What is Husserlian Phenomenology?

Hegel's Phenomenology of Religion: In critique of the Names of the gods. ​

“Thus the highest form of religion will be revealed religion, because then spirit will be given over to itself as it is in essence, because the actual incarnation of God, his death and resurrection in the community, will be the every Dasein of spirit knowing what it is; and at that particular moment, the world spirit or finite spirit will be reconciled with infinite spirit.”—Jean Hyppolite in “Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit,” commenting on Hegel’s theology and teleology of religious consciousness (p. 539).

Here, French philosopher Jean Hyppolite (Gadamar and Foucault’s teacher) is recounting Hegel’s view of the dialectic of religion as it surpasses its own representations in self-reflection leaving behind its historical clothes, and “picture thinking.” However, complete reconciliation of religious symbolism and transcendence will require yet another surpassing of itself; from God-substance to revealed God-subject incarnated replacing the Greek gods as work of art.

So there are two dialectics intertwined: one of the progress of world spirit in actual history, or time; and on the other hand, a dialectic of spirit reflecting and expressing its essence subjectively in religious symbolism. It is the essence of Absolute spirit (God) to manifest itself in time through human experience in which community participates in divine life so that the logos has a human face. Religion is an appearance within human community and is included in the study of appearances, which is phenomenology.

 

Appendix E

The Theological Foundations of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit

“Life is the union of union and nonunion.”
—Hegel, Early Theological Writings, p. 312.

(∀x){Lx ⊃ [Ux ⊃ (Ux * ~Ux)]}

​

One of the greatest philosophical treasures I have recently found is an introduction to Hegel’s early theological writings contained in a collection of essays titled, “On Christianity: Early Theological Writings,” (1907) by Friedrich Hegel, trans. by T. M. Knox with an Introduction by Richard Kroner, (pdf.).

After being dismissed from the university at Kiel by the German Nazis in 1934, the Neo-Hegelian philosopher, Richard Kroner, escaped to America to become professor of philosophy at Manhattan’s Union Theological Seminary. Kroner’s introduction to Hegel’s early theological writings (original text pages 1-66) is a condensed overview of Hegel’s Christian theology. Kroner narrates the evolution of Hegel’s thoughts on religion from about 1788 to 1801, which ultimately appears in his most famous written work “The Phenomenology of Spirit,” in 1807. Kroner comments on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (pdf.) in his introduction to build a larger picture of Hegel’s goal, “to intellectualize Romanticism and to spiritualize Enlightenment (Hegel’s Early Theological Writings, here on as HET, original pagination 21).”

Dr. Kroner recounts how Hegel was extremely impressed by the philosophical movements of his time including Romanticism and the Enlightenment. The German Romantic poet-philosophers Friedrich Hölderlin and Friedrich Schelling were school roommates with Hegel. Philosophers Kant, Rousseau, and the famous poet Goethe (who was a close friend of Schelling) are also found at the core of Hegel’s fully matured philosophical system.

In these early--and sometimes conceptually contradictory--theological essays Hegel works out the dialectical-philosophical language he needed to write the Phenomenology of Spirit. This appearance (phenomenology) of Geist (Spirit or Mind) is a history of the evolutionary development of human consciousness into higher self-consciousness and truth: that is to say, the process of the Logos becoming incarnate.

Yet even his love for these philosopher-poets did not prevent Hegel from critiquing Romanticism and the Enlightenment and even rejecting some parts, or whole worldviews. Hegel rejected Schelling’s conception of God-substance as the Absolute (Being as an undivided whole) with the one-liner response, “…in the Absolute, all cows are black….” Instead, Hegel formulated the Absolute, the whole of a unified reality, as God-Subject, i.e., immaterial Mind, or Spirit.

Knox does not mention in his introduction one other similar case involving the theologian--and has always annoyed me--when Hegel rejected Kantian philosopher-theologian Schleiermacher and his doctrine of the connection humans have with the infinite as a “feeling of absolute dependence on the infinite.” Hegel gave the brutal response, "If religion grounds itself in a person only on the basis of feeling, then . . . a dog would be the best Christian, for it carries this feeling more intensely within itself and lives principally satisfied by a bone." The same sentiment toward theologies of experience exists to this day.

Of course Hegel’s counter-argument is not fair to neither Schelling, nor Schleiermacher. Schleiermacher would never claim religious experience is “only on the basis of feeling.” Schleiermacher’s use of the term “feeling” does not mean mere affection, or “sensation,” which is “...the lowest stage in the development of the human spirit,” but rather “feeling, as immediate self-consciousness, is the last and highest stage in the same development.” Feeling is the synthesis of thought and will; it is the unity of our being. (see, Schleiermacher: Personal and Speculative,”Robert Munro, Pub. Paisley, Alexander Grardner, 1903, p.200)(pdf.).

Schelling views the entire history of philosophy as a struggle between positive philosophy (historical philosophy) and negative philosophy (for Schelling ultimately meaning religious philosophy). Schelling writes, “At the end of negative philosophy I have only possible [my emphasis] and not actual religion…It is with the transition to positive philosophy that we first enter the sphere of religion (Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy: Modern Philosophy, Fichte to Hegel, Vol. 7, Part I, Doubleday, 1965, page 170).”

Schelling believed there should be an emphasis on a philosophy of nature to compensate for the tendency of thought systems to bypass actual existential being since purely idealist philosophies cannot ever logically deduce the world’s existence, or positive being from negative essences, or concepts. Schelling’s emphasis on philosophy of existence, of actuality continued with Left Hegelians philosophers such as Feuerbach (All theology is anthropology) and Marx (dialectical historical positivism). In 1831 Shelling filled Hegel’s chair of philosophy in Berlin and attempted in his lectures to correct what he believed was Hegel’s overemphasis on the negative philosophy of abstract possibility.


The Dialectical Development of Hegel’s Early Theology

“To eliminate the Kantian element in Hegel's philosophy is like eliminating the
Platonic element in Aristotle.”—Professor Knox.​

Hegel disagreed with Kant in other areas of epistemology and ethics, but he still remained Kantian at heart through his entire life. The pre-Socratic philosopher of change, Heraclitus, and Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason inspired Hegel’s dialectical method presented in the Phenomenology (citing HET,p. 4). However, in that same work (Paragraphs 596-671, or pp. 424-72) Hegel harshly and enthusiastically criticized Kant’s ethical system of Duty (deontological ethics) as only a particular stage of developing human self-consciousness. The reason for Hegel’s rejection of Kantian ethics of duty is that all positive historical aspects of religion is purged leaving behind a abstract moralistic idealism impossible to achieve in existence, “…consciousness has realized that its truth is a pretended truth (Phenomenology, para. 631).


Thesis: The Life of Jesus as a Kantian Teacher of Ethics

Hegel drew his conclusions about Kantian ethics partly by performing a thought experiment in an essay on the “Life of Jesus” that presents Jesus as a teacher, or “the schema of morality” within the categories of Kantian religious moral rationalism. This essay was not meant for publication, and is fragmentary; however, Hegel’s criticism is more clearly expressed in his later mature writings (HET, p. V). Hegel eventually rejected the hypothetical Kantian Christ as non-historical (negative) that eventually devolves into the same pharisaic legalism that Jesus originally tried to liberate his followers. Kant’s pure moral rationalism is negative and rejects all historical (positive) elements as merely accidental, or non-essential to religion (Ibid., p. 5).

Hegel was dissatisfied with Christianity in his era that reduced itself to a mass collection of statues, dogmatic doctrines, and superfluous creeds. While still heavily influence by Kantian moral rationalism at the age of twenty-five, Hegel wrote, “In The Positivity of the Christian Religion” (The first two parts written in 1795-96, and part III in about 1800) in which he traces the internal problems of Christian orthodoxy to the historical context it emerged. A strict monastic Judaism, and a brutal Roman Empire were the forces that shaped Christianity echoing through the ages:

“While Jesus aimed at a purely moral religion and fought against superstition and positivity, he could not help generating a church by positive means. He was bound to connect respect for the holiness of moral law with respect for the holiness of his own person. Thus the seed of ecclesiastical authority and of the positivity of all religious forms and institutions was planted. This is the tragic origin of the Christian church (HET,p. 4).”


Antithesis: Hellenistic Humanism with Kantian Rational Ethics

Hegel idealistically viewed Greek folk religion as one of freedom, “imagination and enthusiasm” as opposed to a inhuman clerical bureaucracy of rules that is “the religion of Enlightenment dominated by reason (HET,p. 3).” Hegel believed religion should be about this world and centered about the Greek notion of beauty, freedom, wisdom, and artistic imagination. Hegel still held onto to Kant’s rational ethics of positive moral action (actualization).

Then suddenly in 1796 after moving from Bern to Frankfort, Germany, Hegel became more influenced by the Romantic philosophers such as Schleiermacher, Fichte, Schelling, and Holderlin and then published his views in the essay, “The Spirit of Christianity,” reversing his former position by reaffirming the need for a historical (positive) Christianity. Now as a mystic Hegel created a new synthesis of Greek humanism, and Kantian moral philosophy which itself has a deep kinship to Judaism:

“The soul of Greek religion is beauty; the reason of Kantian philosophy is morality. Hegel concluded that ultimate truth was moral beauty, and this truth he discovered in the Gospel. The moral principle of the Gospel is charity, or love, and love is the beauty of the heart, a spiritual beauty which combines the Greek Soul and Kant's Moral Reason. This is the synthesis achieved in The Spirit of Christianity (HET,p. 25).”


Synthesis: Pantheism of Love

"What is a contradiction in the realm of the dead is not one in the realm of life."
--Hegel, HET, p. 261.​

But once again truth is discovered to only be pretended truth. These three worldviews of Hellenism, Kantianism, and Judaism had an other-worldliness. Judaism and Kantianism were “monarchical theism” while Hellenism was polytheistic, pantheistic, combined with Stoicism. Hegel believed, “…Jesus teaches a pantheism of love which reconciles Greek pantheism with Judaic and Kantian theism (HET, p. 10).”

The internal contradiction of Hellenism and Kantianism are synthesized by Hegel with the Gospel of Jesus to create a ”Pantheism of Love,” (ibid., p. 10). The unifying Gospel of love overtakes atomizing alienated reflection. Christ represents now a non-rational ethics, but a more powerful unsystematic non-conceptual “ethics of Love.” Hegel believed that this newly synthesized pantheism of love reconciles the disunity of “one-sided rationalism, one-sided emotionalism, or one-sided empiricism.” Even in Hegel’s philosophical development we see the same pattern repeatedly emerge beginning with an original organic unity (thesis), then disunity (antithesis) that moves on to temporary reconciliation (synthesis).


Antithesis: The Pantheism of the Logos

Unfortunately, love is not enough…to bridge the alienating chasm between life (existence) and thought (essence). The spirit of Christianity has historically continually fallen into the trap of objectifying itself into a dogmatic faith of doctrines and creeds instead of a living community of universal spiritual love. After about 1796 Hegel undergoes yet another paradigm shift that provides a more scientific (methodologically systematic) approach to philosophy that recognizes the dialectical patterns created by the interplay of logical oppositions in thought and actual history. With this new methodology Hegel still retains pre-Socratic Hellenistic influences in the form of Heraclitean cosmology where all things material and immaterial emerge out of conflict and change in accordance to a single Logos, or Reason. The Romantics were seemingly pushed out of the system, but they still heavily influenced Hegel’s thinking within this new synthesis that attempted to unify Romantic spirit with logical analysis.

“…ultimate unification was to be brought about by a rational rather than a Romantic method. While the Romanticists were content with denying ultimate separation, indulging in pictorial language and paradoxes to give force to their negation….The original unity of all things is for him not the object of a mystical or poetical intuition but a truth discovered by logic (HET, p. 15).”

Yet, this ultimate conceptual unification still contains within it different stages of human mind, or consciousness (Enlightenment, Romanticism, Ethical, Religious) presented in Hegel’s later 1807 Magnum opus, “The Phenomenology of Spirit.” These same familiar internally conflicting frame of minds, or shapes of consciousness are reconstructed by phenomenological description as “self-certain Spirit (para. 166),” “unhappy consciousness (para. 197),” “self-alienated Spirit (para. 487),” and “the beautiful soul (para. 632).” These multiple states of consciousness can be found at anytime among persons in many cultures today, and maybe even especially today. According to Hegel the Logos (Reason) can guide consciousness down the road of historical experience to a conceptual unification of Existence and Essence, the Whole and the Parts, of the Infinite and the Finite.

Reading and rereading Dr. Richard Kroner’s introduction and these theological texts not only provide endless insights into Hegel’s own thought, but also give insight into other philosophers (Marx and Kierkegaard) who imitated and critiqued Hegelian Absolute Idealism.

 

The critique of science in this long discussion has always been a criticism centered on the concept of epistemological limitation; that is, the undue authority science has in making decisions that often violate human values, and that natural-scientific reductionism is inadequate as a life philosophy of human existence that includes a spiritual dimension. Marx understood science and ideology as biased toward the class of persons that finance and manage the cultural stock of knowledge to reflect their economic-political interests. Today we can clearly see manipulation of science to justify national policies that are having deadly results. Below is a video discussing the science and politics involved in the current Covid-19 pandemic to justify doing nothing manage this deadly disease.
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Great Barrington Declaration event was also hosted by a libertarian think-tank funded by multi-billionaires including the Koch Brothers.
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And cognitive science is also a factor in the development of Artificial Intelligence to replace all human labor to increase corporation profits. Some companies are in a rush to put self-driving vehicles on public roads and resulted in some deaths. The US military is using meditative techniques to train more efficient killers. In the video interview below "McMindfulness with Professor Ron Purser" the following exchange took place:

“Chris Hedges: And I speak as somebody who grew up in Maine hunting and anybody who's fired a rifle will tell you that breathing is extremely important in terms of being able to fire your shot and there's this kind of fusion now with these techniques to make more efficient killers.

Professor Ron Purser: Yes. The military has latched on to mindfulness because it provides a better of way of concentrating and focusing attention to achieve military objectives. And if you look at the Department of Defense literature, they refer to it as optimizing warrior performance. There's been like $10,000,000 allocated to several neuroscientists that are doing research and training on mindfulness from the DoD. Over $125,000,000 has been allocated to what they're calling comprehensive fitness soldier training, which mindfulness is part of that.”

In another science video a university British Professor discovered that magnetic fields applied to the left hemisphere of the brain measurably enhanced pattern recognition. How was this research applied and encouraged? Drone pilots were given the magnetic enhanced training to better recognized human targets from the air before destroying them. This is science under Neo-fascist-Liberalism. Quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rev. Chris Hedges warned us in a sermon of this creative, dynamic, self-sustaining evil:

“It is a specifically Western nothingness; a nothingness that is rebellious, violent, anti-god, and anti-human…it is the utmost manifestation of all the forces opposed to God. It is nothingness as God. No one knows its goal or measure. Its rule is absolute. It is a creative nothingness that blows its anti-god breath into all that exists; creates the illusion of awakening it to new life. And at the same times, sucks out its true essence until it too disintegrates into an empty husk, and is discarded.”​

McMindfulness with Ron Purser
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I watch for Giroux's essays on education and find hope and inspiration in his vision for a better society. Here is his most recent critical essays.

The Centrality of Critical Education in Dark Times: a Tribute to Noam Chomsky on his 92nd Birthday
by Henry Giroux
December 11, 2020
His website is www. henryagiroux.com.

Henry A. Giroux is an American and Canadian scholar and cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory. In 2002 Routledge named Giroux as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period.

Professor Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy.

His most recent books are America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth (Monthly Review Press, 2013), Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education (Haymarket Press, 2014), The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism (Routledge, 2018 ), and the American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism (City Lights, 2018 ), On Critical Pedagogy, 2nd edition (Bloomsbury), and Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2021):

 

Here are two new videos by Dr. Tim Hull on Hegel and his deep interest in Christian Theology, and how Christianity is the key to understanding him and the many philosophical schools that appeared in reaction to him for the following 220 years which include existentialism, Marxism, pragmatism, phenomenology, and analytic philosophy.

Confusion results from not fully understanding the historical-philosophical context that Hegel was writing that uses the language of traditional philosophy going back to Ancient Greece (Universal/Particular, Synthesis/Antithesis, Subject/Object, Existence/Ideal Essence, Substance/Action). Once Hegel's goal is understood, his philosophy suddenly becomes relevant, and the reactions for and against Hegel are more intelligible.

Hegel: Part I of 2 by Dr.Tim Hull in "Faith and Modern Thought"


Hegel: Part 2 of 2 by Dr. Tim Hill
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I originally wanted to use this version of the "Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand," video but was unable to find it at the time the essay was posted. This other version is unspeakably beautiful.

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Despotism
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Bertrand Russell’s Critique of Fregean Logico-Mathematical Objects

“…the arithmetic of cookies and pebbles.”—Gottlob Frege​

Introduction


Last July 1, 2020 I began a reading regime of Ernst Cassirer’s three-volume work on his philosophy of symbolic form and thirteen books by other authors. These volumes were written between 1923 and 1929 with the titles of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Vol. 1, Language (pdf.): Vol. 2, Mythic Thought (pdf.), and, Vol. 3, Phenomenology of Knowledge (pdf.). I included in my reading routine other works by Cassirer such as, An Essay on Man,”(1944)(pdf.) and Language and Myth (1925).

I knew there would be a big pay-off reading Ernst Cassirer’s three volumes on the philosophy of symbolic forms, and in particular the third book on the phenomenology of knowledge in Chapter 4, “The Object of Mathematics.” Numbers, sets, and classes are examples of mathematical objects. This fourth chapter is complex, and examines a famous contradiction discovered in May 1901 by Bertrand Russell within Gottlob Frege’s set theory logic that attempted to establish mathematics on logic as its foundation. This discovered antinomy is referred to in the history of philosophy as “Russell’s Paradox,” and is relevant to many of the issues I have written about in this collection of essays concerning classic philosophical problems that are still relevant today.

My thinking was already moving toward this direction of Russell’s paradox in the essay, “The Struggle Against Solipsism,” but stopped short of exploring the structure of mathematical objects. I will further development the critique of solipsism by further examining Russell’s paradox that resulted from Frege’s conception of number. Russell sums up the solipsistic worldview in the saying, “I alone exist.”

The timeline of persons, publications, and events are important for understanding the philosophical differences between Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein’s later radically changed view of language. Gottlob Frege published “The Foundations of Arithmetic, in 1884 (pdf.). Russell also published “The Principles of Mathematics, 1903 (pdf.).” Russell authored “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy,"(1919)(pdf.), while imprisoned six months for his history of opposing the First World War.

Wittgenstein did not meet Russell in person until 1911. Wittgenstein completed the Tractatus (pdf.) in August 1918 shortly before the Italians held him as an enemy war prisoner for nine months in 1919. In both cases, the two philosophers were not treated as ordinary prisoners. By 1929 Wittgenstein’s view of logic had so evolved away from the Tractatus that he returned to Cambridge and become a lecturer of Trinity College after submitting the Tractatus, finally published in 1922, as his doctoral thesis. It was actually Russell that did all the necessary footwork to get the Tractatus published, then Wittgenstein did not like Russell’s introductory preface to the book.

Many authors have written about Russell’s discovered contradiction in Frege’s logical system, but often fail to explain what this contradiction actually means. How important could an abstract logical contradiction possibly be? Russell’s paradox also sheds light on Wittgenstein’s motivations for studying philosophy; why he changed his views about language later in his life; and his many cryptic aphorisms about language, logic, and philosophy.

Russell’s discovered antinomy cannot be fully understood without first briefly describing the relevant schools of mathematics; views on the nature of logical systems; and theories of truth that were common among philosophers in the early 1900s. I will then attempt to generally classifying key contributing scholars including Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), G.E. Moore (1873-1958 ), Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), mathematicians David Hilbert (1862-1943), Heinrich Rickert (1863-1936), and L.E.J. Brouwer (1881-1966). These academicians will sometimes change schools of thought, or hold incompatible doctrines causing multiple variations so that classification of each thinker can be ambiguously on the edge of another group. Yet, this kind of school classification is in the academic literature, and is useful for getting a wide view of the historical philosophical landscape during this era of changing mathematical thinking.

To better understand how Frege’s contradiction, Russell’s paradox will be expressed both in terms of ordinary language that does not presuppose knowledge of logical symbolism, and in symbolic notation for the interested reader. The logical sign, Cassirer observed, compels “thought to come forth from its inner workshop and manifest itself in its involvements and complexities.” Lastly, I want to comment on Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) and Wittgenstein’s insightful critiques of logic resulting from the antinomy and what the implications mean for philosophy and the physical sciences.

While researching this essay I got perverse pleasure reading that until Wittgenstein was 20 years old, he was a bad speller.


…next, an overview of the general schools of thought during the early twentieth century about truth, language, and logic.

 

Continued from post #158: Bertrand Russell’s Critique of Fregean Logico-Mathematical Objects

Part I

Paradigms of Truth And Logic​

"If I designate phenomenal insight as knowledge, then theoretical insight rests on faith--faith in the reality of one's own ego and that of others, or in the reality of the outside world or of God"—Mathematician, Hermann Weyl (1885 – 1955)


1) The Pragmatic Theory of Truth is often associated with the American philosopher William James (1842-1910). The Greek term “πρᾶγμα” (prag-ma) is translated as “deed,” “fact,” or “business” and in this context truth means the utility of achieving a goal or end. A statement is true based on its usefulness as a belief: “X is useful; therefore, X is true.” Pragmatism does not seem to be an appropriate theory of truth in mathematics; however, some mathematicians note that pragmatism is important in the creation and use of signs in symbolic logic notation and math. Pragmatism in science is the successful manipulation of objects for a desired purpose. However, ordinary language philosophers have the recurrent theme of pragmatism throughout their understanding of how language actually works and how systematic thinking emerges.

2) The Coherence Theory of Truth is a more common concept of truth embraced by modern mathematicians by defining logical truth in relation to consistency and not by some content in the world; but instead, by the relation of content to other content, or by belief in relation to another belief. In symbolic logic, a valid argument is merely non-contradictory propositions in relation with another proposition; for example, “A is not non-A” is a consistent proposition, or coherent, and merely tautologically true (A is A).

3) The Correspondence Theory of Truth holds that truth is the correspondence of some propositional content within the world since mere consistency alone is an inadequate criterion for truth. Propositional content is understood in this theory as descriptive statements such as “A is B.” The argument “All men are cows, and John is a man; therefore, John is a cow,” is a perfectly valid (consistent) argument. We can rewrite the same propositions as “All M are C, and J is M; therefore J is C” which is a valid argument form known as a hypothetical syllogism. In addition to a valid (consistent) inference, a propositional argument must also have true premises before it can be called a “sound argument.” Sound arguments are what philosophers seek to present into the market place of ideas since, in a deductive argument, if the premise are true, and the inferences are valid; then, the conclusion must be true.

A true proposition in this theory is one that corresponds to the state of something in the world, or a fact. A belief is true if it corresponds to an existing factual object. There are differences among logicians and philosopher on whether truth is an attribute of an object, or a proposition, or belief.

Wittgenstein influenced Russell into accepting the correspondence theory of truth although their ontologies are different (Dr. K. Banick video lecture on Russell and Wittgenstein’s dissimilar metaphysics). Interestingly, around 1904, Russell and Moore held the identity theory of truth in which a true proposition is the object of belief: “When a proposition is true, it is identical to a fact, and a belief in that proposition is correct.” In other words, truth was a property of a proposition itself and not something else external to it. The nature of correspondence and truth bearing propositions forced Russell and Moore to abandon the identity theory after they were unable to define the difference between true and false propositions within this particular theory of truth.

Theories of Logic and Mathematics

1) Logical Conventionalism is the view that logical systems are invented cultural norms, signs, and linguistic conventions. The denial of logical necessity is key to conventionalism. All logical analytic a priori necessity (A in not non-A) is a disguise of collective non-arbitrary agreement on procedural and definitional rules that work when applied to the world. There are no real necessary independent truths of meaning, logic, or mathematics, but instead only a set of axiomatic rules for the manipulation of intuitive empirical signs. This school is also called “mathematical terminism” and views signs as mere “intuitive figures without any real independent meaning (Cassirer, Vol. 3, p. 381).” Mathematician David Hilbert wrote, "In the beginning was the sign (Ibid., p. 380).” Conventionalism is associated with pragmatism in its way of analyzing how ordinary language is actually used.


Henri Poincaré (1855-1912) held to the coherence theory of truth and was among the first conventionalist mathematicians who viewed all mathematical objects as independent human constructions that have no reality in existence. He believed that natural numbers were innate to human understanding and could not be reduced to symbolic logic set theory objects. The logical positivists also held a conventionalist viewpoint of logic and mathematics as pure form, and completely independent of the world.

The late Wittgenstein is an extreme conventionalist by understanding language as a public tool consisting of norms of linguistic usage created from a certain way of life and not possessing a hidden necessary essence of some ideal language. Wittgenstein’s late lecture notes were published posthumously in 1953 as, Philosophical Investigations that treats language and logic like the intuitionists who believe that mathematics emerge from a “primordial intuition” of space and time, which we impose on language and the world. Many of his ideas about language toward the end of his life were antithetical to the early Tractatus that instead attempted to discover a hidden calculus concealed within ordinary language. Wittgenstein’s philosophical “investigation” was about why the formalist Tractatus conception of language is wrong.

Wittgenstein respected ordinary language; and even though it can be entangled in misunderstandings from misuse, “philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only describe it…it cannot give it any foundation either, It leaves everything as it is….(Philosophical Investigations, paragraph 124).”

We can also place early Wittgenstein (Tractatus) in the conventionalist group since he has described logical propositions (A is not non-A) as senseless (Sinnolos) tautologies. Furthermore, Wittgenstein posited the existence of “simple objects” (Tractatus; 2.02) that are the smallest possible entities that names denote so that there is a connection between existence and logic through language. He was unable to give a actual example of the posited a priori simple object. And yet Wittgenstein writes of the simple object as both physical and as a non-physical object so that he is straddling two different schools of thought (conventionalism and intuitionism) if we try to force him into a category.

2) Logical Formalism is a modern form of Platonism that included such thinkers as Frege, Russell, Hilbert, and the early Wittgenstein. This simplest version of Platonism believes in a totality of natural numbers (counting numbers) that exist independently of mind and can be symbolically defined as quantifying propositions (All X is Y) bearing decidable truth-values. Formalism typically holds to the consistency, or coherence theory of truth, and to sign conventionalism. As the leading figure of formalism, Hilbert viewed mathematics as the “manipulation of symbols” according to an axiomatic decision procedure for proof of consistency in a logical system.

However, Hilbert also held some theoretical positions that were consistent with logical intuitionalism so that he is called by some as a “passive logical intuitionist” rejecting Russell and Frege’s version of Platonic objective realism while at the same time he sought to establish mathematics on a Platonist mathematical foundation in opposition to intuitionalism.

Hilbert thought he could achieve his goal by the notion of a pure theory of mathematical “signs.” His project is to require verification of consistency with his theory of proof so “the process of verification is shifted from the sphere of content to that of symbolic thinking. As precondition for the use of logical inferences… certain sensuous and intuitive characters must always be given to us (Cassirer, Vol. 8, p. 379)." There is seemingly an inherent conflict between these two doctrines: intuitionalism understands the symbol, or sign as an essential expression of thinking, but the formalist sees the symbol as merely marks on paper (Ibid., p. 381 ff). With empirical signs, mathematical-logical proofs seeking to identify contradictory signs could be completed by machine. Hilbert held to the doctrine that “mathematical symbols themselves, and not any meaning that might be ascribed to them, that are the basic objects of mathematical thought (see, Formalism: Britannica).” Cassirer’s comment on Hilbert’s project is “… that mathematics can retrieve its threatened autonomy only by becoming a pure theory of signs. Among present day mathematicians it is Hilbert who has drawn this conclusion most decisively. In direct opposition to intuitionism he strives to rehabilitate the classical form of analysis and theory of sets (Ibid., p. 379)."

However, terminism transforms mathematics into a “monstrous tautology.” Authors Russell and Alfred North Whitehead believed they were able to develop a coherent and complete minimalist set of logical symbols as presented in their famous work,“Principia Mathematica,”(1903).

Logicism is consistent with formalism and is the effort by mathematicians to show mathematics has its foundation in logic, or that some mathematics can be reduced to logic. Frege, the early Wittgenstein, and Russell as the leading member of this school, attempted to prove this relationship using the theory of sets, and the concept of classes. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus is a classic example of logicism. The assumption of the Tractatus, shared by young Wittgenstein and all the Logical Positivists, is that natural language has a concealed calculus that can be symbolized and expressed as logical rules.

Intuitionism is a rejection of mathematical Platonism. L.E.J. Brouwer (1881-1966) represents the position that mathematical objects (numbers) are mentally constructed and that mathematics is inherent in human experience. Brouwer believes that mathematics is "far more an action than a theory (Ibid., p. 371)." This inherent ability of reasoning is enabled by the intuitions of space and time conceptual totalities. Whereas mathematical objects such as numbers are autonomous entities in Platonism, they are instead reified “constructed” symbolic objects for the intuitionist. Brouwer’s intuitionism required a defining procedure for constructing a mathematical object before asserting its existence (see, Russell’s Paradox: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Brouwer is anti-formalistic and was opposed to set-theory ideas even before the discovery of Russell’s paradox (Encyclopedia of Philosophy,1967, Macmillan, Vol. 5, p 204). Wittgenstein started out as a formal logicist, but ended up a Brouwerian intuitionalist concluding that language--like a game--has no essence, but is a pragmatic constructivist activity. Philosopher William Barrett summed up the insight of intuitionism as: “Technique has no meaning apart from some informing vision (The Illusion of Technique, Barrett, William, Anchor/Doubleday, 1979, p. 88 ).”

...next, The Contradiction.

 

Post #158-Introduction to Bertrand Russell’s Critique of Fregean Logico-Mathematical Objects
#159-Part I: Paradigms of Truth And Logic
#160-Part II: The Contradiction

Part II

The Contradiction


“Alas, arithmetic totters.”--Gottlieb Frege​

A tautology is a proposition that is necessarily true such as with the proposition, “Either it is going to Rain, or not Rain.” Every possible combination of the truth-value of ‘R’ in a disjunctive proposition is true, “R v ~R”.

On the other hand, the denial of a tautology is necessarily false, “It is false that either it is going to rain, or not rain,” symbolized as ~(R v ~R).​

​

Every possible combination of truth-values that compose a contradiction result in a proposition that is false necessarily as in the first truth-table column.

Typically, we think of a noun as a name denoting some ‘thing’ in the world—some corresponding referent that is the sense of a name. However, we also use names to describe something that has no referent because it does not exist, but still has sense like the name “unicorn” in a folk tale. On the other hand, self-referential propositions refer to themselves as propositions--“Everything I say is false”--creating endless paradoxes (see, Graham Priest on Paradoxes).

A contradiction can have many disguises, and some might appear as the simple equivocation of words. I have discussed contradiction is the essay, “The Machine Paradigm of Nature And Disenchantment”) and there are other well-known examples of stated contradictions such as the self-referential contradiction, or the “Liar’s Paradox” in which a liar states that everything they say is a lie which leads to the contradiction that if it is the case the liar is lying, then the liar is telling the truth, but then it also means he just liar lied. These contradictions run in a vicious circle.

Another well-known contradiction is the “Barber’s Paradox” that even puzzled Russell. This example is a story telling of a barber on an island who shaves all those, and only those, who do not shave themselves. The question posed is “Does the barber shave himself?” If the barber shaves himself then he is a man on the island who shaves himself; hence he, the barber, does not shave himself. However, if the barber does not shave himself then he is a man on the island who does not shave himself; hence he, cannot be the barber. In other words:

• If he does, he cannot be a barber, since a barber does not shave himself.
• If he doesn't, he falls in the category of those who do not shave themselves, and so, cannot be a barber.

In my thinking the Barber’s Paradox might be more of an analogy to Anthony Flew’s “No true Scotsman,” informal fallacy. A factual statement such as “The circle is green,” is a “synthetic” statement that may be true or false. The statement “Circles are round” is true by definition, or “analytically,” and cannot be false for it is a tautology. This fallacy is committed, for example, if a person declares as a fact, “No true Scotsman puts sugar in their beer.” However, when the speaker is faced with a counter-example of a Scotsman putting sugar in their beer, they immediately equivocate from the initial factual (synthetic) proposition by declaring by definition (analytically), “He is not a true Scotsman!” So the Barber’s Paradox, depending on how it is stated, could be interpreted as another informal fallacy with “barber” defined analytically and then equivocates to a synthetic description of the barber in an endless circle.

A Formal Symbolic Expression of Russell’s Paradox

Our immediate interest is in Russell’s paradox and so we are going to turn away from lairs, barbers, and Scotsmen to class attributes which are “predicable,” and “impredicable.” I am going to present a slightly expanded argument form of Russell’s paradox by borrowing some logical symbols provided by logician I.M. Copi in his textbook, “Symbolic Logic: Fourth edition,” p. 148. We must have some symbols to represent a formal expression of the contradiction in order to symbolize quantitative propositions like, “Socrates has some attribute.”

Definitions:

‘s’ = Socrates
~ = negation
≡ Equivalent truth-value of proposition.
F = Predicate variable for the concept of an “attribute”.
(∃F) = This is a special symbol to mean “At least one attribute.”
(∃F)Fs means “some attribute” as in writing, “Socrates has some attribute.”
(x)(F) means “all attributes.”

These symbols now enable us to symbolize the following statements such as:

(x)(F)Fx
“Everything has an attribute.”

(x)( ∃F)Fx
“Everything has some attribute or other.”

(F)(∃x)Fx
“Every attribute belongs to some thing or other.”

Now we need a symbol to represent “impredicable attributes” of classes. For example, the class of pebbles is not itself a pebble. The class of pebbles does not share any attribute of any of its members (pebbles) so the class is defined as “impredicable” represented by the symbol “I”. Impredicable class attributes are ordinary classes.

On the other hand, there are some unordinary classes that share predicable attributes the same as its members such as the class of all abstract ideas which is itself abstract. Predicable class attributes are defined as “FF”. Predicable class attributes are attributes of attributes.
​

1.) IF ≡ df ~FF
Impredicable class attributes are now defined (≡ df) as non-predicable class attributes:

2.) (F)(IF ≡ ~FF)
All impredicable class attributes (ordinary classes) are defined as non-predicable class attributes.

3.) Therefore: II ≡ ~II
Universal Instantiation, applied to premise 2.
“Impredicable class attributes are not impredicable class attributes,” by replacing “F” with “I” in premise 2 resulting in a contradiction.​

The rule of universal instantiation applied to premise 2 is analogous to the argument:

Definition: Zeus is not mortal.

1.) All Greeks are mortal.
2.) Zeus is Greek.
3.) Therefore, Zeus is mortal.

But Zeus is by definition not mortal!

Likewise, there are no predicable class attributes either: “FF” and “~FF” turn out to be meaningless symbols—pseudo-universals.

…next, The Depth of Reason.


​

 

Post #158-Introduction to Bertrand Russell’s Critique of Fregean Logico-Mathematical Objects
#159-Part I: Paradigms of Truth And Logic
#160-Part II: The Contradiction
#161-Part III: The Depth of Reason

Part III

The Depth of Reason

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."--Leonard Cohen​

The closed system of schematized formalistic logicism had a flaw. Much has been written about the contradiction found in Fregean set-theoretic logic of classes and in the process of review turned attention toward a new realm of logic that moves way from mathematical objects to the “extra-logical discrete objects” of mathematical “signs” themselves (Cassirer, p. 378 ff). Hilbert points out mathematical problems have a completely different meaning in relation to signs as “concrete forms.” Signs are an independent power in themselves by ignoring content and ideas; yet, contradiction is still effectively detected by “the appearance of certain constellations of signs (Ibid., p. 381).”

Wittgenstein defined three intentionally ambiguous logical categories: “sense,” “senseless,” and “nonsense.” He writes, “Tautology, and contradiction are without sense (Tractatus, 4.461). However, they are not metaphysical nonsense, “Unsinning.” He further clarifies what he means: “Tautology and contradiction are, however, not senseless; they are part of the symbolism, in the same way that “0” is part of the symbolism of Arithmetic (Tractatus, 4.4611).” The original English editions of the Tractatus mistranslated both “Unsinning,” and “Sinnolos” as “senseless.” (see, Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy, K.T. Fann, Univer. of Cal. Press, 1969, p. 25).

​

Cassirer reminds us that Leibnitz called formulas the “logic of discovery,” the “logica inventionis (Cassirer, p. 440).” The sign represents not a real order, but a possible order according to some fixed principle: “atomic weight” as a unit of the periodic table is one example of a principled ordered system based on fixed principles. From similarly ordered totalities, mathematicians are able to create Imaginary numbers: negative numbers, irrational numbers, squares, and square root of a negative number. Now, the “heuristic maxim” of mathematicians is the unlimited use of form (Cassirer, p. 442). However, a contradiction is the sign of an impossible object.

Fregean logicism is based on the concepts of sets, classes, and member objects; also known generally as the theory of groups. Russell writes, “But all finite collections of individuals form classes, so that what results is after all the number of a class (Principles of Mathematics, POM, p. 113).” The idea of numbers as properties of classes arose from the mathematics of Giuseppe Peano arguing that arithmetic and algebra could be derived from idea of class (A History of Philosophy: Modern Philosophy, Fichte to Hegel, Vol. 8, Part II, Frederick Copleston, Doubleday, 1967, p. 198 ).” As a Platonist Russell adopts this idea of number in 1900. Both Russell, and early Wittgenstein, viewed language as ultimately an “object-language.” Gradually, Russell became uncertain of the term “class” comparing it to a parenthesis, “The parenthesis is clear only if what falls inside the two parentheses is clear and definite (Barrett, p. 97). However, unconscious Platonism allowed logicism to reify the concept of class giving priority to the object by hypostatizing the object.

Χωρισμός is the Greek term for “separation,” “abstraction,” and is used to describe the “secretion of sap.” Set theory applies to first level abstractions, but not abstractions of abstractions such as Russell’s example of the class of attributes of attributes. Every proposition has a range of significance: “The class of men is mortal” is meaningless since a class of men is not man, no more than “Socrates is human,” means “Socrates is humanity” for humanity is not a thing. Russell concluded that the entire concept of “a class is a member of itself” is nonsensical and a “incomplete symbol.”

Logicism attempted to reduce mathematics on the underlying stratum of the “reality of things,” not unlike empiricism, by attempting to turn mathematics into physics (Cassirer, p. 375 ff). For logicism the meaning of number rests on some empirical matter, or “the existence of things,” usurping the autonomy of logic. The Neo-Kantian Cassirer instead argues, "The world of mathematical forms is a world of ordinative forms, not of thing forms (Ibid., p.383).” There is also a purely non-material “functional” meaning of number based not on the existence of things, but on the ordinative form of constructed concepts. The logicist concept of number must be de-materialized and detached from “thing-hood.”

"To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth."-- Wittgenstein​

In Cassirer’s first volume of his philosophy of symbolic form addressing language, the evolutionary development of the concept of number is traced from an ancient manual concept such as grasping, pointing, and counting objects; then, to the concept of number having no attributes; and finally, to number as de-materialized pure form.

The Fuji Islanders treated numbers as a quality of things so that there were different numbers for different classes of things in their language: “…different words are used to designate groups of two, ten, a hundred, a thousand coconuts, or a group of ten canoes, ten fish, etc. (Cassirer, Vol. 1, p. 233 ff).” For the Brazilian Bakairi tribe numbers were so laden to content that a tribesman could not count on their fingers even a few grains of rice without physically touching them for number had to be translated into a specified body part. Cassirer observed that “…it does not suffice at this stage for counted objects to be referred to the parts of the body; in order to be counted, they must in a sense be immediately transposed into parts of the body or bodily sensations (Ibid., p. 230).” In American Indian languages different numbers represent the same quantity of things as opposed to humans, or to animate and inanimate things. Only later in the evolution of language does number gradually shed material content and become independent of things as pure form. Similarly for Russell, he must also de-objectify reason so that thing-constants and thing-unties give way to the universal unities of mathematical function.

Fregean logicism is “Arithmetic with frills.”-Wittgenstein.​

The inventive mind of Ludwig Wittgenstein understood the problem with Frege’s project of establishing mathematics on logic. Logicism instead based logic on mathematics by smuggling in the concept of number within the concept of class. After the contradiction, logic now appears as an unessential decoration attached to mathematics. Other critics suggest quantitative predicate logic should be promptly return to the humanities department. The problem with sets is that the logician must one way or another individually count the number of members within a class. We say that a dozen is a class of twelve members, but we still must conceptually translate “dozen” into twelve members of a class using natural numbers. In addition to the circularity of using number to define number, mathematician Hermann Weyl argued that simply pairing sets is sorely inadequate for establishing the notion of number. Neither is the fundamental logical idea of identity and difference is enough to derive the concept of number. On this issue, Cassirer writes perceptively: “In their attempts to derive the concept of number from the concept of sets, the logicians have always argued most emphatically against any imputation of a petitio principii; they have pointed out that the sense in which logic speaks of ‘identity’ and ‘difference’ does not include the numerical one and the numerical many, and that it is consequently a decided advance in knowledge if we can reduce the numerical sense to a purely logical sense (Cassirer, Vol. 3, p. 377).” Class-theoretic quantification logic was at this stage of development the arithmetic of cookies and pebbles.

"...numbers have neither substance, nor meaning, nor qualities. They are nothing but marks, and all that is in them we have put into them by the simple rule of straight succession." --Hermann Weyl


...next, to continue part III.

 

#158-Introduction to Bertrand Russell’s Critique of Fregean Logico-Mathematical Objects
#159-Part I: Paradigms of Truth And Logic
#160-Part II: The Contradiction
#161-Part III: The Depth of Reason
#162-Part III: Concluding

Concluding Part III:
The Depth of Reason​

Many of Russell’s beliefs concerning logic originated, or were influenced by the early Wittgenstein such as the theory of logical atomism; that atomic facts are logically independent of one another; picture-theory of propositions; and the tautologous circularity of logical-deductive propositions (Copleston, p. 199 ff). With the exception of the circularity of logic, Wittgenstein abandoned those theories by 1933. After hearing intuitionist Brouwer lecture in Vienna during 1928, Wittgenstein returned within one year to Cambridge as a lecturer with a newly evolving philosophy of language and logic (Barrett, p. 87).

Russell commented that once he realized that logic says no more than “a four legged animal is an animal,” he lost interest in logic. Wittgenstein argued in the Tractatus that there is no symbolism that is able to say anything about it own structure: “3.333 A function cannot be its own argument, because the functional sign already contains the prototype of its own argument and it cannot contain itself.” Logic, in the relatively mechanistic Tractatus, was a discovery disguised by language, but later he viewed logic more as an inventive activity as presented in Philosophical Investigations (1953) moving philosophically toward pragmatism, and conventionalism while being open to a variety of new mathematical systems (Barrett, p. 90-91).” Brouwer similarly concluded that mathematics is "far more an action than a theory (Cassirer, p. 371)." Wittgenstein still held to the view there are limits to language; “7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” (video lecture:, “Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Great War and the Unsayable,” by Ray Monk).

“The Tractatus was not all wrong: it was not like a bag of junk professing to be a clock, but like a clock that did not tell you the right time.”--Wittgenstein​

Sentential propositional logic (“Socrates is mortal”) is a finite syllogistic system. It is perfectly internally consistent and decidable as true of false. However, quantification categorical propositional logic uses universal quantifiers such as, “Everything has some attribute or other,” whose meaning encompasses a possible infinite manifold of things. It is within quantification logic that the contradiction appears. In his “Principles of Mathematics,” Russell writes: “For publishing a work containing so many unsolved difficulties, my apology is, that investigation revealed no near prospect of adequately resolving the contradiction discussed in Chapter x, [The Contradiction] or of acquiring a better insight into the nature of classes (p. vii).”

Russell’s first attempt to resolve the contradiction was to construct formal syntactical rules prohibiting the inferential steps that give rise to the contradiction. His newly formulated “Simple Theory of Types,” presented a lexicon of symbols to represent types of attributes on different levels in a hierarchy of abstract idealizations; individuals, then attributes of individuals, then attributes of attributes of individuals, and so on. As a rule, the attribute of one individual cannot be predicated of entities of a different abstract hierarchical type such that “impredicable” class attributes cannot even be defined to produce a contradiction. "Tâtonnement," is the ugly way logical sausage is made, i.e., “groping one’s way moving forward by trail and error.” If one wants to avoid an inference leading to a contradiction, then don’t violate the “limitative theorems.” Russell eventually realized that he was not dealing with different types of entities, but different types of linguistic functions (Copleston, p. 190). Mathematics advanced with this insight that “…the validity of a mathematical object is not its construction but its ‘constructability’ (Cassirer, p. 372).” Later, other mathematicians created new functions for better versions of Russell’s first theory of types.

“...in advancing to higher and more general theories the inapplicability of the simple laws of classical logic eventually results in an almost unbearable awkwardness. And the mathematician watches with pain the greater part of his towering edifice which he believed to be built of concrete blocks dissolve into mist before his eyes."-- Hermann Weyl​

In contemplation of Russell’s paradox, Cassirer caught sight of the important themes of freedom, possibility, and creativity. He believed, “No mathematical concept...can be gained through mere abstraction from the given; a mathematical concept always comprises a free act of combination, an act of synthesis (Cassirer, p. 361)." Mathematical symbolism is an instrument like a microscope, or telescope that enhance our vision (Ibid., p. 386). Mathematics is not a once completed project. The synthetic function is produced from the creative acts of intuition (experience) and the understanding. Cassirer has been called a Hegelian, in addition to a Kantian philosopher for his view of the essential character of the logos as going through a process of self-alienation, and then intellectual reunification through the act of conceptual synthesis (Ibid., p. 432).

Wittgenstein’s Loophole Metaphysics

“Vorbei redden (speak past) Gödel.”—Wittgenstein​

In 1930 Kurt Friedrich Gödel published his incompleteness theorems that state: “A.) If a logical system is consistent, it cannot be complete. B.) The consistency of axioms cannot be proved within their own system.” Wittgenstein was not alarmed by Russell’s paradox, but instead tossed the ladder of logicism away after he climbed it (see, Tractatus, 6.45). He viewed the inconsistency of logicism the same as the ancient paradoxes such as Zeno’s paradox of motion. If the axioms of a logical system cannot prove themselves, then a “hierarchy of languages,” with multiple logics could say what a logical-scientific structure—like the Tractatus—cannot say about itself. Russell correctly understood that Wittgenstein’s Tractatus has a loophole: “… Mr. Wittgenstein manages to say a good deal about what cannot be said, thus suggesting to the skeptical reader that possibly there may be some loophole through a hierarchy of languages, or by some other exit. The whole subject of ethics, for example, is placed by Mr. Wittgenstein in the mystical, inexpressible region (Tractatus, p. 18 )." Philosophy is just one loophole avoiding solipsism with others being literature, music, art, ethics, and religion.

In addition to scientific positivism, a constellation of other methodologies is required for studying human behavior, language, and cultural history. The objectivating attitude of natural-scientific reductionism blends into culture in a horrible transposition by which human beings are perceived as mere objects while things are seen as possessing human attributes and value (see, “The Objectification of Human Beings And Animistic Commodities”).

In another example of misplaced scientific reductionism, economist Steve Keen has critiqued Neo-classical and Neo-liberal economic theories for treating macroeconomics as applied microeconomics: these two methodologies reside are on completely different levels of abstraction. Dr. Keen argues that “…psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry…nor is macro-economics applied microeconomics (video lecture: 6:51 min., Debunking Economics: the Failure of Neo-classical Economics with Steve Keen). Keen quotes 1977 Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist, Philip Anderson's saying of multi-levels of scientific abstraction: “Instead at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behavior requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other (video: 6:41 min.)”.

Mathematician Hermann Weyl studied under formalist David Hilbert, but later adopted the views of intuitionist Brouwer in 1919. By 1928, Weyl changed his views again and moved toward the constructivism of Neo-Kantian Ernest Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic form. Another figure involved in the crisis of Fregean logicism is Neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert who rejects any effort to establish mathematics in empirical reality, or “the thing-sphere of the countable.” Consequently, he believed it impossible to derive mathematics from logic for even the logical unity of “1 = 1” requires experience (intuition) which is ultimately ‘alogical’ (Ibid., p. 346.)” Interestingly, Rickert acted as an advisor to a young theology student named Martin Heidegger at the University of Freiburg and approved his doctoral thesis in 1916. Rickert was a strong influence on Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant.

By critically applying a constellation of scientific paradigms to the complexities of human life, we might be able to live in truth, and then live in freedom.

“With mathematics we stand precisely at that intersection of bondage and freedom that is the essence of the human itself.”― Hermann Weyl​

 

I placed an editable backup copy of the essay, "Bertrand Russell’s Critique of Fregean Logico-Mathematical Objects" at my website "Strange Phenomenon" at https://sphenomenon.blogspot.com/2021/03/

 

"Because willy-nilly we shall ascribe the properties of the prototype to the object we are viewing in its light; and we claim 'it must always be....' This is because we want to give the prototype's characteristics a purchase on our way of representing things."--Wittgenstein, 1931​

In relation to the essays above on Russell's critique of quantification logic, it is easy to see all the mistakes in the video interview made by Eric Weinstein while totally contradicting the video summary written by Marshall Auerback on the Youtube page. Maybe Weinstein ought to hook up with Elon Musk.

Here are just some of Weinstein's assumptions, and contradictions committed while trying to agree with every view:

1. Assumes economics is like mathematical physics.
2. Argues that the model (prototype of physics) comes first before the "degenerate instance" of an empirical event.
3. Assumes microeconomics applies to macroeconomics which is on a totally different level of abstraction.
4. Persons are objects, data points; total objectification of all and any abstractions.
5. Diversity of methodologies is viewed as a defect in search for a unified theory of economics; and then contradicts himself arguing for using multi-disciplines in economics.
6. Assumes that there exists a platonist mathematical economic model which has an essence.
7. Argues warmed over Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian hedonistic calculus in modern quantum theory speak to conceal its origin.
8. Believes in self-regulating markets, but doesn't connect it to the irrationally of markets when asked.

Eric Weinstein: Economic Thinking In A Fallible World
(Notice the title; theory is not fallible, it's the world that's fallible, LOL).
​

 

Added a quote by Wittgenstein to the paragraph above.

 

It’s time for an update of my most favorite Internet philosophers!

I will use this forum page because I have no YouTube, Twitter, nor any Facebook account by choice. The three philosophers of interest I closely watch are Dr. John Vervaeke at the University of Toronto; Dr. Gregory B. Sadler at ReasonIO; and, Independent scholar Dr. Johannes PhD at A. Niederhauser, Classical Philosophy.

I have been trying to comment on some of the many videos recorded by Dr. Vervaeke, but each time I find a lecture, another even better video of his comes along. So to make the choice easy, his last video lecture is titled, “Catalyzing the awakened we-space w/ Thomas Steininger and Elizabeth Debold Voices with Vervaeke.” This video lecture is one example of Vervaeke’s ability to dialog with a variety of thinkers of different backgrounds and worldviews. He is able to translate his concept of “dia-logos” into the language of different disciplines and methodologies in clear and systematic analyses. Struggling with language is painful, not unlike aphasia, as one attempts to avoid tautologous and ambiguous explanations, or even an explanation at all. Like Wittgenstein, initially one must sometimes create a linguistic fog to clear a fog. Some of his lectures are definitely at an advanced graduate level such as “Untangling the World Knot of Consciousness Part 7 w/ Gregg Henriques - The Cognitive Science Show," and others in this video series on consciousness. Vervaeke is a good source for up-to-date critique of cognitive theories and new empirical research. Dr. Gregg Henriques is a Professor of Psychology and a trained clinical psychologist at James Madison University and greatly contributes to this interdisciplinary discussion of consciousness and scientific investigation across disciplines. However, I still learn from reviewing these videos on the introduction and fundamentals of philosophy.

Dr. Gregory B. Sadler at ReasonIO is still steadily, and carefully reading Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. We are now on paragraph 694 in the Religion section. Dr. Sadler has been making video lectures on this single book for seven years! Hegel Celebration - Starting The Religion Section of the Phenomenology! At the party I really got drunk and fell all over the place—just kidding! I always feel guilty for not being well read like Sadler for he seems to have read EVERYTHING in philosophy! I really didn’t realize what a lazy no good bum I was until I listened to Dr. Sadler’s philosophy lectures. And as a result, I turned over a new leaf by reading five days a week since last July 2020 which has paid off for me already. Dr. Sadler has a massive collection of other short video lectures called “Core Concepts in Philosophy” that cover many of the major Western philosophers such as Lev Shestov and Pierre Hadot both of whom I didn’t even know about. One can’t study the fundamentals too much.

In the order of discovery, Dr. Johannes A. Niederhauser, PhD is the third Internet based philosopher that I closely follow. Johannes knows a variety of languages including German and ancient Greek in addition to being an expert in German Idealism which is my favorite subject. Because Johannes reads German, he has access to a lot of books not translated into English yet like Heidegger’s later writings and modern German commentaries on German Idealism. One of his most outstanding recent videos I viewed is “ ‘On the Ontology of the Information Age’ In Dialogue with Dr. Lew,” in which they discuss the nature of logic and mathematics. Johannes gives insightful commentary I never heard before on the German Idealists. He is about to teach a online course on German Idealism: “Introducing my course on German Idealism.” Pardon my boldness, but these three professors are genuinely passionate philosophers and live in a state of emergency, which is where I want to be.

 

This addition is now embedded in the original version at https://sphenomenon.blogspot.com/2021/03/appendix-f-bertrand-russells-critique.html

 

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The paragraph in blue has been added for clarity at https://sphenomenon.blogspot.com/2021/03/appendix-f-bertrand-russells-critique.html.

 

Here is a very important speech in an online conference with the President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins and Noam Chomsky, organised by Scholars at Risk of Ireland on 8 June, 2021. Higgins gives a profound political and ethical analysis of the sad state of the university system world wide as it has been taken over by large financial money interests.

Surprisingly, Higgins mentions Husserl, Marcuse, Weber, Adorno, and other critical theorists of the Frankfurter School.

​

02:18:20 Address by Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland
02:54:02 Keynote Lecture by Noam Chomsky
03:35:32 Q&A with Noam Chomsky moderated by Maria Baghramian (University College Dublin)

This conference discussed the importance of intellectual dissent and academic freedom to democratic societies in a Western, particularly European, context. The speakers and the panel discussed the scope and the limits of academic freedom in the context of the current political instability, Neoliberalism and the exigencies of the post Covid social and educational landscape. Topics included but were not limited to: - Academic freedom in relation to other core academic values, e.g. openness, trustworthiness, research integrity, and social responsibility - The scope and limits of intellectual dissent and academic freedom Ways of strengthening academic freedom in a changing university funding landscape - The impact of social media on academic freedom - Lessons from a global pandemic.

 

Resurrection, ever again.
​

 

What would a Thomist do?​

​

I am currently reading two books on the general subject of ethics: Dr. Sadler once suggested in a lecture to look at Dr. Alasdair MacIntyre’s, “After Virtue” (1981)(pdf.). Also, Dr. Vervaeke suggested reading Paul Tyson’s, “Returning to Reality: Christian Platonism for Our Times” (2014) in another video. I am impressed with Tyson’s historical approach to ontology, his argumentation, and making careful distinctions of the history of Platonism through Mediaeval philosophy, but I must reject Platonic Realism in the end because I believe there is another theoretic alternative. I greatly appreciate these two book recommendations that are relevant to my current studies and forces me to get my ducks (arguments) in a roll.

On the other hand, I am having great difficulty getting through, After Virtue, as I add notes of objections and counter-arguments to every few paragraphs. I was particularly shocked by the poor argumentation, dogmatism, and straw man attacks--particularly on moral philosopher G.E. Moore--couched in seemingly knowledgeable, and well written history of philosophy. MacIntyre’s interpretations do not make fine enough distinctions of meta-ethical theories and ontologies like Tyson’s careful presentation.

I had to stop reading “After Virtue” at page 59 because of my many objections— with a bad taste in my mouth-- and began a wider examination of MacIntyre’s massive philosophical writings produced during his lifetime in academia. I found some articles he had written in a 1972 edition of The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, editor Paul Edwards, Macmillan Publishing Co. & The Free Press. He wrote,

Quote:
“Existentialism and Politics

“As in theology so also in political existentialism appears to be compatible with almost every possible standpoint. Kierkegaard was a rigid conservative who viewed with approval the monarchical repression of the popular movement of 1848; Jaspers is a liberal, Heidegger was for a short time a Nazi, and Sartre was over a long period a Communist party fellow traveler.”

“…the existentialist stress on commitment and irrationality of choice has sometimes been used in support of rationalistic extremism. The most notorious but not the only example is Heidegger’s brief excursion into politics. Needless to say, advocates of Nazism tend to ignore the existentialist stress on the importance of the individual.”

“Commonly, existentialism may be associated with communism….”

Existentialism,” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, editor Paul Edwards, Macmillan Publishing Co. & The Free Press, 1972 ed., vol. 3, p. 151.
End quote.

Existentialism is Nazi Philosophy according to MacIntyre

So what do those paragraphs say about existentialism as a philosophy? “The existentialists are Nazis.” This is in an American eight-volume encyclopedia of philosophy compiled by hundreds of professors…and MacIntyre writes in summary of fundamental ontology, “Heidegger was…a Nazi.” This is a pattern of MacIntyre’s criticism. MacIntyre takes a more careful swipe at John Maynard Keynes’ morality and the Bloomsbury group (this is basically a dog whistle for ‘homosexual’). That’s the quality of MacIntyre’s arguments; cleaver ad hominem attacks couched in academic historical philosophical writing camouflaged with minutiae.

Any by the way, this is how “cancel culture” first appears in American academia by stigmatizing certain philosophers to discourage study of existentialism, Marxism, critical theory that is hardly taught in American Universities, and even the later Wittgenstein (Vol. 8, p. 334) in this very same set of encyclopedias.

Later, I will defend G.E. Moore, ethical non-naturalism, and the aporetic Socrates against MacIntyre’s critique in an essay titled, “Postmodern Socrates on Virtue,” because by MacIntyre’s own criterion Socrates is himself a “postmodern.”

The “I was a former Marxist” American Cottage Industry Grifters

And there was something else that was bothering me about MacIntyre, the former “Marxist,” just like with the former Marxist Right-Wing radio host Michael Savage, and right-wing professor Thomas Sowell; and Breitbart political operative former comedian Milo Yiannopoulos who plays a gay person, a “cured” gay person, a secular atheist, a Christian, a former Marxist and then a liberal, and now he is gay again; and internet personality Dave Rubin who plays a gay person, a ‘cured” gay person, a secular atheist, a Christian, a former liberal, but I don’t know if his is gay today.

German Christian Fascism with a Side Order of Thomist Philosophy

The right-wing media has an army of pseudo-former-Marxist straw men and it seems MacIntyre was first in line to play the role. And then there is another thing that was bothering me: MacIntyre, the former Marxist, published his book in 1981 just when the fascist Right-Wing Ronald Reagan administration with the Christian Right came into power preaching the same “Traditional Values” ideology with a particular ultra-conservative dogmatic religious-Aristotelian flavor—a good career move for a professor! We know this from the Reagan Administration’s hung over morbidly obese Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett, who at the time was a habitual gambler and slobbering alcoholic. Bennett wanted Aristotle taught in American schools so it was a good time to play the “former” Marxist and Aristotelian scholar grift. MacIntyre wrote in his introduction, “I became a Thomist after writing After Virtue in part because I became convinced that Aquinas was in some respects a better Aristotelian than Aristotle…(Ibid., p. X).”

And there was something else that was bothering me about MacIntyre’s polemic against modernity, or what he calls “Enlightenment” and “post-Enlightenment.” “Post” means “after,” or “Post-Virtue.” That’s it! All this contemporary internet postmodern crap originated—I maintain--from MacIntyre’s inspiring book “After Virtue,” and one of his philosophical progeny is the fascist dimwit James A. Lindsey spewing the same old postmodern garbage, but with the new meme of “Critical Race Theory” flooding the internet. In comparison to James Lindsey, Jordan Peterson is a genius!

How to Flood the Zone with Bullshit

The fascist Right-Wing Steven Bannon is carrying on a multi-media fire hose propaganda “flood the zone with **** campaign” against a straw man “critical race theory” meme. This seventh month of the year critical race theory has been mentioned in the right-wing media 1,860 times. ”Daily Beast Contributing Editor Justin Baragona noted yesterday that on just that one single day of Tuesday, July 6th Fox “News” had mentioned Critical Race Theory (CRT) 123 times…by 2 PM!” (https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-gops-flood-the-zone-with-sht)

And speaking of FASCISM…I would like to remind MacIntyre that anyone that condemned the Nazis in Germany after 1933 went to death camps along with their entire family. Christian Socialist Paul Tillich was the first non-Jewish professor fired by the Nazis from the German university system for rebelling against Nazism as paganism. Heidegger resigned as rector of the University of Freiburg on 23 April 1934, but he did not resign from the Nazi party directly like some of the dissenters that perished in the camps.

Heidegger, "I resign!"

However, I would like to remind any philosophy professors who would have bravely denounced the Nazis publicly that Heidegger did in fact resign from the one group of Nazis known as the German Catholic Church of the 1930s. That's right! Heidegger resigned from the Catholic Church just before becoming rector of the university. The German Catholic Church fully embraced Nazi teachings of “Muscular Christianity” criticizing Jesus as just a “lady with a beard.” In fact, the German Catholic Church enthusiastically competed against the Protestant Churches for the kickback reward of controlling Germany’s national educational system—and they won!

So what does this say about Christian Catholicism? And what does it say about the American Thomists that stood by almost in total silence as American mercenary forces murdered, tortured, and buried hundreds of thousands of Christian Catholics in Latin America? Where is the public denouncement from comfortable Thomists of this documented mass murder of Latin American Christians by American trained military death squads? It must be too dangerous to speak out against genocide these days with "critical race theory" flooding the American media. So it seems, as MacIntyre has written, that Catholicism along with existentialism “…appears to be compatible with almost every possible standpoint (Ibid., p. 151).”

And guess what? The fascists are back so we will see who is truly Christian and speaks out against this demonic force of evil.

Mexican authorities found 1,418 human bodies in 390 clandestine graves
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Recommendations of Books and Videos on Philosophy of Religion and Ethics​

I want to bring attention some recent videos that are exceptionally well done, and relevant to today’s events. One of Dr. Sadler’s recent video is titled, Wisdom For Life Show 39 | The Topic of Truth Take Two | Dan Hayes & Greg Sadler, that discusses the concept of truth as conceived by different epistemological theories. I should also mention another one of his video, Live Reading #2 - Reason Fulfilled by Revelation: The 1930s Christian Philosophy Debates in France, reading from a book of essays he translated from French with a introduction he authored summarizing the meaning and relationship between philosophy and theology. Sadler authored an encyclopedia article on these debates at Christian Philosophy: The 1930s French Debates | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The topic is complex due to the many participates, and carefully crafted arguments in defense of various doctrinal positions presented through out the debates. There is a question and answer period with Sadler after the text reading which provides some insightful commentary.

Dr. Vervaeke has recently recorded On the Self and Dialogos: Kierkegaard, Socrates, and Jung w/ Maitreya and Christoper Mastropietroin. Philosopher Mastropietro gives an outstanding overview of Kierkegaard’s concept of the self that is completely integrated with Dr. Vervaeke and psychologist Dr. Gregg Henriques’ theoretical work in cognitive science methodologies, distributive cognition, and dialogos. Mastropietro’s interpretation of Kierkegaard alone is worth watching if you are interested in religious existentialism.

There is an in-depth focus on language in these cognitive science lectures and dialogos that remind me of Habermas’ work on communication and his interest in religious discourse. I agree with many of Habermas’ conclusions such as his criticism of the term “postmodern,” but I walked into some of his views backwards while attempting to resolve other linguistic and theoretical conflicts in epistemology for example. See, Habermas and Theology by C. Brittain.

Dr. Johannes A. Niederhauser has an important video critiquing the nature of the academy today and what its mission should be: ”On The Future of Academic Institutions. Dialogue with Joshua Hansen.” Both Niederhauser and Hansen have informed views of the state of academia and a vision of what it could become. In another video Johannes really hits it out of the park with this short discussion on the university, a rule for study, and life: “Schelling: ‘Learn only in order to create.’ ”

Currently, I am researching an in-progress essay, “Postmodern Socrates on Virtue” that involves metaethical theories, language analysis, and a review of some major normative ethical systems in philosophy such as ethical egoism, ethical relativism, Kantianism, and Utilitarianism. Among my first undergraduate classes in philosophy was on ethics using the textbook authored by philosopher John Hospers written in 1961 and republished as, “Human Conduct: Problems of Ethics,”(shorter edition), Harcourt Brace Hananovich, Inc.,1972 (pdf. of actual edition). This 1972 edition is shorter (488 pages total) than the 1961 edition that included a section on metaethics and political ethics.

You would be very surprised to know that John Hospers ran for President of the United States in 1972 as the first presidential candidate of the Libertarian party! As a naive philosophy student I had no idea of what a Libertarian was at the time. But there is more! Hospers was at one time a close friend of…Ayn Rand--Satan herself! They later parted ways most likely because of Hospers’ devastating argument against Randian “I Wantism” ethical egoism (Ibid.,pp.194-195).

Before I get to Hospers’ book in detail, I must divert for a moment to some relevant recent American history that put the books “After Virtue,” “Human Conduct,” and “Aristotle for Everybody” into a larger historical perspective. American churches experienced a corporate style hostile takeover during the 1970s that is still on going today which most nonreligious Americans are unaware.

I want to review a very thin slice of American political history during the late 1970s and early 80s. The Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell was appointed by former President Richard Nixon and initiated a new corporate political activism with a document known as the “The Powell Memo” directed to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Education Committee on August 23, 1971. Beginning with the Justice Powell Memo there was a big push by corporations and conservative think tanks to bring about Neoliberalism as the new face of laissez-faire capitalism. During this period right-wing ideology infiltrated the fundamentalist churches to radicalize them to form a nationalist Christian right-wing political party.

The American people were completely unaware they were under political attack by crypto-fascists posing as true believing fundamentalist Christians. I was a member of a fundamentalist Pentecostal church during this time and witnessed a substantial shift in what the churches represented and the attitude of its members. The Koch Brothers, among others, were financing the most extremist right-wing hate filled anti-theology through Christian leaders such as Francis Scheaffer and financed by Neo-fascist Christian Os Guinness among other dark money sources.

Mr. Guinness is a distant relative of the Guinness Beer Empire in Dublin and is the Judas that welcomed the NeoFascist Christian fundamentalist prosperity gospel cult as they infiltrated American churches in the early 1970s. During the late 1960s, Guinness was a leader at the L'Abri Fellowship community in Switzerland which was an originating point of the American anti-abortion movement that later bombed abortion clinics and assassinated a number of doctors whose names were posted online marked for death. L’Abri is an evangelical organization founded by Francis Schaeffer in 1955.

Francis Schaeffer’s son, Frank Schaeffer has since blown the whistle on how Neo-fascists successfully infiltrated American Christian Churches with insightful commentary on religion and politics today. According to Frank Schaeffer’s personal witness a faction of Catholic church leaders were deeply involved in this extremist infiltration of Christian fundamentalism. Francis Schaeffer, was the first systematic Christian theologian I read: Francis Schaeffer was wrong on almost everything he wrote about philosophy.

After Reagan seized political power by manipulating the general 1980 election, Neolibertarian militant ideology appeared more forcefully in academia especially in economic theory, and the Humanities. Free Market Capitalism came to completely dominate economic departments marginalizing Keynesian economists like John Kenneth Galbraith who was refused appointment as head of the Harvard Economics department. Academic philosophy also received an injection of Randian ethical egoism together with free market ideology.

I mentioned that Reagan’s Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett, promoted Aristotelian philosophy as the basis of American conservative education. Also, during this period Mortimer J. Adler published “Aristotle for Everybody” (197 that also advocated Aristotelian and Thomists conservativism intended to make the Humanities apolitical much like the quietism of ahistorical analytical linguistic philosophy. American academia loved analytic philosophy because it is totally apolitical. Adler was hired by the president of the University of Chicago Robert Hutchins as a professor of philosophy of law even though other philosophy professors questioned Adler’s competence in this area (the same question was raised with the hiring Friedrich von Hayek by the University of Chicago), but Adler was appointed regardless of the protests. Adler was the first non-lawyer to be hired by the Chicago law school. Adler taught philosophy and ethics to business executives at the Aspen Institute financed by the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Ford Foundation, by seminar fees, and individual donations (Wiki: Aspen Institute).

Within this volatile political history surrounding Hospers’ book, it is still an excellent, and nearly comprehensive introduction to ethical theory. His libertarian views are undetectable in his analysis of various complete normative ethical systems, and “ways of life philosophies” such as Epicureanism and Stoicism. Hospers distinguishes three closely related interpretations of Stoicism around the concept of the possibility of happiness (Human Conduct, p. 64). “Human Conduct” is a complex collection of interlocking realistic no-nonsense ethical arguments in defense and criticism of various ethical systems (i.e., ethical egoism) until Hospers reaches an impasse, and them moves to the next ethical normative system (i.e., Utilitarianism). Hospers builds no straw man arguments, and his examples of ethical conflict are very carefully constructed to set-up the next group of systematic moral arguments for examination (i.e., Rule Unitarianism). Because this is the short edition of his text, “Human Conduct,” Hospers primarily focuses on normative ethics (What one ought to do as right) and just a little on metaethics (What is the meaning of ethical terms). If you have a chance, take a look at this book on ethics by the Libertarian philosopher John Hospers.

 

Here is the latest interview Frank Schaeffer gave two days ago, but wasn't available in this format yesterday when I posted.

Frank Schaeffer Author of "Fall In Love, Have Children, Stay Put, Save The Planet, Be Happy"
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I am thankful for both Dr. Vervaeke, and Dr. Sadler for their knowledgeable book reading recommendations.

I finished reading Paul Tyson’s 2014 book “Returning to Reality: Christian Platonism for Our Times” while studying in parallel Macintyre’s book “After Virtue” (1981). I can’t do a review of Tyson’s book right now, but his book is a great help following Macintyre since both authors use versions of the same arguments in critique of “postmodernism,” and the Enlightenment. I have Tyson's other book, "de-fragmenting modernity" (2017), but I have to read it later.

There is a third serious contradiction in Macintyre’s stated epistemology that profoundly undermines his entire critique of Enlightenment relativism, and skepticism. I must consolidate my counter-argument notes (fourteen thousand words of notes so far) on Macintyre regarding his interpretations of G. E. Moore, Kierkegaard, Max Weber, intuitionalism, ethical nonnaturalism, and subjectivism to name a few issues. At least I have the logical symbolism of my key counter-arguments completed. However, Macintyre isn’t all bad all the time; his short historical vignette on Kierkegaard is pretty good, and his critique of modern social sciences, and modern inductive methodology is also very good—but wait until you see the problem with his own general epistemology. One should always do epistemology first before during ethics.

Dr. Sadler is going forward with his lectures on Hegel so I will have to binge watch four lectures (paragraphs 716 to 721) to catch up. Sadler is doing an outstanding job on the Religion section of Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit. In many ways Hegel’s writing on religion is the most difficult to study, but is also relevant to the problems of modern philosophy of religion today in the conflict between religion, science, and culture.