moral without being religious. Yet he also contends that reaso... more Kai Nielsen argues that one can be moral without being religious. Yet he also contends that reason cannot provide self-evident justifications for being moral. Given reason's limitations, should religious myth be used to encourage moral behavior? Grant Havers argues that although some human beings do not need religion as a foundation for their moral acts, it does not logically follow that all human beings can be moral without some mythical support. Benign Platonism, which builds on the Platonic teaching of the " noble fiction, " defends the political usage of religious myth as a foundation for morality in an age beset by the resurgence of religion. Havers' paper is followed by a response by Nielsen and a final reply by Havers.
A very, very, very long time in the future some very intelligent and perhaps humanlike creatures,... more A very, very, very long time in the future some very intelligent and perhaps humanlike creatures, only more intelligent and more technologically advanced creatures than us now living creatures, on another planet will take a look at our planet and see just a huge barren round rock, much as Mars is now observed by us. These future observers of our planet will view the just visible tangled ruins of what was once They will conclude that what they are looking at are the ruins of structures once made by some kind of reasonably intelligent creatures perhaps in some way something like themselves. This, as sun heat diminishes (as Bertrand Russell once observed), is what our planet will be like. But as their equivalent of our scientists study this huge round rock with the remnants of the structures we have made and of the for them present conditions of our planet generally on view, they will conclude that some intelligent creatures must have made these structures. But they may speculate that these creatures became extinct long ago perhaps by their own actions and made themselves extinct long before conditions on this planet (the Earth) would have made their non-existence necessary by the heat diminishment from the sun. These observers might well conclude that these earthlings were an irrational lot to be so self-destructive early in the day. Moreover, they would surely be right. Is this the course we are foolishly and destructively taking? It looks like it. But we human animals will never know. Our non-existence, our demise, may be like that of the dinosaurs except theirs which was caused by non-human sources. Perhaps, for example, by a clash with a very big meteor? But more likely it will be caused for us by human-induced climate
This article has three interrelated parts. Part One is an examination of the varied things that c... more This article has three interrelated parts. Part One is an examination of the varied things that cosmopolitanism is and has been. This, as seen in Part Three, sits uncomfortably with what most philosophers and political scientists (including myself) have said about cosmopolitanism. In Part Two I set out my crafted and, I hope, reasonably rationalized characterization and defense of cosmopolitanism, and I argue that we philosophers need to get out of our armchairs at least in this domain and in good anthropological, sociological and historical fashion study our social world. We theoreticians of cosmopolitanism, even if we are pragmatists or neo-pragmatists or Wittgensteinians, must not stand in an anthropological and historical vacuum.
I Wittgenstein does not say that we should, or even can, reform a whole language—to say nothing o... more I Wittgenstein does not say that we should, or even can, reform a whole language—to say nothing of all languages—into a Carnap-style ideal language. For Wittgenstein, there can be no ideal language or even any point in reforming language. We cannot reform a whole language: the forms of language which are the forms of life. We just inescapably have that. But that is not to say that in using our ordinary language we can make no piecemeal changes which we might regard as reforms or delete some conceptions, typically, at least in effect, metaphysical or ontological conceptions which impede or block our understanding of our ordinary use. We have no understanding here apart from our ordinary language use or some specialist uses dependent on our ordinary use of language. We should set aside anything which stands in the way of such uses of which our ordinary uses are the most fundamental ones. Indeed, we can intelligibly do no other. Our forms of language which are our forms of life are crucial here. They cannot be set aside. There is no understanding, no justification, no possibility of analysis without them. We cannot attain intelligibility without them; there is no transcending them without at the same time presupposing them. However, we can scrub our language confusion free, gainsaying perfect and complete clarity. We must, for what clarification we can get, go piecemeal case by case, relying on our ordinary uses in doing so, for breaking particular blockages. This includes epistemological and
I What would a decent world order look like and how can we, if we can, achieve and sustain those ... more I What would a decent world order look like and how can we, if we can, achieve and sustain those things that make for decency or at least something of it? That is a difficult matter. It is not unreasonable to be skeptical here. Some people, indeed many people, say (and I am inclined to say as well) that a better world is possible. Indeed, not a few people chant that. Still, what ideas do we have for achieving any of those things that make frequently for decency? I do not say of any of them that they are impossible to achieve. But I do say the prospects are generally bleak. (In the face of that, what should we struggle to do and how?) But surely whatever we do we should not quiet down and resignedly accept the status quo. Our world is too much of a horror for us to do that. Perhaps, very perhaps, we will fail and the horror will continue to flourish and even increase. But we must (morally must) not become couch potatoes. We must struggle to eradicate this horror. We must fight, and fight intelligently, against it. We must not resignedly just accept this horror. Our world is too much of a horror for us to do that. We must not avoid seeing evil, we must not avoid hearing of evil and, of course, we must not do evil. Plainly there is evil galore. We must not kid ourselves about that. To do so is a gross failure in non-evasive living and seeing. But we must not, if at all, just chant morally or moralize. We must gain an understanding and the ability to apply some of the mechanisms or techniques that make changes in an emancipatory direction feasible and indeed actual. Here we should take some lessons here from Thorsten Veblen.
It has often been said that people draw their moral strength from religion. Such sayers usually g... more It has often been said that people draw their moral strength from religion. Such sayers usually go on to say that is what religion usually does for many people. It psychologically and morally grounds them. It, they say, is the means by which they make sense of their lives and of the world around them and of their place in it and of their relationships to others. For many it is the bedrock of their community and their identity. I agree with this, old atheist that I am. And I also agree that in one degree or another it is true about all cultures and about most people in all cultures. Anthropology teaches us that. But not everyone in every culture is like this. There will always be some who will sit uneasily around their tribal campfires. This will even be so for the most homogenous cultures. They will have their skeptics and critics, though in some places more than in others. Everywhere there will be or have been those who do not warm themselves around the tribal campfire. This is increasingly so as modernity with its advantages in education meanders along. The Alasdair MacIntyres and Charles Taylors of the world have been unable to stop it or to do much to slow it down. Darwin (his wishes to the contrary notwithstanding), Marx, Freud, Weber and Durkheim along with the physical sciences have left their mark. I have spent a large part of my life trying to show there are purely secular alternatives to religion that are better. And this is not to Dworkin-like have a religion without God. We do not need any kind of religious orientation, not even Theravada Buddhism, to make sense of our lives and of the world around us or to find our grounding and its bedrock in community and identity. I have tried to show, pace Kierkegaard, that we do not have to crucify or disregard our intellects to make sense of our lives and to have a secure identity in the world or to have a secure orientation as to how to try to act in it. We do not need religious faith
John Dewey was a resolute opponent of dualisms. The existence/value, fact/value, is/ought distinc... more John Dewey was a resolute opponent of dualisms. The existence/value, fact/value, is/ought distinction was no exception. In The Quest for Certainty, there occur some canonical arguments against these hallowed distinctions—or more accurately put, the making of them into distinctions such that they are also dichotomies such that there could be no derivation of values from facts. The non-derivability of value from fact was even a hallowed distinction of such fellow naturalists as David Hume and Axel Hägerström. I shall start by offering some attention to how Dewey conducts his case there (the place, and rightly, which has taken the most critical examination from critics of his ethical theory). I shall then turn to two criticisms of it made by Morton White, both in 1949, and then to a detailed response to White made by Sidney Hook from a Deweyian perspective (and assented to by Dewey himself), followed by a consideration of a response (1950) made by Dewey himself when he was 90 and only discovered by White when Dewey's posthumous work was published. After that I will briefly consider a response made some forty years later, after White had finally learned of the reply to White Dewey. Together we will have marshalled here key arguments around Dewey's work on fact and value—on his attempt to break Hume's fork. After getting the core of the matter here before us, I shall (a) assess the soundness of Dewey's view and (b) try to say something about what should be said concerning the is and the ought, about the relation between the desired and the desirable, the enjoyed and the enjoyable, and what is taken to have worth and what is worthwhile—all within the limits of naturalism alone.
I The history of ideas should not try to tell that Hinduism (in any of its varieties) nor Buddhis... more I The history of ideas should not try to tell that Hinduism (in any of its varieties) nor Buddhism (in any of its varieties) nor Judaism (in any of its varieties) nor Christianity (in any of its varieties) nor Islam (in any of its varieties) nor any other religion has got it right, yielding a knowledge or understanding of the one true religion, nor that any one has the proper grip on it or that taken collectively that they have the proper grasp on the truth concerning religion. Religious Studies professors should also not maintain, argue or assume alternatively that agnosticism, atheism or nihilism has the truth or is the truth concerning religion. That also cannot be a part of their mandate. Nor should they set forth an overall skepticism here. They rather should clearly articulate what these things are, have been and how these religions and critiques differ from each other and from having purely secular attitudes that are neutral and perhaps even ignorant of matters, vis-à-vis religion as well as refrain from anti-religion or skepticism vis-à-vis religion. This is exactly the attitude towards religion that should be taken in a culture of laicity. It limits, and this is also the task of religious studies, in the articulation of religious ideas to
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