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