THESISxii
A Philosophical Review
Volume 15 • Number 1
December, 2007
Inside this Issue:
Paul Nnodim
HUSSERL AND HEIDEGGER ON THE MEANING OF PHENOMENOLOGY
Alex Elvin
LEO TOLSTOY
Recollection is Inherent in Artistic Communication
Matt Silliman
SOCRATIC METHOD
Seth Kershner
QUALIFYING THE ONE IN PLOTINUS
Some Preliminary Remarks
Jennifer Thomas
DEFENDING RELIGION TO NIETZCHE
Greg Tessier
INVISIBLE ARMOR
A Dialogue with Diogenes the Cynic
Kevin Pink
OBJECTION, YOUR HONOR
Husserl and Heidegger on the Meaning of Phenomenology
Paul Nnodim
The two German philosophers Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) count among the most prominent contemporary western philosophers. Heidegger became world famous through his book Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), which he hastily published in 1927 with the support of his philosophical mentor Edmund Husserl. Although he dedicated the entire book to Husserl, his personal relationship and philosophical allegiance to Husserl deteriorated under the influence of Nazism. Husserl, who is considered the father of phenomenology, would later view Being and Time as a “genial unscientific philosophy” and betrayal of phenomenology by his most trusted pupil. Husserl retired as chair of philosophy at the University of Freiburg in 1928, handing over the chair’s position to Heidegger. In 1933, Heidegger became rector of the University of Freiburg and, to the dismay of some German intellectuals of the time (among them Karl Jaspers and Hans Georg Gadamer), officially joined the Nazi party. Three years later, the Nazi withdrew Husserl’s teaching license because of his Jewish background. Disappointed by his most ardent disciple, Husserl died in 1938. Herman Leo Van Breda (1911-1974), a Belgian priest, saved about 40,000 pages of Husserl’s unpublished, stenographic manuscripts from destruction in the hands of the Nazis. These manuscripts are now available at the Husserl archive of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
At the end of the Second World War, Heidegger’s reputation as a great philosopher began to fade under the de-Nazification process, until his former student and secret lover – Hanna Arendt – launched Heideggerianism into the mainstream American philosophical tradition. From across the Atlantic, continental Europe re-discovered her lost icon. Philosophers of both the continental and analytic traditions have mixed feelings about Heidegger’s philosophy. It is a philosophy coded in strange, but innovative language. While some celebrate this philosophy, others revile it as unnecessarily complicated, impenetrable, and best left to the mercy of Ockham’s razor.
Phenomenology as a Science
In Philosophy as a Rigorous Science (1910), Husserl presents a detailed explanation of what phenomenology is all about. Phenomenology is the study of whatever is given to our knowledge. What is given to human knowledge is phenomenon, which Husserl understands as appearance. Hence, phenomenology is the science of phenomenon. The methodology of phenomenology is descriptive without recourse to natural prejudices or preconceptions. Therefore, Husserl defines phenomenology as a presupposition-less science. Phenomenology as a presupposition-less science must bracket (epoché) the assumptions of the natural sciences in order to analyze the data of pure consciousness.
At the heart of the crisis of modernity, says Husserl, lies the enterprise of natural science. Although he profoundly celebrates the success of the natural sciences, and even aims to develop philosophy into a rigorous science, Husserl nevertheless criticizes the assumptions and methodologies of the natural sciences. He believes that the natural sciences, over the years, instilled a defective outlook in the modern man (woman) with regard to the constitution and understanding of the world. The natural sciences rest upon the false assumption that nature is basically physical. Thus, the spheres of mind, knowledge, value, judgment, and culture are contingent upon corporeality. The natural scientist rejects and denies the possibility of the existence of a self-contained science of the spirit or mind. This situation, says Husserl, explains to a large degree the crisis of modernity. To insist that the sphere of the spirit or mind must be understood according to the dictates of the natural sciences reflects, says Husserl, the naiveté of modern scientific rationalism. The new science of phenomenon must confront the growing skepticism of the modern man (woman) over scientific positivism and its philosophical derivations. The analysis of phenomena as they appear to consciousness, while bracketing the assumptions of the natural sciences, is the goal of this new science.
According to Husserl, phenomenology must honor Descartes for grounding modern philosophy on the primacy of the cogitating self. For both Husserl and Descartes, experience revolves around the self, and the source of knowledge is the ego. However, while for Descartes the subjectivity of the subject (ego) becomes the first axiom in a logical sequence, which enables him to deduce a series of inferences about reality, Husserl sees the self as the matrix of experience. Husserl’s goal is to discover and describe experience in its pure form as the immediate data of consciousness. He criticizes Descartes for moving beyond the conscious self – the ego – to the notion of res extensa (extended substance, body). This Cartesian shift fastens the subject to an objective reality and in so doing generates the ghost in the machine theory otherwise known as the mind-body dualism. Instead, Husserl thinks that pure subjectivity most accurately describes the fact of human experience. Moreover, whereas Descartes emphasizes cogito ego sum (I think, therefore I am), Husserl says that ego cogito cogitatum (I think something) perfectly captures human experience. Husserl’s position here is informed by the relationship that exists between consciousness, thinking, the object of thought and intentionality, which creates the phenomena of experience. Consciousness is always the consciousness of something (Stumpf & Fieser, 422).
Phenomenology as a Method
Heidegger’s Being and Time begins by questioning the meaning of being and the understanding of phenomenology. Heidegger sees phenomenology as a method rather than a science. Departing from Descartes and Husserl, Heidegger defines phenomenology anew. Phenomenology is no longer the science of phenomena, but rather a method of doing philosophy. Phenomenology is a method through which Dasein or being reveals itself. The German word Dasein comes from da (here or there) and the verb sein (to be). Literally, Dasein means “being there or being here”. This is Heidegger’s term for entity, being, humanity, person, man, existence, etc. Sometimes, Heidegger uses the term Dasein to emphasize what he calls the ontological difference. That is, the difference between being as an entity (das Seiende) and the being of an entity(das Sein); the "is-ness" or existence of whatever is. Being as an entity is ontical, while the being-ness of an entity is ontological. Being as humanity is the only Dasein capable of posing an ontological question about life. This further distinguishes being into man or woman as entity, and other non human entities. Strictly speaking, Dasein or being is each one of us.
Furthermore, the phenomenology of Dasein is hermeneutics (Auslegung). Heidegger borrows this term from Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). Schleiermacher adds something new to hermeneutics, namely, the art of listening. If a text is to be allowed to speak, says Schleiermacher, the human art is an art of listening. Heidegger broadens hermeneutics to encompass the interpretation of Dasein’s self-understanding. In so doing, he takes the Greek word jaiνόμενoν very seriously:
“ Als Bedeutung des Ausdrucks “Phaenomenon” ist daher festzuhalten: das Sich-an-ihm-selbst-zeigende, das Offenbare” –…phenomenon, that which reveals itself…- (Sein und Zeit, 28).
Human existence reveals itself. Therefore, phenomenology as a method uncovers that, which is rather concealed. Phenomenology as hermeneutics is the process of self-understanding that is possible for Dasein. Being is a kind of entity that interprets. Dasein or being does not seek to define its own properties, but rather endeavors to understand the possibilities of its existence (Johnson, 16).
Phenomenology as an approach or a method does not seek to impose a structure of understanding on being. It does not require the subject to stand over against an object of understanding. If the question of the meaning of being is to be viable, says Heidegger, it must be posed in such a way that being shows itself and on its own accord. Meaning must not be imposed on being from without.
In the world, Dasein or being reveals itself in two ways; as authentic or inauthentic. In either form, anxiety as a mode of being plays a fundamental role. The inauthentic man or woman, in his or her average-everydayness recoils in the face of anxiety and takes refuge in the impersonal world of the public-self, the world of “the they” or the crowd. Heidegger distinguishes between fear and anxiety. Fear has an object that causes fear in someone; thunderstorm, war, etc. Anxiety, on the other hand, is fear whose object or source is not readily located. Anxiety is the fear of no-thing – the nothingness of one’s being. It is the ever impending fear of death.
The inauthentic being flees from death in daily life. Death is always the death of the “other” shrouded in comforting euphemism: “he is asleep”, “she has gone to heaven”, “she just passed away”, etc. Unfortunately, says Heidegger, death is a personalized event. No one can experience the death of the “other”. Thus, anxiety as a mode of being is something good for authentic existence. It snatches the authentic person out of the world of the crowd and re-positions him or her in the world of self-investigation. Anxiety forces the authentic being to reveal itself by confronting the future in everyday events of life. This important role of anxiety is central to Heidegger’s conception of time as a metaphysical event, rather than a chronological instance. Temporality is the movement of Dasein’s becoming, a confrontation with the future. Death, which is the future, is Dasein’s uttermost possibility. For Heidegger, our existence is “being unto death”. When we anticipate death, we live authentically. Anxiety makes authentic existence possible. Hence, the authentic person attempts to accomplish a given set of goals in everyday life, and in so doing, reveals his or her existence as a real, purposeful being-in-the-world. Therefore, phenomenology is the unfettered, self-manifestation of being.
References
Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, Tuebingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1993
Patricia Johnson, On Heidegger, Belmont: Wadsworth, 2000
Samuel Enoch Stumpf & James Fieser, Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, New York: McGraw Hill, 2008
Paul Nnodim teaches philosophy at MCLA
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Leo Tolstoy
Recollection is Inherent in Artistic Communication
Alex Elvin
In his definition of art, which states that art is the communication of a past emotion, Tolstoy intentionally excludes the possibility that art could be the communication of a present emotion. In his essay, “What Is Art?”, excerpted in Thomas E. Wartenberg’s anthology, The Nature of Art, Tolstoy implies that all communication requires the recollection of past emotions:
To call up in oneself a feeling once experienced and, having called it up, to convey it by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, images expressed in words, so that others experience the same feeling – in this consists the activity of art. Art is that human activity which consists in one man’s consciously conveying to others, by external signs, the feelings he has experienced, and in others being infected by those feelings and also experiencing them (Wartenberg, p. 108).
Tolstoy opposed the immediate and superficial nature of previous definitions of art and sought to replace it with meaningful substance. Tolstoy favored the concrete over the mystical. He remarks about the insufficient efforts of previous theorists to define art in terms of beauty. Such fluffy, mystical definitions, he argued, do not get to the heart of the matter. Preoccupied with beauty, those attempting to define art in such a way are missing the point of art altogether by not focusing on art’s practical meaning to humanity. The circular, non-concise definitions of art “as the manifestation of beauty and of beauty as that which pleases” (Wartenberg, p. 104), are likened by Tolstoy to defining eating as “that which causes pleasure.” That definition of eating does not satisfy what it means to eat, just as a definition of art as “that which causes pleasure” does not answer the question, What is art? Tolstoy dropped beauty altogether from his definition, in favor of a focus on art’s concrete significance to humanity.
Note to Readers
Thesis XII: A Philosophical Review is published biannually as an open forum promoting respectful philosophical exchanges among students, faculty, and the public. Submissions reflect a diversity of disciplinary perspectives, philosophical approaches, and topics. Those new to the discipline are especially encouraged to participate.
Address all correspondence to:
Dr. David K. Johnson, Editor
Thesis XII: A Philosophical Review
Department of Philosophy, IDS, and Modern Languages
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
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Telephone: (413) 662-5448.
Email: d.johnson@mcla.mass.edu.
Fax: (413) 662-5368.
Associate Editor: Dr. Matthew R. Silliman
Email: m.silliman@mcla.edu
Without the focus of beauty getting in the way, Tolstoy is able to explain exactly how art affects us. “The activity of art is based on the fact that man, as he receives through hearing or sights the expressions of another man’s feelings, is capable of experiencing the same feelings as the man who expresses them” (Wartenberg, p. 107). He elaborates that “On this capacity of people to be infected by the feelings of other people, the activity of art is based” (Wartenberg, p. 107). But the quality of being able to infect another with feelings does not in itself make something art. The intention to make those feelings infect someone is what makes something art: “Art begins when a man, with the purpose of communicating to other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain external signs” (Wartenberg, p. 107). Throughout Tolstoy’s essay, artistic communication implies the “calling up” of past emotions.
Why, then, does he not address obvious contradictions to that implication? To many, forms of art such as musical improvisation defy the assumption that art must be the calling up of a past emotion. Tolstoy, while not directly addressing that example, assumes that the reader will understand that his definition covers it as well. There is a common misunderstanding that musical improvisation is not based on preparation, thinking, and memory. Even something as seemingly free of rules as improvisation is always initiated by a desire to do something at least similar to what has happened before. And if there is no desire, and someone accidentally starts improvising, chances are he or she will start to look for something to communicate based on past experience. Otherwise it would be no different from yawning, laughing or crying, things that Tolstoy explains may “infect” us but that are not intentional and, therefore, not art. Communication itself is based on recollection. Any form of art, Tolstoy would say, is a form of composition, even musical improvisation. Such examples are only spontaneous in the sense that the artist cannot go back and touch things up. But improvisation is based on skill and attention, which accrue from practice and experience. Nothing comes from nowhere, especially art.
Rather than viewing art as fixed in the present, as something that pertains only to a particular “society, circle, and time” (Wartenberg, p. 109), Tolstoy emphasizes the role of art as trajectory. In his definition, the deepest value of art is its ability to allow us to experience the feelings of other people from both the present and from past times and to allow us to transmit our own feelings to others. Because of art, he writes, one “has access to the feelings experienced by his contemporaries, to feelings lived by other men thousands of years ago, and it is possible for him to convey his feelings to other people” (Wartenberg, p. 109). To Tolstoy, the integrity of communication is found not in the immediate “nowness” in which people so hastily profess the beauty of things, but in a more practical way, where one thing leads to another with purpose and meaning.
The present is founded on the past. As Charles Darwin began to prove with his work on evolution a few decades before “What Is Art?” was published, everything comes from somewhere. Nothing can exist out of context. John Dewey, whose definition of art is similar in many ways to Tolstoy’s, writes that “all deliberation, all conscious intent, grows out of things once performed organically through the interplay of natural energies” (Wartenberg, p. 142). As thinkers like Tolstoy, Darwin and Dewey show us, to understand something requires a knowledge of how it comes to be. When investigating a phenomenon, the events leading up to it are perhaps the most important things to understand.
Alex Elvin is a student at MCLA
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Socratic Method
Matt Silliman
To the extent that our practice respects its namesake as we know him from Plato and Xenophon, teaching that employs a Socratic method will have several distinctive features. I propose the following for discussion:
Socratic method is conversational (or dialogic) in form and spirit – interlocutors must be willing to say what they really think, and give their actual (even if provisional) assent to each step in the conversation before it can properly move forward. Since dialogue must be responsive to what all participants have to say, it cannot progress toward predetermined conclusions except in response to the participants’ interest.
[Corollary: Faculty cannot force dialogue on a class any more than administrators can impose it wholesale on a curriculum, as it depends on a high degree of trust, respect, and cultivation of a safely interactive learning situation.]
Socratic method is risky – One cannot prepare fully for it, since the dialogue must address and seriously consider whatever positions and assertions its participants propose. In dialogue, the questions one raises must not be veiled answers, but rather expressions of honest curiosity, and their resolution will thus often remain incomplete. The Socratic insistence on fallibility (even that of the professor!) keeps the conversation open-ended and surprising.
[Corollary: Socratic dialogue is not an efficient pedagogical method for ‘covering material’]
Socratic method is friendly – such a conversation’s aim is never dominance or self-aggrandizement (much less grades or credentialing) but a deepening of mutual admiration. The basis of this admiration, however, is not merely personal affection; it is rooted in a shared passion for intellectual rigor, and the consequent willingness to follow the best available arguments wherever they lead.
[Corollary: The bullying classroom interrogation of students seen in Hollywood caricatures of law professors are the opposite of ‘Socratic.’]
Socratic method pursues truth – it must matter greatly to all participants in a Socratic conversation that what they say aims at the truth of the matter under discussion. At the same time, Socratic inquirers are rigorously non-dogmatic; they accept that they may well be mistaken, so welcome effective refutations of their provisional statements.
[Corollary: to the extent that a postmodern or deconstructive perspective denies the usefulness or meaningfulness of the notion of truth, such an approach is anti-Socratic.]
Socratic method is more than a negative tearing-down (elenchos), but is equally concerned to articulate and examine actual propositions about the nature of things and the best way to live. Socrates used his elenchos both to embarrass arrogant and prominent persons, as well as to prepare his friends to engage the search for truth with the requisite humility. In the latter case, at least, he did not stop with our awareness of our ignorance, but used this as a platform from which to try as best he could to understand the world, and to learn to live better.
[Corollary: merely destructive skepticism or cynicism are neither the means nor the end of Socratic method]
Matt Silliman teaches philosophy at MCLA
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Qualifying the One in Plotinus
Some Preliminary Remarks
Seth Kershner
Plotinus (205-270), in his Enneads, describes a metaphysics of three hypostases or – roughly speaking – levels of being, among which the One (or alternatively the Source or the Good) is the focus of this article. My aim will be to demonstrate the legitimacy of Plotinus’ notion of the One, and defend it against charges that it is an extravagant notion whose absence would little impact on the other branches of his thought. I hope to set Plotinus’ often confusing account of the One apart from other writers in the mystical tradition, whose invocations of the ineffable often have little to do with other areas in philosophy.
First of all, it is important to note that in contrast to the multiplicity of being at the levels of Intellectual Principle and Soul, the highest hypostasis (the One) carries the odd distinction of being beyond both being and thought; paradoxically the cause both of all things and no-thing. While the One is prior to the Intellectual Principle, from which the Soul in its turn derives its being, in the One there is neither diversity nor intellection nor need of anything prior to or greater than itself. Immobile and self-sufficient, Plotinus describes it as being “good in the unique mode of being the Good above all that is good.” (VI. 9)[1]
In what way does this category of the One relate to Plotinus’ larger structure of thought? In the first instance, the One is entirely at the center of the metaphysics and ontology under discussion in the Enneads. I mean this in the sense that the One is responsible for two types of causality. It is the efficient or first cause of all, bringing things into existence and sustaining them, since by being “radically present throughout all levels of the system,” the entirety of the cosmos takes its being through ongoing participation in the One.[2] Through emanation, moreover, the One produces the Intellectual Principle and Soul, each at a subordinate level of being.
As emanation is linked to the One’s generative role as causal principle in Plotinian metaphysics, so reversion – the soul’s journey back to its source, the Good – is intimately tied to the One’s final causality. For Plotinus, the ultimate goal or telos of life lies in contemplation of the One. He sums this up nicely in Ennead VI. 7, when he says that the Good is for the soul both “its beginning and end; its beginning because it comes from there, and its end, because its good is there.”
Plotinus did not have a thoroughgoing ethical theory like Aristotle’s, but this telos of human life figures so prominently in his system that certain moral proscriptions follow: namely, avoid the bodily. Purity and a cautious regard of the material world emerge as primary duties. Following the good and virtuous life is essentially a crafting of oneself “in the likeness of God.”
This shows why a skeptical reader should take care not to dismiss the seemingly obscure dwelling on the void that one finds in the Enneads. Plotinus’ thought is not errantly or extraneously mystical. Highly personal though his insights may be, insofar as they impinge on the One within his system of metaphysics, they are neither impractical nor ineffable. Rather, the One is indispensable to the whole system of thought, and can be understood in relation to shared human experience. This is so in the sense of its providing a double causality – decidedly non-Christian in its activity, but creative nonetheless – that stands at the apex of all being and at the core of human activity. Also important here is the primacy of the path: the good life for mortals is one spent pursuing the all-Good. This final contemplation of the One has ethical implications as well: controlling our behavior, we seek to become closer to our source.
Seth Kershner is a recent graduate of MCLA
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Defending Religion to Nietzsche
Jennifer Thomas
Father Kelly walks between the pews of the dark church, fingering the dark wood of the benches, arranging the hymnbooks, anything to distract him from the lingering disquiet that remains after that last conversation. He pictures the parishioners seated among him, waiting on him to proclaim the gospel, to expel their fears, to instill in them a sense of hope. He imagines Mrs. Laurel, a plump octogenarian who prides herself on baking the best brownies for the winter carnival, seated beside young Ashley Silver, the parsonage’s best choir girl. He sees them all, watching intently with somber eyes, taking communion from his holy hands, whispering “Amen” at the end of prayer. Had he disappointed them?
Father Kelly is truly beneficent. He joined the seminary to help others, to spread the Word of God. He is trusting, gentle, intelligent, and not the type to pass judgment. He scowls at the accounts he reads in the paper of priests ignoring the teachings of the Bible, engaging in decidedly sinful actions. Further, his confession is a catharsis; he truly listens, with calm comfort and plaintive regret. But, he always forgives, as Jesus had taught him.
When Bill Foster walked into the church this afternoon, Father Kelly expects to serve as he always does, handing down “Hail Mary”s as the path to redemption. Instead, he finds the high school sophomore deeply troubled, clutching a copy of the Pocket Nietzsche he bought for 25 cents at a yard sale. Seated in the pew closest to the altar, father Kelly listens.
“Why is God dead?” begins the boy, his eyes searching the priest’s. The Father knows the boy longs for answers, coming to ask a man with a direct connection to the Lord.
Father Kelly shakes his head sadly and places a hand on Bill’s shoulders. “Of course God is not dead,” he says earnestly. “Can you not see him in the world around you? Can you not feel him in your soul? Do you not witness his power and glory?”
Bill looks away and raises his copy of the dog-eared book.
“Nietzsche says he’s dead. He claims that churches are nothing more than tombs not that God has been killed,” Bill starts. He is smart, inquisitive, and he wants answers. He decides to plunge – headlong – into the discussion. “No longer can we rely on the values given by God and the Church, he says. Instead, we must reject God and replace our taught morals with our own.” He breathes deeply. “Our values are bad. They are not valuable. This is what he means when he says that God is dead…that our morals are no longer ‘good,’ and we must strive to leave our comfortable morality. God is no more; why should his handed-down morals survive?”
Father Kelly, surprised by what seems like an attack on his personal integrity, sits back against the stiff pew, sighing. What can he tell this young man about God’s infallibility, about his incomprehensible plans, his watchful eye?
“Yes, God gives us our values,” the priest begins. “But, they are not bad – not evil or malevolent. They are set for us, because the Lord wants us to be protected. He understands the temptations of the flesh, and his morals – the ones I teach you in this House of God – mean to keep us from deviating from his virtuous path. Only through God can man live a moral life, and to step away from his caring light will only cause harm. His values are not to constrain you; they are to guide you through life.”
The boy seems unsatisfied. Father Kelly continues. “If man were to set his own morals, how could he get into Heaven? Only God knows the true way. The only means to true salvation is through the Lord’s plan, Billy. Adopt his values as your own, and you will be saved. Attempt to create your own, and you risk losing his guidance. Do you understand?”
Bill nods. But, he has another question. “Nietzsche says that priests are corrupt. He claims that they are characterized by ‘self-deceiving fraudulence.” Bill flips through the book and finds the quote he seeks. “It says ‘Having sacred tasks, such as improving, saving, or redeeming mankind—carrying the deity in his bosom and being the mouthpiece of imperatives from the beyond—with such a mission a man naturally stands outside all merely intellectual valuations: he himself is sanctified by such a task, he himself is a type of a higher order! What is science to the priest? He is above that! And until now the priest has ruled! He determined the concepts of “true” and “untrue”!’”
Father Kelly, slightly miffed, merely waves off the criticism. It isn’t the first time he’s heard a rebuff of this sort. Someone always claims that priests are pompous, above all others, finer in mind, body, and soul. God chose him to be His disciple. His superiority was granted by God solely, and judgment was of no relevance to any other. There’s no need to justify his position to a young boy, and he tells him so.
Jennifer Thomas is a recent graduate of MCLA
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Invisible Armor
A Dialogue with Diogenenes the Cynic
Greg Tessier
Persons of the Dialogue: Diogenes of Sinope, Gregory J. Tessier
Scene: Late night, the bedroom of GJ Tessier. Gregory J. Tessier enters, glass of water in hand. Diogenes stands before him.
Gregory J. Tessier. Ah!
Diogenes of Sinope. I am Diogenes. Who are you?
G. Diogenes the Cynic? I’m writing a dialogue about you. I’m Greg. Can I ask you some questions, to help me with this dialogue? I must admit, however, I’m not interested in your biographical information, in your life in Athens. Your ideas interest me more.
D. The two—my life and my ideas—are inseparable.
G. Right. Praxis. But, so much of what is written about you is apocryphal… anyway, I have several questions. In embracing frosted statues in winter, and lecturing to a statue garden, you provoke a strong reaction. The Athenians notice. Is this a teaching tool?
D. How do you know this story is not merely apocryphal?
G. This is misdirection… what about the story Diogenes Laertius tells where you enter the theater as others leave. When asked why, you respond: “It is what I have been doing all my life.” You could easily have entered an empty theater.
D. Who?
D. Who?
G. What? Oh, Laertius wrote a biography of you. He wrote it Something like five hundred years after you died. Or apparently died…
D. There is essentially no difference between your time and mine.
G. There is one difference which should concern you: Cynicism no longer refers to a school of thought but an attitude. Laertius writes: “When a man said to him that it was a bad thing to live; ‘not to live,’ said he, ‘but to live badly.’” In this conversation you represent one notion of Cynicism, the other man represents another. Ours. Explain to me, in your own terms, what constitutes a Cynic?
D. I do as I please. Others should do the same.
G. Do you mean people should indulge every wish and act upon every desire, or is doing what one wants dependent on one’s intellectual maturity? If everyone did exactly as they pleased, there would be problems.
D. If we do what we want, then we will all become philosophers. Acting in accordance with nature, like living simply, is being a philosopher, is being wise. This is what I mean.
G. Your reasoning begs the question, but I’ll move on. Laertius writes that when you saw a child drinking with his hands, you threw away your drinking cup. You said, supposedly “That child has beaten me in simplicity.”
D. I’m learning a lot about myself. Let’s hear something besides a question.
G. Fine. There’s a story of a man striking you. You say something like, “what a strange thing that I should wear a helmet without knowing it!” The armor of Cynicism may guard one from cruelty and callousness; it also wards off kindness and generosity. This is, as I see it, the fatal flaw of Cynicism. Also, you deal in demystification, yet your words can be extremely obfuscating.
D. You are resigned to the fact you will never receive a truthful answer from me?
G. Are you teaching me right now?
D. Have you learned anything?
G. I think so. You are a teacher, and the street is your Academy. Cynics live amongst the people. So, I think, while donning the invisible armor of Cynicism can be an empowering act, it is also a statement of purpose. Cynics wish to act as the catalyst for cultural change. Cynics, perhaps we can say, are motivated by love, and not hate… You know, Diderot says that one is born a cynic.
D. This man was clearly born an imbecile.
G. You know, you are very predictable—
Diogenes knocks the glass out of Greg’s hand. It shatters on the floor, splashing water.
Very long pause.
G. In this moment, I’ve tried to identify the key tenets of Cynicism.
D. Tell them to me.
G. Takes a breath. Live simply; wear armor; live simply and thoughtfully; work for the betterment of your environment through direct action and physical engagement. And although it comes disguised, in Cynicism there is an essential unspoken element: love.
D. And the work of this program, is this what you feel you must do?
G. I need to start writing
D. Can you do this?
G. I don’t know. I can certainly write this dialogue.
And Diogenes is gone. Greg begins to clean up the glass. He sits, and begins to type.
Greg Tessier is a recent graduate of MCLA
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Objection, Your Honor
Kevin Pink
Humanity is a curious beast that loves to organize things. Regulation of solid, tangible objects is an easy task. However, attempting the same project with more nebulous things, primarily concepts, is quite difficult. Thus, humanity chooses to see art as a solid, concrete entity. George Dickie, for example, correctly took for granted the idea that art objects are artifacts in his essay Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis. WordNet defines an art object as “a work of art of some artistic value.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines an artifact as “something viewed as a product of human conception or agency rather than an inherent element.” By these definitions, all art objects are indeed artifacts, as art objects must be created by humans.
Classical art is composed of artifacts. Statues, paintings, engravings- these are all artifacts. Even modern art, with its urinal fountains and faux Brillo boxes, provides artifacts. This theory prevents the consideration of examples of nature (such as a sunset) as art, as they provide no artifact. Humans have no control over the sun’s rising and setting. Photographing or painting the sunset creates an art object that is also an artifact; this does not, however, make the sunset art. The photograph is art, but the sunset itself is not. Art objects, as the products of human efforts, are most decidedly artifacts.
What is to be said for less-tangible arts? After all, humans know such things as dancing, war, and diplomacy as arts. This is no mere semantic ruse. These things, and many others, are also art. The above definition of artifact states that any product born of humanity’s efforts is an artifact. It is left to the artifacts produced by these less concrete arts to symbolize them. A bridge between countries that had been enemies, a playbill, and a battlefield cemetery are examples of artifacts that signify the efforts of humanity: art objects that are diplomacy, a musical performance, and war. Thus through representation do we come to see these less-obvious art forms for what they truly are. This type of thinking gives the phrase “representational art” a new meaning.
Kevin Pink is a student at MCLA
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