Ride, Horseman!

Steven Den Beste makes a rare and welcome guest appearance at Hot Air, where he writes about Yankee fans and Met fans.  Metaphorically.

Comments

[Jane]

I read that earlier and the last line made me happy.

[boris]

One of the sadder ironies of the telelogical POV (postmodern wishful reality) is how it provides proponents with fuel to blame the skeptical for preventing utopia ... by thinking wrong.

If everybody would just "think utopian" it would become "reality".

[Thomas Collins]

I believe the Commies had a more precise term for modern day teleologists: "useful idiots."

[glasater]

Teleology seems by my lights and complete distortion--to put it kindly--of a Christian's view of "faith".

OT--and referring to a previous thread of the BLS employment numbers--Spengler's 'take' is pretty interesting:

The level of un- and underemployment is so huge by historical standards as to make the usual sort of measurement questionable. With nearly 20% of the population unable to find proper work, there is a different sort of workforce. The vast majority of job creation in the US during the past two generations came from small businesses, which display only vaguely on the radar of government agencies as well as the bigger private surveys. The financial crisis killed small entrepreneurs as surely as Joseph Stalin killed the kulaks, and the roots of the economy are dead and dry.

And one other link from Big Govermmet:
A Tale of Two Presidents: How Media Treated Bush’s Unemployment #’s Compared to Obama’s.

[matt]

it's time for some constitutional challenges. LUN

[anduril]

Den Beste is confused. What he presents as "teleology"

A different epistemological view is teleology, which says that the universe is an ideal place. More or less, it exists so that we humans can live in it.

is actually a version of the well known Anthropic Principle, which was propounded by astro-physicists:

The principle was formulated as a response to a series of observations which seemed to show that the laws of nature and its physical constants were uncannily set in a way that allowed conditions for life.

In other words, the current state of the universe was contained in its beginning. From the standpoint of Big Bang Theory, this means that whatever caused the Big Bang (theists refer to this cause as God) caused the Big Bang with a view to the development of intelligent life.

Teleology, of course, comes from the Greek "telos," meaning an "end," in the sense of a final goal. In Greek and Western thought the "telos" of any being is its "essence" or nature: i.e., what it is. This means that whatever acts, does so with its end/essence in view--its acts are intended to fulfill its nature. In the case of human beings, of course, those actions are governed by our perception of what is good for a human being. As we all know, that perception of what is good is subject to debate. But the teleologist will reply that such disagreement doesn't change the reality of human nature: socialism or liberalism is based on a perception of what human nature is and what is needed to fulfill that nature, but experience tells us that that perception is erroneous, since it everywhere leads to human misery.

On a less complex level, we observe that every "type" of thing, whether plant or animal, acts in accordance with its "nature." A dog acts like a dog, a cat like a cat, etc. In other words, they act in light of what they are, which in teleological terms is their nature or "end/telos."

[clarice]

Well, it might not be a bad idea to see what some of the conservative legal foundations are up to and support them in these challenges. matt.

[anduril]

PUBLIC SERVICE POST!!

Since this is a short thread, it's a good place for a long post. Sadly, we've come to the point that a reminder of basic internet etiquette has become necessary. Therefore, I'm pasting in Wikipedia's excellent discussion of Godwin's Law:

Godwin's Law (also Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies) is, in Internet culture, an adage originated in 1990 by Mike Godwin that states:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.[1]

There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made the thread in which the comment was posted is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.

It is considered poor form to arbitrarily raise such a comparison with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized codicil that any such deliberate invocation of Godwin's Law will be unsuccessful.

Although in one of its early forms Godwin's Law referred specifically to Usenet discussions[2], the law can be applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and so on.

Debate and controversy

One common objection to the invocation of Godwin's Law is that sometimes using Hitler or the Nazis is an apt way of making a point. For instance, if one is debating the relative merits of a particular leader, and someone says something like, "He's a good leader, look at the way he's improved the economy," one could reply, "Just because he improved the economy doesn't make him a good leader. Even Hitler improved the economy." Some would view this as a perfectly acceptable comparison, because this example uses Hitler as a well-known example of an extreme case that requires no explanation to prove that a generalization is not universally true.

Some would argue, however, that Godwin's Law applies especially to the situation mentioned above, as it portrays an inevitable appeal to emotion as well as holding an implied ad hominem attack on the subject being compared, both of which are fallacious in irrelevant contexts. Hitler, on a semiotic level, has far too many negative connotations associated with him to be used as a valid comparison to anything but other despotic dictators. Thus, Godwin's Law holds even when making comparisons to normal leaders that, on the surface, would seem to be reasonable comparisons.

Godwin's standard answer to this objection is to note that Godwin's Law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided. Avoiding such hyperbole, he argues, is a way of ensuring that when valid comparisons to Hitler or Nazis are made, such comparisons have the appropriate impact.

Additional discussion

From a philosophical standpoint, Godwin's Law could be said to exclude normative (emotional) considerations from a positivist (rational) discussion. Frequently, a reference to Hitler is used as an evocation of evil. Thus a discussion proceeding on a positivist examination of facts is considered terminated when this objective consideration is transformed into a normative discussion of subjective right and wrong. It is exacerbated by the frequent fallacy of "Hitler did A, therefore A is evil" (Reductio ad Hitlerum). However, as noted, the exceptions to Godwin's Law include the invocation of the Hitler comparison in a positivist manner that does not have a normative dimension.

Many people incorrectly say Godwin's Law has been "violated" rather than "invoked." [1][2] Godwin's Law can only be violated by an infinitely long thread that never mentions Hitler or the Nazis.

[Thomas Collins]

Anduril, I doubt that Den Beste is confused. He acknowledges that today's teleology is not Aristotle's. I suspect that Den Beste would crush most folks today (including most classical scholars, although probably not Hanson) in a discussion of Aristotle's teleology.

[Carol Herman]

"Utopia." It's a Greek word meaning NEVER LAND. We just don't get there. Heck, we don't even get to sit in an "ideal" chair.

[anduril]

TC, I'm not familiar enough with him to say--he acknowledges that he's not using the word in an Aristotelian sense. What he is doing, however, is using it in an arbitrary sense that severs the word unwarrantedly from its proper etymology. A properly teleological philosophy is not to be equated with philosophical idealism.

He would have done much better to draw the very obvious comparison between modern ideologies and Plato's thought. The point of comparison is Plato's belief that true reality is conceptual, and thus that the individual matters little. Platonism is, in that sense, very precisely an ideal-ism. This is precisely the socialist attitude. For true Christian thought, that of Thomas Aquinas, for example, true reality is irreducibly an act rather than a concept and for that reason individuals, who alone are "in act," have ultimate value.

I'm sorry, I don't have a lot of time, so this is a bit of shorthand.

[anduril]

Interesting that the term "reductio ad Hitlerum," referenced in the discussion of Godwin's Law, was coined by none other than the spiritual godfather of the Neocons, Leo Strauss.

[mockmook]

Interesting that the term "reductio ad Hitlerum," referenced in the discussion of Godwin's Law, was coined by none other than the spiritual godfather of the Neocons, Leo Strauss.

Posted by: anduril | December 07, 2009 at 10:14 PM

How is that interesting?

And, what the hell did this thread have to do with Godwin's Law?

What is a Neocon?

[narciso]

I think when someone starts bringing that Jews are killing Gentiles for any arbitrary
reason, (the Mortara incident, the preconditions for the Damascus pogrom of 1860) specially from dubious sources, they
forfeit the benefit of the doubt

[anduril]

narciso, what you're saying makes no sense at all--and the reason is clearly that you couldn't possibly have read the articles.

1. The point of the wacky rabbi's pamphlet is precisely that Jews are NOT allowed to kill Gentiles for any arbitrary reason. That's why he goes into great detail regarding the circumstances in which Gentiles MAY be killed. Thus far, there's nothing wacky at all, but the devil (and the wackiness) is in the details.

2. Re the Edgardo Mortara incident, I'm on record on the internet that Pius IX was simply a criminal--if not in a technical legal sense, certainly in a moral sense, which is the only sense that should have mattered to him. (As an aside, I have other reasons for being unhappy with Pius IX, although the Mortara incident alone would have been enough.)

3. As for "dubious sources," you'll have to explain why Maariv and Haaretz are dubious sources of factual information. Moreover, I provided a list of Yesh Din board members, which included a former head of Israeli army intelligence and a former Attorney General of Israel. Those don't seem like "dubious sources" to me. But the bottom line is, this matter is not some "he said she said" thing--the ultimate source is that actual published pamphlet. Nobody is denying the pamphlet itself.

4. Instead of making vague allusions to history that amount to hints of anti-Semitism, why not just come right out and ask me what I think of these things?

[Porchlight]

Who brought up Hitler before anduril did? I must have missed something.

where he writes about Yankee fans and Met fans. Metaphorically.

This is funny, especially if you are a Yankees fan, which I am.

My all-time favorite Den Beste post, from the good old days, is here: USS Clueless: Poll Trends

That graph, posted in mid-late October 2004 iirc, gave me confidence going into November that Bush would win. His hypothesis that Kerry's September numbers were artificially depressed is interesting, too.

[anduril]

Who brought up Hitler before anduril did? I must have missed something.

clarice did, by suggesting that my posts should be read to the accompaniment of the Horst Wessel Lied--the Nazi Party anthem. Ask clarice for a link to it--I've never heard the tune but maybe it's linked at the Free Jonathan Pollard site she hangs around.

[Porchlight]

anduril,

Different thread and different day. Are you going to Godwin every thread from now on because you believe you were the target of a Nazi reference?

[anduril]

Maybe. I'll have to think about that. It's an interesting idea that you raise, but I'll probably reserve invocation of Godwin's Law for particular circumstances. My hope, of course, is that this reminder will get people to clean up their acts--although narciso @ 07:49 AM is not a hopeful sign.

However, as to this thread in particular, if you glance at my paste job of Godwin's Law you'll see that I give my reason for placing it here: this is a short, relatively inactive, thread.

[Thomas Collins]

Anduril stated:

"He would have done much better to draw the very obvious comparison between modern ideologies and Plato's thought. The point of comparison is Plato's belief that true reality is conceptual, and thus that the individual matters little. Platonism is, in that sense, very precisely an ideal-ism. This is precisely the socialist attitude. For true Christian thought, that of Thomas Aquinas, for example, true reality is irreducibly an act rather than a concept and for that reason individuals, who alone are "in act," have ultimate value."

I have a different understanding of Plato. Plato understood that at the level of earthly politics, common sense rules. For example, in the Republic, it is several times mentioned that it is unlikely that the philosopher would rule (at one point, it is stated that if it happened, it would be by chance). In addition, in the Republic, founding the ideal city in speech was clearly a means to come to terms with one's internal being, not a serious political proposal. Plato was well aware of how politics worked (witness the passage in the Republic on how the person wanting to be captain of the ship listened to those who could give guidance on how to convince others that the person would be the best captain, as opposed to listening to those who could advise on how to pilot the ship skillfully). Plato realized that humans most of the time dwelt in the world of shadows and opinions (even those of high intelligence). The world of proportion and forms was for esoteric schools of the type Plato ran. Contemplation for those capable is the highest level of human attainment, but is no way to run a society. I respectfully submit that a fair reading of the Platonic corpus indicates that Plato was of this view.

As to true Christian thought, I would suggest that the crucible of the Roman and Hellenistic world of the first few centuries AD might be considered as much as Aquinas if one is looking for the essence of Christian thought (Cyril of Alexandria and the debates concerning the Council of Chalcedon come to mind).

I know this is not a theologico-political blog, but sometimes I can't resist.

[anduril]

TC, if this isn't a theologico-political blog, then why did TM do the post for this thread on a theologico-political topic? :-)

While I'm a critic of Plato, I'll freely grant you that he was one of the pre-eminent geniuses in history. It would probably not be too much to say that Western history is in many respects a footnote to Plato. My take on Plato starts with Mircea Eliade's observation:

Plato could be regarded as the outstanding philosopher of "primitive mentality," that is, as the thinker who succeeded in giving philosophic currency and validity to the modes of life and behavior of archaic humanity. Obviously, this in no way lessens the originality of his philosophic genius, for his great title to our admiration remains his effort to justify this vision of archaic humanity theoretically, through the dialectic means which the spirituality of his age made available to him.

What Eliade is talking about is what he terms "archaic ontology," the worldview of man from as far back as we can discover that the world imitates or participates in heavenly "archetypes"--expressed in myth--which archetypes are true reality: they are the "really real" (ontos on) of Parmenides, while material reality is like shadows on a cave wall. It should be no mystery that Plato's Forms or Ideas are essentially an attempt to deal with this archaic ontology as a conceptual system rather than as myth (nor is it surprising that the old Plato in the Laws described himself as a "philomythos"). Thus, in the Republic, Plato really was trying to discover the heavenly archetype (Idea or Form) of the "polis," the Greek ideal of a polity. And in fact Plato in his real life traveled to Syracuse to try to educate a young king to be a true philosopher king who might establish a true (archetypal, Ideal) republic.

Plato's mistake was to believe that mythic thought could yield philosophical insight if handled in this dialectical manner. What in fact it led to was an impasse over the ability of man to know reality--remember, for Plato reality is abstract and conceptual, archetypal. The impasse was so real that the only thing Plato could offer was his myth of Anamnesis--the idea that we access Ideas/Forms as recollections.

Now, this myth of Anamnesis has been the template for ALL Western theory of knowledge (with one exception) ever since. Plato, of course, was mediated to the West basically through the Neoplatonism of Augustine. But you can draw a pretty straight line through Augustine's Christianization of Anamnesis in his doctrine of Divine Illumination to Descartes' "clear and distinct ideas" and to the culmination of the Augustinian tradition: Kant's Categories of Thoughts. Descartes and Kant are no more than secularized versions of Plato and Augustine (I leave out of consideration those who reacted against Platonism without being able to break free: Aristotle, Occam and others). All this has had an incalculable influence on the West--and in my opinion an influence for ill.

I don't disagree with your assertion of the influence of the first few centuries in shaping Christian thought. However, I view this period as did the great historian of philosophy, Etienne Gilson, who spoke of the period after, say, Justin Martyr, as "the Platonism of the Fathers." It was the period in which Christian theology became heavily Platonized. And here I draw a distinction between theology and doctrine. The bedrock of Christian doctrine, when all is said and done, remains the Creed: I believe in God, the almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth.

It is because Aquinas made the act of existing (rather than archetypal Ideas) the center of his thought that he, uniquely in my opinion, was able to capture the true spirit of Christianity and was able to break free of Platonism. To this day, of course, Aquinas has been largely misunderstood, not least by the current and penultimate popes. (This can be seen most clearly in Wojtyla's "Crossing the Threshhold of Hope" and in Ratzinger's "Salt of the Earth.") In Platonism there is no place for creation--certainly not for creatio ex nihilo. Instead, in Platonisms (Plotinus, for example) what we find are emanations of what are essentially abstract ideas, rather than the true Christian philosophy of finite existents that spring into act from the will of a God who is ipsum esse verum, the pure, unlimited, infinite act of existing/being. This is what Gilson calls Aquinas' metaphysics of Exodus or of the Name of God (I Am Who Am).

Sorry if that's a bit cryptic, but it's all I can do for now. Hopefully that'll give some idea of where I'm coming from.

[anduril]

I've just begun rereading H. D. F. Kitto's delightful classic, The Greeks. On p. 11 is a passage that's a perfect illustration of what teleology is about:

This certainly is what an ancient Greek would put first among his countrymen's discoveries, that they had found out the best way to live. Aristotle at all events thought so, for that saying of his which is usually translated 'Man is a political animal' really means 'Man is an animal whose characteristic is to live in a city-state [i.e., a polis, from which derives 'politics,' etc.].' If you did not do this, you were something less than man at his best and most characteristic. Barbarians did not; this was the great difference.

Man's nature is to be that sort of animal that is capable of life in a polis--that is the telos of man, the end or goal at which to aim.

[anduril]

From the above it should be clear that the notion of "teleology" is an expression of the Greek insight that the universe is intelligible--it is accessible to human reason. But that is very different from the view of the Platonic tradition that reality--and remember, for Platonists true reality is the realm of Ideas, archetypes--is intelligible in the manner of Descartes' "clear and distinct ideas." This is one of Aquinas' great achievements, to explain that in knowledge the mind becomes the object known, according to the mode of the knower. Thus, knowledge is real, it corresponds to reality but it is not an identity. Among other things, this theory of knowledge is a perfect fit for modern science, built on predictive models and limited by the uncertainty of observation.