Appendix G, Part V: Fourth Counter-Argument on Relativism and Skepticism

 

Fourth Counter-Argument:
Anti-Realism and Relativistic Historicism compound MacIntyre’s Ethical Skepticism

"Accidental truths of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of reason."
—Theologian G. E. Lessing, in "About the Proof of Spirit and Strength,"(1777)

“…the subtle little Socratic secret: that the point is precisely the relationship of the subject.”
—Kierkegaard (Postscript, p. 37)

Lessing’s Ditch 

The clearest quote from MacIntyre I could find in After Virtue admitting that there is no absolute standard of judging another ethical tradition is the following (my emphasis in bold):

“…when rival moralities make competing and incompatible claims, there is always an issue at the level of moral philosophy concerning the ability of either to make good a claim to rational superiority over the other.

How are these claims to be judged? As in the case of natural science there are no general timeless standards…And it is only by reference to this history that questions of rational superiority can be settled. The history of morality-and-moral-philosophy written from this point of view is as integral to the enterprise of contemporary moral philosophy as the history of science is to the enterprise of contemporary philosophy of science (AV., p. 268-9)."

I say the “clearest quote” since MacIntyre often speaks in the third person representing his critics such as “So rationality itself, whether theoretical or practical, is a concept with a history: indeed, since there are also a diversity of traditions of enquiry, with histories, there are, so it will turn out, rationalities rather than rationality, just as it will also turn out that there are justices rather than justice (WJWR, p. 9-10).” However, he then promises what he never delivers: that a better account of diversity of ethical traditions must first be provided than the failed Enlightenment (which is also historicist if we include Hegel in the modern era) and these diversities can be “amenable to solution.”

One the other hand Macintyre suggests, sometimes indirectly, that the study of ethics is like science: "And it is only by reference to this history that questions of rational superiority can be settled. The history of morality-and-moral-philosophy written from this point of view is as integral to the enterprise of contemporary moral philosophy as the history of science is to the enterprise of contemporary philosophy of science (AV, p. 269)." And again in another passage: "...one theory rationally superior to another is no different from our situation in regard to scientific theories or to moralities-and-moral philosophies (Ibid., p. 270)."

Ethicist, John Hospers, draws an important distinction between sociological relativism, and ethical relativism: the first is not an ethical doctrine, but factually describes what are the different ethical beliefs in various societies, or communities. On the other hand, an ethical relativist has specific moral beliefs while recognizing, for example, polygamy may be morally accepted in one society, and considered morally wrong in another. The rightness or wrongness of polygamy is relative to society so that both contradictory customs are morally right for the members of those societies. However, Hospers points out many ethical relativists may not really be true relativists since they may mean only the application of a moral principle may vary to societies, but not the principle itself: “One might as well talk about gravitational relativism because a stone falls and a balloon rises; yet both events are equally instances of one law of universal gravitation (John Hospers, Human Conduct: Problems of Ethics, 1972, 2nd ed., pp. 36-37)(pdf.).” MacIntyre is not intentionally an ethical relativist, yet, he accused other historicists in their search for standards appealing instead to nonhistorical, “…transcendental or an analytic justification, types of justification which I have rejected. (AV., p. 270)." If MacIntyre rejects transcendental justifications, he only has contingent relativistic historicism to offer, or at the very least ethical pluralism since any ethical system lack any absolute foundational criterion.

MacIntyre completely rejects the ought/is dichotomy, but later wrote that ethics is a matter of science and reminds us that Aristotle’s ”Nicomachean Ethics” suggests that “…there is a fundamental contrast between man-as-he-happens-to-be and man-as-he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-essential nature. Ethics is the science which is to enable men to understand how they make the transition from the former state to the latter (Ibid., p. 52).” Isn’t the phrase “he-could-be-if-he-realized-his-essential nature,” used just to avoid saying, “ought”? And if not, then why should anyone ought to be concerned with any science of ethics? Even Socrates offers the analogy between ethical reasoning and geometry by testing Meno’s slave to for apriority; however, the student slave demonstrated a priori knowledge much more successfully than the proposed experts on virtue, Meno and Anytus. Plato presents the Theory of Remembrance to account for systematic a priori knowledge. Unfortunately, MacIntyre rejects the many theories of emotivist intuitionalism (Ibid., p. 14, 15): “Twentieth-century moral philosophers have sometimes appealed to their and our intuitions; but one of the things that we ought to have learned from the history of moral philosophy is that the introduction of the word 'intuition' by a moral philosopher is always a signal that something has gone badly wrong with an argument (Ibid., p. 69).”

“Intuition” literally means “contemplation.” Ironically, the most common meaning of intuition is non-contemplative direct access to propositional knowledge that emerges without conscious reasoning, but there are other meanings such as Kant’s definition as the experience of the senses such as vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Human empathy can be understood as moral intuition, or a sixth sense, described in Adam Smith’s first modern book on ethics “The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).” Early modern systematic ethical theories were based on the human capacity to experience empathy. Macintyre incoherently assumes both science and ethics have some common undiscovered essence; but also tells us the questions of science and ethics appear to be unsettleable. At one point MacIntyre writes, “My negative and positive evaluations of particular arguments do indeed presuppose a systematic, although here unseated, account of rationality (Ibid., 260).”

“I shall be as willing as the next man to fall down in worship before the System,
if only I can manage to set eyes on it.”
-Kierkegaard (Postscript, p. 97)

If “…the world being what it contingently is…(AV., p.196)” and tradition can be manipulated, how can ethical necessity be derived from accidental historical traditions? Kuhn is an excellent historian of philosophy of science, but he and MacIntyre have no philosophy of history to explain how it can provide an absolute foundation for which normative imperatives can be based upon; this gap between contingency and necessity is called by Kierkegaard “Lessing’s Ditch” which he argued can only be crossed over by a leap of faith. The theologian G.E. Lessing (1729–1781) argues, "Events and truths belong to altogether different categories, and there is no logical connection between one and another... the truth of a historical narrative, however certain, cannot give us the knowledge of God...(Encycl, Vol. 4: Lessing, p. 445).” MacIntyre’s investigation relies on historicism as a methodology to establish the "rational superiority” (AV., p. 269) of one tradition over another, but rejects Kantian transcendental criticism: “Hence the historicist is covertly appealing to nonhistorical standards, standards which would presumably have to be provided with either a transcendental or an analytic justification, types of justification which I have rejected. (Ibid., p. 270)." However, for Kierkegaard historicism is an insufficient foundation for the ethical-religious: “Everything that becomes historical is accidental or contingent; it is precisely one factor in all becoming…Here again we have the root of the incommensurability that subsists between an historical truth and an eternal decision (Postscript, p. 90).”

“(1.21) Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else remains the same.”-- Tractatus
(∀x)(∀y)[{Ix ⊃ (Ix v ~Ix)} ⊃ Ryy] * (x :/: y)

Wittgenstein also rejects necessity except for logical necessity: “(6.37) A necessity for one thing to happen because another has happened does not exist. There is only logical necessity (Tractatus).” And again Wittgenstein states: “(6.3) Outside of logic everything is accidental.”  If the sun did not rise tomorrow, no law of logic would be violated, only our past experience. In the Tractatus bivalence is strictly a matter of logical propositional truth-functions; so that the negation symbol “~p” (not p) is a truth function of p; if p is true, then ~p is false. The law of non-contradiction and bivalence are only principles of conceptual organization. Wittgenstein in not an absolute nihilist denying all values, but rather value does not exist in the world as a thing; propositions of definite and indefinite description are only meaningful in denoting something (see, Russell’s Theory of Descriptions). Propositions of logic are only empty tautologies (A is not non-A) acting as pseudo-propositions that posit no real thing, or object. Factual descriptive propositions denote something in the world and have sense (Sinn); however, logical propositions themselves are forms of language (A ⊃ B), and denote nothing, having no referent, so that they are “sense-less” (Sinnolos): “Tautology, and contradiction are without sense (Tractatus, 4.461).”  Imperative moral “oughts” are only meaningful in relationship to the transcendental subject (Encycl., Vol. 8: Wittgenstein, p. 333).  Dr. J. Alberto Coffa’s term “Linguistic Kantianism” would aptly describe the Tractatus. Wittgenstein’s effort to find the limits of language and logic is not unlike Kant’s project of finding the boundary line of the limits of pure reason, i.e., the Kantian block. Whenever we view the world holistically, this is the mystical. Wittgenstein learned logic from Kierkegaard thanks to his older sister, Margarete, who gave him with the writings of her favorite philosopher (Wittgenstein’s Vienna, by Allan Janik & Stephen Toulmin, 1973, A Touchstone Book, p.172.).”

“(7) Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”-Tractatus

Lessing and Kierkegaard argue there is no rationally coherent bridge between historical finite knowledge and knowledge of the ethical-religious. This ought/is gap can only be crossed by an existential “leap” of commitment and faith. Macintyre writes in regard to the superior rationality of some ethical traditions, “It follows that the writing of this kind of philosophical history can never be brought to completion (AV., p. 270).” This is precisely Kierkegaard’s argument against endless systematic philosophical speculation: “…the System is almost finished, or at least under construction, and will be finished by next Sunday…(Postscript, p. 97).” 

Kierkegaard is the Real Postmodern Socrates

 

“…while Socrates politely and indirectly took away an error from the learner and gave him the truth, speculative philosophy takes the truth away politely and indirectly, and presents the learner with an error.”
—(Postscript, p. 197)

“If a man occupied himself, all his life through, solely with logic, he would nevertheless not become logic; he must therefore himself exist in different categories.”
—(Postscript, p. 86) 

Kierkegaard originally intended to write “Concluding Unscientific Postscript” as a critique of the doubting rationalist Rene Descartes, but decided instead that Hegel was a more appropriate example of the kind of abstract endless philosophical speculation that undermines the ethical-religious mode of human existence: “When the subject does not put an end to his reflection, he is mad infinite in reflection, i.e. he does not arrive at a decision…In so running wild in his reflection the individual becomes essentially objective, and loses more and more the decisiveness that inheres in subjectivity, its return back into itself…When the case becomes an objective one, the problem of an eternal happiness cannot arise, because such a happiness inheres precisely in subjectivity and its decisiveness (Ibid., p. 105).”

 

Kierkegaard’s polemic is the negative photo image of the Hegelian logical speculative system: it is concluding instead of never ending un-concluding speculative refection; un-scientific in being subjective and aporetic; and a postscript is only a fragment of some whole, “A fragment of a system is nonsense (Ibid., p. 98 ).” Instead of writing about the stages of universal world history and the teleological historical forms of life, Kierkegaard writes under a multiplicity of pseudonyms that symbolize the uncertainty of the individual subjective becoming self in an internal dialectic of the overlapping aesthetic-ethical-religious stages of human existential being. Kierkegaard defends faith as the antithesis of Hegelian absolute knowledge. (see, “Søren Kierkegaard | Faith as a Passion” video lecture by Dr. Gregory B. Sadler). The Platonic Socrates is also anti-systematic if we do not include the Oracle of Delphi maxim, “Know thyself.”

Truth is Subjectivity 

Kierkegaard’s conception of bivalence separates the question of truth for human being into an objective problem and a subjective problem; the first problem regards the question of historical accuracy, the second subjective problem concerns the individual person’s relation to the ethical-religious. Kierkegaard argues that subjective truth ultimately cannot be based on solving the objective problem. Kierkegaard is not advocating empty careerist “decisionism” to choose for the sake of choosing; instead, the ethical-religious relation to truth must be intentionally grasped passionately, personally, and subjectively. “Infinite passion” is lost if the ethical-religious is reduced to objective historical events—to a collection of facts and proofs that “trick” one into becoming religious. The loss of passionate concern is due to an “objective tendency,” and best described in Kierkegaard’s re-telling the parable of the foolish virgins whereof the infinite passion of expectation (the oil) had been lost to the attitude of detached objective contemplation: 

“The foolish virgins had lost the infinite passion of expectation. And so their lamps were extinguished. Then came the cry: The bridegroom cometh. Thereupon they run to the market place to buy new oil for themselves, hoping to begin all over again, letting bygones be bygones. And so it was, to be sure, everything was forgotten. The door was shut against them, and they were left outside; but the sober truth; for they had made themselves strangers, in the spiritual sense of the word, through having lost the infinite passion (Postscript, p. 20).”

Kierkegaard’s definition of truth is not an alien concept in some religions; infinite passion in the realm of the subjective is required to determine truth for “truth is subjectivity.” Truth in the religious sphere of human being concerns the inward mode of the individual relating to the spiritual-religious way of being. In this sense, truth is the inward relationship of the subject. Kierkegaard takes his examples of truth as subjectivity from the New Testament conflict of intentionality between Christ and the Old Testament legalistic Pharisees who expanded the Ten Commandments into multiple volumes of oppressive rules and regulations (Matthew: 23); and in another biblical reference, the intentionality of the poor widow’s half-cent mite offered as a sacrifice which does not obey the objective rules of simple arithmetic, and surpasses the wealthy donor’s proud exhibition of a capricious gratuity (Mark: 12). 

The counter-viewpoint might be raised that truth is better found in the mediation of the objective and subjective (Kant). However, Kierkegaard’s response is that such mediation is fixed and static while the existing individual is in a dynamic changing state of becoming; thus, the symbolic meaning of his multiple selves as literary pseudonyms. Kierkegaard is unable to even objectively establish the reality of his own self-identity in an internal dialectic of disintegration, much less the meaning of universal world history, or of God. 

“…the object is what is true.”

—Hegel on perception: or the thing and deception (Spirit, para. 117)

Kierkegaard’s definition of truth is exactly opposite to that understanding of truth found in the scientific detached objective realm. The speculative philosopher says, “…subjectivity is untruth, but says it exactly conversely, by saying that objectivity is the truth (Postscript, p. 185).” Consequently, the speculative philosopher of “letter-theology” is concerned with “what” is said, whereas subjective truth is centered on “how” the truth is said. The truth-function of spiritual-religious utterances is in the subjective realm; truth is determined by its subjective character and not by external objective criteria, “…what is in itself true may in the mouth of such and such a person become untrue…it refers to the relationship sustained by the existing individual, in his own existence, to the content of his utterance…Only in subjectivity is there decisiveness, to seek objectivity is to be in error (Ibid., p. 181).”  Objective contemplation requires disinterested detachment of the abstract inquirer that “becomes almost a ghost”; subjective contemplation requires passionate participation of the becoming individual in existential uncertainty (see, “Soren Kierkegaard on Truth and Subjectivity,” video lecture by Professor Mark Thorsby). 

I should note that Wittgenstein believed, and was likely influenced by Kierkegaard, that the ethical-religious dimension of life is in crisis from the ideological dominance of reductionist mechanistic-positivistic science: a form of objective thinking that the scientists (Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap) of the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivism named their new scientific movement in honor of Wittgenstein’s early explication of logical atomism in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). The logical positivists based their school of science on a misreading of the mystic author who confirms the Kantian block separating the sayable (phenomenal) from the unsayable (noumenal). The irony of this important historical step, or misstep in modern scientific philosophy is absent from After-Virtue’s critical review of traditions. 

Anyone who has experienced the problems encountered in asking the strangely difficult question, “What is virtue?” will find the Postscript surprisingly intelligible. The search for historical proof is a search for objective certainty that can only be an inadequate “approximation” to base one’s spiritual being when such a life is uncertain and, “… must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water…(Postscript, p. 182).” In the dialectical becoming of the existing individual, objective certainty within the ethical-religious life is not achievable.

The Straw Man Critique of Kierkegaardian Subjectivity*

MacIntyre rejects Kierkegaard’s multiple definitions of subjectivity in the following passage authored in 1964:

"If I hold that truth is subjectivity, what status am I to give to the denial of the proposition that truth is subjectivity? If I produce arguments to refute this denial I appear committed to the view that there are criteria by appeal to which the truth about truth can be vindicated. If I refuse to produce arguments, on the grounds that there can be neither argument nor criteria in such a case, then I appear committed to the view embrace with sufficient subjective passion is as warranted as any other in respect of truth, including the view that truth is not subjective. This inescapable dilemma is never faced by Kierkegaard and consequently he remains trapped in it (Alasdair MacIntyre, "Existentialism", A Critical History of Western Philosophy, ed. D.J. O'Connor, New York: The Free Press, 1964, p. 512)(pdf.).” 

Notice that MacIntyre used the word “trapped,” to describe Kierkegaard’s viewpoint; not unlike “aporetic” that describes Socrates’ early dialogues—“no way out.” MacIntyre’s criticism of Moore’s emotivism, and Kierkegaard’s thesis that “truth is subjectivity” is taken out of context and attacks “subjectivity” as though this term only refers to scientific logical bivalence; an easy straw man to attack since a strict interpretation of logico-empiricist bivalence as subjectivity is prima fascia absurd. Creating ambiguity is gleefully intentional by Kierkegaard to provoke his critics and fulfill his own described role as the modern Socratic gadfly biting the speculative Hegelians—to make life more difficult, unlike modernity that seeks to make everything easier. Kierkegaard authored the Postscript, but under the pseudonym of non-Christian Johannes Climacus until after Postscript is completed and a new pseudonym appears as “anti-Climacus“ who professes to be a devoted Christian. Each pseudonym represents some aspect of human self-consciousness. Even the Cartesian cognito of  “I think; therefore I am” is an ambiguous dynamically evolving spiritual “I.” This evolution, an inward struggle, mirrors Kierkegaard’s own “deliberative” process of becoming a Christian; the Postscript is written to answer the subjective question, “How am ‘I’ to become a Christian?” and not the objective question, “What is Christianity” (Walter Lowrie, Postscript, p. xvii). The subjective question short-circuits the objective questions of the ethical-religious: “Lessing was no speculative philosopher; hence he assumed the opposite, namely, that an infinitesimal difference makes the chasm infinitely wide, because it is the presence of the leap itself that makes the chasm infinitely wide (Ibid., p. 104).” 

* While reviewing Kierkegaard for this essay, I noticed that one encyclopedia article about Kierkegaard was completely polemical and ended with a happy section subtitled, “Criticisms of Kierkegaard.” I was very disappointed for I wanted to know more about Socratic irony! I looked up the article’s author and it was by…The Professor, Alasdair MacIntyre (Article: Kierkegaard, 1967: Encycl. Vol. 4, p. 336). 

The chasm is infinitely wide since logical bivalence in the ethical-religious sphere of human existence is inadequate in itself to make an existential decision; consequently, The Professor has committed the fallacy of Μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος by switching to a different genus where objective logical bivalence is indeterminate. Postscript is written for the person weighing the existential decision of what it means to become ethical-religious and examined the objective questions of speculative philosophies that only lead to existential indecision. Postscript is meant to minister to those suffering ethical-religious aporetic indecision. The concept of objective empirico-logical bivalence applied to aporia is as useless as a polygraph test, or the pseudo objective science of phrenology. 

MacIntyre’s article summarized that, “The essence of the Kierkegaardian concept of choice is that it is criterionless (MacIntyre on Kierkegaard, 1967: Encycl. Vol. 4, p. 337).” But this aporia is reached only after the search for criteria finds no absolute objective scientific principle or fact to determine the meaning of virtue, nor any justification for religious commitment. Kierkegaard is telling us about an inward spiritual attitude when speaking of subjectivity: “The Socratic inwardness in existing is an analogue to faith…(Postscript, p.184).” Further in MacIntyre’s article: “In one passage Kierkegaard asserts that if one chooses with sufficient passion, the passion will correct whatever was wrong with the choice. Here his inconsistency is explicit (MacIntyre on Kierkegaard, Encycl. Vol. 4, p. 338 ).” The passage was not cited, but I could understand how; for example, the widow’s half-cent mite could be of greater value when her subjective intent is different than an offering of greater objective value given out of enforced duty, habit, caprice, or hubris. The Professor writes, “According to his doctrine of choice, there can be no criterion of ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ but according to the values of his submerged romanticism…(Ibid., p. 338 ).” Actually, not submerged romanticism, but essentially Christian values: “Now if Christianity is essentially something objective, it is necessary for the observer to be objective. But if Christianity is essentially subjectivity, it is a mistake for the observer to be objective (Postscript. p. 51).” And MacIntyre writes of Kierkegaardian paradox: "When inconsistency results, he is all too apt to christen this inconsistency ‘paradox’ and treat its appearance as the crowning glory of his argument (Encycl. Vol. 4, p. 338 ).” 

There are at least five possible distinctions of the term “paradox” (παράδοξος; “contrary to opinion”). German Theologian, Paul Tillich, distinguished what paradox does not mean in relation to the 1.) Reflective-rational 2.) Dialectical-rational 3.) Irrational 4.) Absurd 5.) Nonsensical. Tillich’s own definition is its original root meaning: “We must state in affirmative terms that the concept should be understood in the literal sense of the word. That is paradoxical which contradicts the doxa, the opinion which is based on the whole of ordinary human experience, including the empirical and the rational (Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, p. 92, or pdf. pagination, 203)(Volumes 1-3).” 

Science treats human beings objectively as detached things, or objects: “But such a scientific method becomes especially dangerous and pernicious when it would encroach also upon the sphere of the spirit. Let it deal with plants and animals and stars in that way; but to deal with the human spirit in that way is blasphemy, which only weakens ethical and religious passion (Kierkegaard, Journal VII A 186, 187-200, year 1853, in Postscript, p. xv).”  Humans experience inward subjective intentionality that even The Professor acknowledges in his own work After-Virtue that carries the metaphor of the “good” chess player throughout the study: "There are thus two kinds of good possibly to be gained by playing chess. On the one hand there are those goods externally and contingently attached to chess-playing...On the other hand there are the goods internal to the practice of chess which cannot be had in any way but by playing chess...they can only be identified and recognized by the experience of participating in the practice in question (AV., p.188-9)." And more specifically about intentionality: "Imagine an immensely skilled chess player who cares only about winning and cares for that very much. His skills are such that he ranks with the grandmasters. Thus he is a great chess player. But since what he cares about is only winning-and perhaps the goods contingently attached to winning, goods such as fame, prestige, and money-the good that he cares about is in no way specific to chess or to games of the same type as chess, as any good that is, in the sense in which I use the expression, internal to the practice of chess must be (AV., p. 374)." “Intentionality is one meaning of Kierkegaard’s use of the term, “subjectivity.”

Socratic Irony 

Kierkegaard equivocates with other shades of meaning of the term “subjectivity” in his own writings. Irony can be defined as “double meaning.” Kierkegaard thought Socrates’ attitude and subjective mode of being best represented the meaning of truth four hundred years before Christianity. For Kierkegaard, the first existentialist is Socrates and even titled his master thesis, “On the Concept of Irony, with Constant Reference to Socrates (1841) believing that the best term to described Socratic aporia is “irony”: 

“[Socratic] irony [is] the infinite absolute negativity. It is negativity, because it only negates; it is infinite, because it does not negate this or that phenomenon; it is absolute, because that by virtue of which it negates is a higher something that still is not. The irony established nothing, because that which is to be established lies behind it...”— The Concept of Irony (pdf. text). 

Irony is negative because it clarifies by saying what something is not; not by direct objective communication, but by subjective appropriation that can only be expressed indirectly: "An actual emphasis on existence, such a form will have to be an indirect form, namely, the absence of a system. But this again must not degenerate into an asseverating formula, for the indirect character of the expression will constantly demand renewal and rejuvenation in the form (Postscript, p. 111)."  According to Kierkegaard the ironic Socrates of Ancient Greece was the best existential model suited for human spiritual-religious existence in a modern industrial society (This is a fascinating area to study, and I only scratched the surface; see video lecture, Soren Kierkegaard: "Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity," by Dr. Jon Stewart). One commentator noted that Socrates is pedagogical, while Hegel is non-pedagogical. One of MacIntyre’s chapters in After-Virtue is titled “Nietzsche or Aristotle?" (AV., p. 109) which may be a false dilemma. Instead of the universally lovable Fredrick Nietzsche, what if the existential choice is between a "Socratic Kierkegaard or Aristotle?"

Wittgenstein’s Unscientific Conclusion on Virtue 

“…both the ethical as well as the aesthetic cannot be articulated, but an awareness of them ‘points to’ something: a hidden law, or obscure paradigm. In his lectures on aesthetics, however, there is a slight twist: here, at least, Wittgenstein is able to draw the conclusion that an articulation of the hidden law itself is also unnecessary when it comes to appreciating the things that correspond to it: ‘That they point, is all there is to it’ “--(Verdonschot, Clinton Peter. ‘‘ ‘That They Point Is All There Is to It’: Wittgenstein’s Romanticist Aesthetics.’ Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics LVIII/XIV, no. 1 (2021): pp. 72–88 )(pdf.).”

 

Pointing with Numbers and Virtues

When Meno was asked by Socrates to define virtue, he could only give particular instances of virtue (of a leader, a wife, or children) and not say what virtue is in-itself, or the whole of virtue. Socrates appears to be committing a category error first formally stated by ordinary language philosopher, Gilbert Ryle in 1949. This error is defined as “semantic or ontological error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category, or alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.” Ryle gives an example of this conceptual error in the case of a professor giving guest tours of a university pointing out the particular parts of the campus such as the administrative staff offices, student body sports field, crowded classrooms, and busy library to which the guest responds, “But where is the university?” These organized structures forming the campus are the university; not some separate entity, or substance, or property independent from its physical existence. Language distorts by inherently positing objects, or reifies concepts as if they are things, or objects.

“People say again and again that philosophy doesn’t really progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks…It is because our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions.” --Wittgenstein in “Culture and Value,”(1980) by Peter Winch

Wittgenstein defined an “absolute norm” as not the sum of its parts; this “obscure paradigm” is a “hidden law” that cannot be articulated, or derived from empirical facts: the search for an absolute norm is aporetic. On the other hand, a relative norm is an empirically describable fact that “…refers to a correct set of affairs relative to a predetermined purpose. In its absolute sense, by contrast, ‘good’ refers to a norm that obtains regardless of any predetermination of purpose and, consequently, cannot be derived from any state of affairs. But whereas judgments of relative value are, ultimately, both unproblematic as well as trivial, judgments (Verdonschot).” Dr. Verdonschot argues that Wittgenstein reasons absolute good (good in-itself) cannot be reduced to describable states of affairs, which is not to reject the criterionless criterion of absolute good, just that it cannot be articulated as a science, or based on some absolute ground. For the later Wittgenstein there is not one model of reason, but innumerable language-games constructed from the forms of life: the concepts of both “games,” and “virtue” have no single essence.

“Goethe says ‘They all point to a hidden law.’ But you wouldn’t ask: What is the law? That they point is all there is to it.”--Wittgenstein

Noncognitivists such as Wittgenstein and some emotivists view moral statements as imperatives, or intention, resolutions, or a guide for decision making, but always “…directly or indirectly, action-guiding (Encycl. Vol. 3, p. 129).” In Ernest Cassirer’s first volume of his book on the philosophy of symbolic form concerning language, the evolutionary development of the concept of number is traced to the acts of reaching, pointing, grasping, and counting objects, then leading to the abstract concept of number as having no attributes; and finally, to number as de-materialized pure form. Early computer research developed the technology of the desktop mouse based on the intuitive act of grasping with the human hand. In other words, in the beginning is the act: “Sensory-physical grasping becomes sensory interpretation.” Experimental psychologist, Wilhelm Wundt, wrote regarding this grasping behavior:

“Genetically considered, this is nothing other than the grasping movement attenuated to an indicative gesture. We still find it among children in every possible intermediary phase from the original to the later form. The child still clutches for objects that he cannot reach because they are too far away. In such cases, the clutching movement changes to a pointing movement. Only after repeated efforts to grasp the objects, does the pointing movement as such establish itself (Wilhelm Wundt, 'Die Sprache, Völkerpsychologie', zd ed., /, 139 ff. quoted in "The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Vol. 1, Language," Ernest Cassirer, p. 181)(pdf.).”

Cassirer tells us this “clutching at a distance” has great significance and is the basis of the concept of number. Like a number, the abstract term virtue is pointing at something. On the one hand, a number can represent any item, having no attribute itself; however, numbers do have an essence. On the other hand, absolute virtue has no essence, only relative empirical attributes that one can point toward. With numbers I can recognized the essence of “2” in an infinite series, or as “4 –2= 2,” or two as the square root of four; “2√22 ” even though a number has no real attributes. Absolute essenceless virtue is not an object and cannot be used to calculate magnitudes like numerical essences, but can only be shown. Initial use of ethical terms like virtue is merely deictic (A deictic word, such as I or there. Greek: deiktikos, from deiktos, “able to show directly,” from deiknunai, meaning “to show”), but over time the inherent distortion of reified language attempts to transform these deictic terms into apodictic propositions ("Apodictic" Ancient Greek: ἀποδεικτικός, "capable of demonstration") referring to things. 

“Philosophers use a language that is already deformed as though by shoes 

that are too tight.”-Wittgenstein

Dr. Greg Salyer insightfully commented on the viewpoint of anti-speculative philosopher Kierkegaard, “Systematizing thought kills Life.” The poets tell us the Tree of Knowledge is not the Tree of Life. Along this imprecise line between thought and life, language impulsively reifies concepts--such as logical constants, or absolute virtue--that are not objectively existing things, but pseudo-objects in the dynamic flow of the living stream of meaning reality. The dead letter of language and logic seem to lead us into either contradiction, or tautologous aporetic circles while the present contingencies of finite human life demand authentic existential decision and spiritual faith. Hegel may have been referring to these two realms of subjective contemplation, and participatory action when he wrote:

"What is a contradiction in the realm of the dead is not one in the realm of life."
--Hegel

 

FallenLights Scars

I can't stop feeling this way

Can you feel it in the air?

When you imagine, in your dreams

It's like they're coming to life

I know I can feel it.

How about you?

 

END

Appendix G, Part IV: Third Counter-Argument on MacIntyre and Relativistic Historicism

Third Counter-Argument:
MacIntyre leaves the door open for Relativistic Historicism while advocating a particular tradition of ethical thought.

 
 “Hence this kind of historicism, unlike Hegel's, involves a form of fallibilism; it is a kind of historicism which excludes all 

claims to absolute knowledge.”-(AV., p. 270).

 
“I’d Rather Have a Bottle in Front of Me, Than to Have a 

Frontal Lobotomy.”-Rhyme

 

The bottle is Kantian anti-realism, and Hegelian anti-realist historical teleology; these are the two necessary ingredients that After Virtue must have to achieve its goals of defining virtue, and establishing an absolute foundation for MacIntyre’s normative ethics and realist epistemology. However, what if virtue is not an object as assumed by a naturalistic object-oriented ontology while history shows no necessity, but rather is the realm of pure accidental contingency? Unfortunately, the useful concepts of Kantian anti-realism, and Hegelian historical-ontological teleology have been rejected by MacIntyre as not universal (WJWR, p. 11). These occult concepts of the active subject, ought/is, and historical teleology are rebuffed only to be smuggled through the back door again bearing new aliases. In After-Virtue (Chapter 7, Fact, Explanation and Expertise) Kuhnian anti-realism masks Kantian idealism, and Hegelian historicism is introduced under the pseudonyms of “tradition,” “context,” “telos,” and “narrative.” In his book, “Whose Justice? Which Rationality?” the term “tradition” is used 225 times—it means history. In After Virtue the term “telos,” is used 32 times: “context,” 63 times; and, “narrative,” 59 times: all concepts which embody a weak non-universalizable historicism. His version of historicism in After Virtue (“…my historicism,” AV, p. 269) seems to have not developed endogenously (internally), but exogenously as if it fell out of the sky. 

Let’s look at an example of this retranslation of concepts. MacIntyre rejects the ought/is distinction, but he is still able to retain an imperative it in the form of “telos,” meaning “goal,” or “end.” The end “goal” is now the imperative ought; the same Moorean ought/is distinction MacIntyre rejected earlier (AV. p. 57). The concept of teleology also creates a paradigmatic narrative for the moral agent that gives meaning and purpose to beliefs, actions, and worldviews. But what telos should we seek? To answer this question MacIntyre must find ethical necessity in the history of ethical traditions to validate Aristotelian realism; which is why he needed Kuhn’s anti-realist paradigmatic model of scientific progress. 

On the other hand, when it comes to Kuhn’s relative paradigms and the history of scientific progress; MacIntyre, with the help of philosopher of science Imre Laktos, lobotomizes the Kuhnian concept of scientific progress to only mean an “internalist” approach to paradigm shifts. MacIntyre reduces Kuhn’s anti-realist paradigm of science to exactly the kind of science he criticized postmodern empiricist instrumentalism of becoming: just pragmatic manipulation of means and ends. MacIntyre denies there are “transcendental properties as truth or apodictic certainty." And according to critic Dr. R. Stern, MacIntyre believes, 

“…the realist is wrong in thinking that any theory can have validity sub specie aeternitatis, from the standpoint of timeless truth, the progressive (or regressive) character of any conceptual change can only be judged by reference to the historical problematic of which it is part; for the issue as to whether or not it represents an advance on this predecessors requires that we have an understanding of the historical tradition in which it has a place (After MacIntyre: critical perspectives on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, edited by John Horton and Susan Mendus in “MacIntyre and historicism” by Robert Stern (1994), p.153)(pdf.)(Abbreviated as ‘Stern’).” 

Inconsistently, at the very beginning of After Virtue, the image presented was of realist science with an essence, or sub specie aeternitatis of which we only have fragments of a whole, and only needing re-construction. MacIntyre tells a parable describing the destruction of all scientific knowledge in some catastrophe where laboratories, books, scientific instruments are destroyed and physicists murdered by an anti-science cult (kind of prophetic), then there is a change of heart and people what to recover scientific knowledge: 

"…enlightened people seek to revive science, although they have largely forgotten what it was. But all that they possess are fragments: a knowledge of experiments detached from any knowledge of the theoretical context which gave them significance; parts of theories unrelated either to the other bits and pieces of theory which they possess or to experiment; instruments whose use has been forgotten; half-chapters from books, single pages from articles, not always fully legible because torn and charred. Nonetheless all these fragments are reembodied in a set of practices which go under the revived names of physics, chemistry and biology (AV., p. 1).” 

In the book, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990), MacIntyre breaks down ethics into three versions of morality: Encyclopedical (Enlightenment Instrumental Rationalism), Genealogy (Nietzschean Nihilism), and Traditional (Thomism). His viewpoint is that natural science and the science of morality are commensurable: "The modern contrast between the sphere of morality on the one hand and the sphere of the human sciences on the other is quite alien to Aristotelianism because, as we have already seen, the modern fact-value distinction is also alien to it (AV.,p. 82)." Again, he wrote, “The philosophy of physical science is dependent on the history of physical science. But the case is no different with morality ...(AV., p. 266)." Is the study of normative ethics commensurate to methodological empirical science? Socrates’ experimental test asking Meno’s slave questions of geometry suggests ethical knowledge is not commensurable with science, but with a priori intuition which MacIntyre absolutely rejects (AV., p. 69).” How is the necessity of ethical imperatives to be founded on historical contingency? And again,”...one theory rationally superior to another is no different from our situation in regard to scientific theories or to moralities-and-moral philosophies.(AV, p. 270).” However, there is a reversal that takes place since the publication of After-Virtue: not only is science relative to paradigm, but morality is also relative to history. Critic Dr. R. Stern writes, “...like [Larry] Laudan MacIntyre abandons any talk of such transcendental properties as universal validity or timeless truth for ethical systems, arguing that there is no Archimedean point in practical reason that could give ethical thought the necessary absolute foundation (Stern, p. 152).” This narrative sounds like postmodernism to me! It is not that MacIntyre happily chooses this modernist relativist position, but his own reasoning forces him into pluralist conclusions—and this shift really should not be turned into an Anytus political ad hominem attack against him; rather, it is aporia. And this is my view of MacIntyre’s critique of postmodernist relativism. 

 

The Historicist Nemesis

 

"What is true is precisely what is made"—G. Vico

 

A main argument of postmodern criticism is historicist interpretation of past events undermines traditional beliefs in morality opening the door to epistemological and moral relativism which then leads to a cultural crisis of knowledge, meaning, and normative values. The various schools of historicism are concerned with primarily four issues: 1.) The concept of historical change, 2.) Historicism as a scientific methodology, 3.) Historicism understood as a worldview 4.) Historicism as a moral crisis. My summaries of historicism will take note of each school’s relevant position on these issues. This analysis is based on the scholarly work of Phenomenologist Dr. Maurice Mandelbaum, Professor at Johns Hopkins University, in fact an important original scholar in the United States on this very issue of historicism.

 

The first scholar to know regarding historicism is botanist Carl Prantl (1849-1893) who described the work of historian Giambattista Vico (1663-1744) as “historicism” as he attempted to combine the humanities into a single science to explain the life and death cycles of societies and cultures in his book, “New Science (1725).” Also economist, Carl Menger (1840-1921) was the founder of the Austrian School of Economics who complained that economic theory was becoming too dependent on the study of economic history thereby introducing a negative view of historicism as it was thought to be out of its realm of expertise without a clear understanding of its use in the science of economics (Encycl. Vol. 4, p. 22).  Marx’s first volume of Capital was not published in German until 1867, and in English until 1887 in this timeline.

 

Mandelbaum believes that after World War I the question of historical change became more concerning as a method of evaluating cultural values. Protestant theologian Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) was concerned of historicism’s usefulness for understanding the relationship between culture and historical change. Troeltsch defined historicism not methodologically, but as an erroneous presupposition “…to view all knowledge and experience in the context of historical change (Ibid., p. 22).” He thought that natural science and historical science were distinct fields of study and that historicism would cause widespread epistemological and ethical skepticism. Troeltsch died before he could explain his religious views: he thought the crisis was “inevitable,” but there was nothing to fear.

 

Sociologist Karl Mannheim (1893-1947) defined historicism as a “temporalistic view of the world (Ibid., p. 23).” Mannheim did not believe that historicism is a crisis, but instead theorized that the Enlightenment has held over some theological beliefs from the Middle Ages that presuppose an “atemporal character of judgments and reason,” (Platonic Realism concerned with static being), and this worldview (Weltanschauung) is being replaced by a new concept of “temporalistic relativism.” He proposed that modern skepticism does not necessarily have to result from this new view of dynamic temporal change and accepted ethical pluralism positively since all values are grounded in human existence, which could be reconciled with other cultural norms through the study of critical sociology.

 

German historian Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954) did not view historicism as some crisis, and accepted the new dynamic view of history; but unlike Troeltsch and Mannheim, regarded as more important the concept of human individuality and how persons fared in society during historical development. Meinecke was an early Nazi supporter, and held life long anti-Semitic views.  

 

Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) was an idealistic philosopher critical of both epistemological positivism, and materialist ontology. He defined historicism as the self-development of the human spirit and “the whole of reality as encompassed within history: Life and reality were nothing but the ever changing manifestations of the spirit (Encycl. Vol. 4, p. 23).” Croce argued that materialistic naturalistic science is inadequate as a methodological paradigm to interpret the unique histories created by self-conscious human beings. Modern thought has failed to take seriously Hegel’s philosophy of history. Croce’s anti-naturalism and anti-positivism brings a “religious sense of mystery” to his concept of historicism. Hegel’s secular understanding of history is in part taken from the New Testament Christian notion of the eschatology of end times. Orthodox Marxism is not a non-Christian heresy.

 

Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper on Historicism

There is some interesting background information about Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992) who is difficult to summarize since nearly everything about him is fake; his credentials as an economist are completely fabricated including his sham Nobel Prize in Economics owned and awarded by a Swedish bank and has nothing to do with Alfred Nobel. The famous economist and lifelong professor of the at London School of Economics, Lionel Ribbons, was insanely anti-Keynesian and attempted to mentor von Hayek into the antithesis of Keynesian economic presented in his famous work “The General Theory Of Employment Interest And Money (1938 ).” The problem was no one could understand Hayek’s lectures, nor his writing of “The Pure Theory of Capital “ that even the Neo-liberal monetary economist Milton Friedman complained, “I am an enormous admirer of Hayek, but not for his economics. I think Prices and Production was a very flawed book. I think his capital theory book is unreadable (Wapshott, p. 183).” 

“I’m sure that was wrong, and yet I have done it. It was just an inner need to do it.”
—von Hayek in "Keynes Hayek:The Clash that Defined Modern Economics,"
by Nicholas, 2011 by Wapshott, p. 215

And then one day in 1949, the self professed Catholic, von Hayek, walked out of his house abandoning his wife, Hella, and their two children Christine (17 year old), and Laurence (12) to marry his cousin Helena; then keeping true to his economic and political theories promptly signed up for Social Security benefits after Charles Koch sent him in a letter with a SSI brochure (Charles Koch to Friedrich Hayek: Use Social Security! by Yasha Levine and Mark Ames). Ribbon was so disgusted with von Hayek that he resigned from the Neo-liberal think tank formed in 1947 known as the “Mont Pelerin Society” in which von Hayek decided to impose their Neoliberal revolution covertly wherever they could. Philosopher G.E. Moore was a much better moral person than von Hayek. Nevertheless, von Hayek’s junk economics is taught uncritically in nearly all United States University economic departments that now require two economics departments Professor Michael Hudson has noted: one department teaches Austrian economic hokum that does not describe economic reality, and the other department is called the “business school” of economics to actually teach graduates how to manage a business that is in some cases structured never to earn a profit to avoid tax laws. Hayek’s Austrian Neoliberalism has resulted in a 40-year crime wave emanating all across America from the Wall Street Corporate Socialists. Von Hayek’s economic version of “Theranos-babble” has led to a violent revival of fascist movements all over the globe, and infiltrating every level of American institutions. 

While in Great Britain, before he fled his family and poor academic reputation at the London School of Economics, von Hayek worked with philosopher Karl Popper (1920-1994) to fabricate a boutique custom-made version of historicism that could go along with the era of Cold War sociological propaganda that is still alive and well today in American and British academia in addition to internet social media. Hayek and Popper focused on historicism as a worldview, and not on the radical differences between the physical sciences and social science methodologies. They instead attacked four theses of historicism: 1.) They attacked the concept of the laws of development of social wholes (societies) 2.) They denied these laws of social development could be known 3.) Rejected the belief predictions based on these laws could be made about cultures and societies 4.) They added “holism” to their definition of historicism to include Hegel, Comet, and Marx’s views. Although these three philosophers had different viewpoints, they shared some common beliefs: 1.) The social whole is greater than the parts and not reducible to individuals 2.) These laws of the whole could be known 3.) Predictions could be made on the knowable laws of the whole. Popper and Hayek wrongly interpret Marx’s concept of historical materialism as “fate,” or “destiny.” Neither Marx, nor Engels ever used the term “dialectical materialism” in their writings. (See, “Open Society and its Enemies,” by Karl Popper, 1945)(pdf.). 

Dr. Mandelbaum argues that historicist theses 3 (prediction), and 4 (holism) are not necessary to the concept of historicism: “…there seems to be no necessity for identifying historicism with holistic thought and with a belief in the possibility of prediction, as Popper and Hayek, tend to do…Popper, in his characterization…tends to separate his own use of…’historicism’ from other, more frequent uses (Encycl. Vol. 4, p. 24).” Mandelbaum formulates his own definition of historicism as a methodological principle of explanation and evaluation, and not as a worldview (Weltanschauung): “…the belief that an adequate understanding of the nature of anything and an adequate assessment of its values are to be gained by considering it in terms of the place it occupied and the role it played with in a process of development (Ibid., p. 24).” Mandelbaum’s methodological historicism is analogous to Descartes’ methodological doubt that attempts to establish an epistemology based on absolute certainty; Descartes never doubted the world existed, or that knowledge existed—his methodological doubt is not a world view, nor a Life philosophy. Likewise, Mandelbaum’s historicism is methodological, and not a Weltanschauung, but rather a tool for analysis. 

No Straw men, Please 

One easy way to build a straw man argument is to simply interpret nearly any point of view as reductionist as possible--such as emotivism, logical positivism, materialism, and historicism—and make that the object of attack. All of these historicist theses have an element of truth, but they can easily be falsified by presenting a reductionist version of these insights. Mannheim argues that everything humans do is related, and influenced by our material existence, but it does not follow that material existence determines all that humans do. This is how we learn through deliberately lazy universities the old-saw of the materialist interpretation of Marxism because a reductionist stance is easier to falsify while no other explanations, or evaluations are needed. A second method for building a straw man is to take a viewpoint out of context so as to render it incomprehensible, or inconsistent; Moore’s emotivism is one example, and Kierkegaard’s definition of truth will be another example later in my fourth After Virtue counter-argument.

Deconstructing Kantian Idealism, and Hegelian Historicism

“Hegel sees the history of philosophy as an enormous Socratic dialogue,

with views emerging and engaging in mutual elenchus….”

—L. Braver, p. 64.

Hegel was in a sense the earliest Neo-Kantian: he disagreed with Kant on some issues because he thought Kant did not go far enough with his critical analysis of knowledge. I want to return to using Braver’s cleaver and very useful scheme for comparing Kant to Hegel’s critique of reason with a limited summary of the issues they have in contention. First, Hegel did not like the epistemic distance between phenomenal knowledge and noumenal reality; that is, between appearances and the thing-in-itself of which we can say nothing determinate about since it is out of range of possible human experience. Kantian transcendentalism is an ahistorical philosophy of epistemic limitation that Hegel could not accept seeing it instead as Kant’s arbitrary limitation of knowledge. A second point of contention is why Kant selected the table of categories as the “necessary conditions for the possibility of experience,” and not some other group of categories?  Thirdly, Hegel thought bivalence hindered holistic understanding by disintegrating an otherwise necessary integrated pattern of the mind, or consciousness in human history: “…truth is not a minted coin (Spirit, para. 39).”

Both Kant and Hegel were committed to what Braver termed the Empirical Directive (ED) which he explains as “the strategy of studying transcendental subjectivity—that aspect of ourselves that is responsible for thinking and knowing—vicariously, through its activities in experience (Ibid., p. 60).” By closely observing Geist (meaning both mind or spirit) as it appears in time, Hegel believed the gap could be closed between thought and reality. The ahistorical Kant only sees one unified unchanging transcendental self of the logically a priori “I think…” acting on experience, but Hegel instead discovers a multiplicity of historical selves as “experience-organizers” not fully aware of the meaning of these plurality of worldviews causing a radical shift in the understanding of static selfhood and historical change. "This historical proliferation of conceptual schemes seems to dissolve reality into relativism. Hegel allows multiple schemes without giving up knowledge altogether (Ibid., p. 62)."

In other words, Hegel does his own continuation of Kant’s unfinished transcendental deduction (i.e., to justify the table of 12 categories are the a priori conditions necessary for experience), but instead discovers the categories of historical Life (see Jean Hyppolite’s “Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit,”(pdf.) trans. by Samuel Cherniak and John Heckman, 1974, Northwestern Univ. Press, Evanston, p. 170) and describes their empirical manifestations in his work, “The Phenomenology of Spirit,”(pdf.). In this famous book, Hegel writes phenomenological descriptions of these historical forms of life, and demonstrates by reductio ad absurdum arguments how they ultimately end in seemingly irresolvable contradictions, and incoherence. While describing the phenomena of mind in this long “journey of despair” as experienced through multiple cultural-historical eras, Hegel finds patterns of universal necessity within the historical experiences of life, and then begins to speak of them as an absolute idealist of a single reality, and not realities. The phenomenological “we” referred to in the Phenomenology of Spirit are those readers that see this historical pattern: “The Spirit shows itself as so impoverished that, like a wanderer in the desert craving for a mere mouthful of water, it seems to crave for its refreshment only the bare feeling of the divine in general. By the little which now satisfies Spirit, we can measure the extent of its loss (Ibid., para. 8 ).” 

“The introduction of movement into logic, is a sheer confusion of logical science…and to make movement explain logic, when as a matter of fact logic cannot explain movement.”-Kierkegaard (Postscript, p. 99-100).”

If MacIntyre borrows the same historicist solutions as Hegel, he will inherent the same historicist problems.  MacIntyre is searching in a very Hegelian manner for the same kind of necessity (rationality) in history, or historical traditions to justify one normative ethical tradition over another writing “I have sketched in Chapters 14 and 15 the rational case that can be made for a tradition in which the Aristotelian moral and political texts are canonical (AV, p. 257).” MacIntyre’s answer to these questions can be found in an examination of historical traditions, "...a great part of modern morality is intelligible only as a set of fragmented survivals from that tradition (AV, p. 257)."  Another paragraph states, “...it is the central thesis of After Virtue that the Aristotelian moral tradition is the best example we possess of a tradition whose adherents are rationally entitled to a high measure of confidence in its epistemological and moral resources (AV., p. 277).” In another book he writes, “We, whoever we are, can only begin enquiry from the vantage point afforded by our relationship to some specific social and intellectual past through which we have affiliated ourselves to some particular tradition of enquiry, extending the history of that enquiry into the present…(WJWR p. 401).” How can MacIntyre historically derive the imperative “oughts” of ethics from the indicative ‘is’ of contingent histories if they to lack any rationality with the rejection of any progress in the history of philosophy, “And I was to find that, by rejecting the conception of progress in philosophy that I had hitherto taken for granted, I had already taken a first step towards viewing the issues in which I was entangled in a new light (The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays, Vol. 1, Alasdair MacIntyre, University of Notre Dame (p.viii)(pdf.).” MacIntyre rejects the Enlightenment as a failure (AV, p. 276). 

However, MacIntyre is walking into Hegelian historicism backwards; but yet, his historist methodology is still a sound strategy in the search for virtue. MacIntyre deserves no ad hominem for his traditionalist historicism, but he is completely in opposition to the anti-historist postmodern critics of today. Also, I would describe the political stance of After Virtue generally as what Karl Mannheim would call, “Historical Conservatism.” (“Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge,” Karl Mannheim, (1929/1936) Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1954, p. 120)(pdf.).

…next:

Fourth Counter-Argument: Anti-Realism and Relativistic Historicism compound MacIntyre’s Ethical Skepticism