Tag Archives: interscope

07/26/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 8 of 10)

0040 A suprasovereign liberal civic religion dies with the unraveling of the individual2, defined as the intersection of commonsense2V and vulnerabilities2H.

In the normal context of technocratic progressivism3, a mystery2cC unravels into a two-level interscope.  But, the unraveled individual2b does not make sense to humans in their natural… um… state3a.

0041 The two-level interscope characterizes sensible thought.  However, the emotional judgments2cA, phantasms2bA, impressions2aA and feeling2aA of vulnerable persons is more like a religious experience2b, compared to an exercise in commonsense2a.

Yet, this religious experience2b is sensible in the normal context of a state of fear3b, where the leviathan has the potential to declare a state of exception1b.  Consequently, in technocratic progressivism, the perspective levelc does not come into play.

Or, at least, itc appears not to.

0042 Here is a diagram.

Figure 17

0043 How does Locke’s human nature3a become regarded as sociopathological3a?

How does Hobbes’s state of nature3b manifest as a state of fear3b?

The original normal contexts do not seem exceptional.

The latter normal contexts do.

0044 Crawford writes that, in the 1990s, social scientists dispose with the “rational actor” model of human behavior.  Cognitive psychology (and evolutionary psychology) sees humans as unconsciously employing evolved cognitive modules.

Along the same lines, bureaucratic criteria1b, such as performance metrics2b, replace commonsense judgments2a.  Examples include so-called “evidence-based medicine”, standardized tests and curricula, and self-driving automobiles.  These policies are designed to protect vulnerable persons2b, given the sociopathic (unconsciously employing evolved cognitive modules) nature of doctors, teachers and ahem… people who drive.

0045 Here is a picture of what human nature transitions to under the normal context of technocratic progressivism3.  Evolutionary psychology informs us that human nature is full of sociopathic tendencies, due to our “selfish genes”.  Cognitive psychology models human thought processes as circuits of unconscious modules, working in tandem.

Figure 18

Commonsense2a gets redefined.

Some call this progress.  Others call it, “dehumanization”.

0046 During the 2000s, theatrical political initiatives introduce a perspective-level actuality2c, the state of exception.  Astate of exception is declared in order to confront emergent vulnerabilities2b.  These declarations do not need to satisfy commonsense2a, in the old sense of the word, because “commonsense” has been redefined.  In fact, the original concept of human nature3a has been narrowed by scientific inquiry into a suite of sociopathic tendencies3a.

Technocratic progressivism3 dons the mantle of science in its pursuit to remake humans1.

0047 Here is a picture of the transitioned unraveled individual.

Figure 19

0048 Of course, the most recent theatrical incident coincides with a complex sequence of conjunctions among Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto in the Houses of Capricorn and Aquarius.  See Razie Mah’s blogs for March and April 2020.  A novel coronavirus (the common cold) rages through Wuhan after the New Years Festival celebrating the Year of the Rat, then spreads to the world.  The virus’s progress is marked by the technocratic implementation of a polymerase chain reaction test.

Never mind claims that the test also shows positive for influenza.  Hospitals in China and Italy are overwhelmed with old people in the middle of winter suffering complications and the doctors are calling for experts to save them with medical protocols.  Corporate television reports the breaking news.

Disease translates into data.  Data feeds panic2b.

07/25/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 9 of 10)

0049 The federal government responds.  But the term, “federal”, is now delocalized.  It used to refer to a federation of sovereign states in America.  Now, it means a federation of sovereign states in both America and Europe, even though the Europeans have not recognized the subtle shift in terminology.

Technocratic progressivism knows how to shift the meanings of words.

0050 Here is a picture of the plague-unraveled individual.

Figure 20

0051 The normal context of the federal government3c brings the actuality of a medical state of emergency2c, complete with quarantines of healthy citizens, into relation with the potential of ‘biosecurity’1c.

The normal context of a state of fear3b brings the actuality that the novel coronavirus endangers vulnerable persons2b into relation with the government apparatuses of subsidiary states, such as Germany and Italy, as well as America and Canada1b.

The normal context of the sociopathic reactionary resistance3a brings the actuality of common folk denying the well-publicized dangers2a into relation with the potential of a countervailing democratic initiative1a.

Of course, the federal government3c and the leviathan1b can manage the anticipated3a commonsense2a democratic1ainitiative.  That is where the control files on politicians, influencers, corporate media celebrities, religious leaders, and so on, enters the picture.

0052 How about some anecdotal evidence?

Crawford describes his observations of people in the California Bay Area, a technocratic progressive heartland.

First, people wear masks outdoors, not so much for personal protection, but because zero covid is a heroic battle, requiring a literal effacement of the individual.

Ah, wearing masks1a signals one’s virtuous solidarity with vulnerable persons endangered by the virus2b.  It is an expression of democracy1a in support of the leviathan1b, rather than common folk, who do not care about those designated as “vulnerable”2a.

0053 Here is the virtual nested form in the category of firstness.

Figure 21

The normal context of biosecurity1c virtual brings slogans from the leviathan1b into relation with the potential of affirmation by democratic expression1a.

Here is a diagram.

Figure 22

0054 What about lockdowns?

Does staying home during a lockdown show democratic assent?

Here is a picture of the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality.

Figure 23

0055 Crawford describes how lockdowns force social isolation.  Social atomization is one of the conditions that support the rise of totalitarian movements.  The Party offers the only way to… um… party.

Also, social isolation purifies the citizens of the Bay Area, who democratically assent1a to the leviathan1b rather than what used to be called “commonsense”2a.  Those wearing masks outdoors dance to the cultish vibe of hygiene maximalists.  Here are the uncontaminated spiritual warriors of a nascent hygiene state.

Crawford waxes eloquent about a social scene that makes common folk want to puke.

0056 Here is a picture of the virtual nested form in the category of secondness.

Figure 24

0057 Need I continue?

The denizens of the San Francisco Bay Area abandon commonsense2a and embrace medical tyranny1b.

Denizens?

Well, they aren’t individuals anymore, are they?

07/25/22

Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 10 of 10)

0058 The coronavirus of 2019 ends liberalism as a civic religion.

These diagrams, inspired by and roughly coherent with Crawford’s text, provide complementary food for thought.  The resolution of the mystery of the individual marks the death of liberalism and the coronation of technocratic progressivismas a suprasovereign being.  A religion is supplanted by its heresy.

0059 The liberal religion holds a mystery as the object that brings all into relation.

The individual is the intersection of commonsense and vulnerability.  Crawford notes that individuals have a certain nobility.  Liberals never strive to destroy that spiritness.  They desire to create a better individual, the old fashioned way, through reform and renewal.

0060 The religion of technocratic progressivism (which I also call big government (il)liberalism), suspends the lively, spontaneous party that defines individuals, and imposes a three-tiered interscope, where the normal context of the federal government3c virtually brings the actuality of a state of fear3b into relation with the potential of a reactionary resistance3a.

The virtual nested form in the category of thirdness is prophetic, since it suggests that an ultimate state of exception2c will occur when common folk become dangerous to vulnerable persons2b because of the common folk’s tendency to use commonsense and value self-governance2a is declared to be “toxic”.  In short, “commonsense2a” (in the original sense of the word) is regarded as “criminal2b” (according to the leviathan1b).

0061 Indeed, what Crawford does not say stands just beyond his mournful lament of the tragic end of individual spiritness.

What Crawford does not say is prophetic.

0062 The website is UnHerd.

Michael Crawford contributes regularly.

0063 The overall argument is introduced in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.

The topic of the individual is discussed in A Primer on the Individual in Community and in points 0081-0086 in The First Primer on the Organization Tier, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

04/29/22

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (Part 1 of 18)

0001 Three faculty at the Universidad Santo Tomas, Columbia, publish an article with the title, “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in Human and Social Sciences Research”, in the journal, Civilizar: Cienceas Sociales y Humanas(volume 20(38), 2020, 137 to 146, DOI: https//doi.org/10.22518/jour.ccsh./2020.1a10).  I thank the authors for presenting in English.

0002 In this series of blogs, the above article serves as a testing ground for four commentaries on phenomenology, contemporary Thomism and science.  The commentaries, available at smashwords and other electronic e-book vendors, follow.

Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenological Reductions”

Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean-Luc Marion and … First Philosophy”

Comments on Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenology”

Comments on Jack Reynolds’ Book (2018) “Phenomenology, Naturalism and Science”

0003 Testing ground?

These commentaries contain particular category-based nested forms, interscopes and judgments, constructed from (or in reverie to) the essay and book under consideration.  These synthetic structures are abductions, constructed on Peircean frames.

So, what to do with a guess?

Test it.

04/27/22

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (Part 3 of 18)

0006 Test one.

In the conclusion (Part 5), the unspoken agenda of the authors becomes apparent.

Why are hermeneutics neglected in phenomenological inquiry?

0007 The authors offer several good reasons for why hermeneutics should be employed.

First, in history, Husserl’s project differentiates out of nineteenth century hermeneutic traditions.  Both refuse to accept the triumph of positivism.  So, if these two traditions have common ancestry, then why are they apparently not compatible?

Second, hermeneutics situates texts, in the same way that a reader situates an author’s writing.  So, hermeneutics situate the same phenomena as phenomenology.

Third, hermeneutic practices arise out of the potential of interpretation.  Phenomenological reductions arise out of the potential of identifying what the noumenon must be.  Why are these not complementary processes?

0008 An answer starts with the Positivist’s judgment, initially diagrammed in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.  Judgment has a triadic structure consisting of three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.  When these elements are assigned to Peirce’s categories, the judgment becomes actionable.

0009 The relation is a positivist intellect, who has a rule, saying, “Metaphysics is not allowed.”  This relation belongs to thirdness, the realm of normal contexts.

What ought to be is an empirio-schematic judgment, consisting of a disciplinary language (relation), mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be) and observations and measurements (what is).  What ought to be belongs to secondness, the realm of actuality.

What is is a dyad, consisting of two contiguous elements.  The elements are a noumenon, the thing itself, and its phenomena, its observable and measurable facets.  The contiguity expresses a logical necessity.  In natural science, a noumenon cannot be reduced to its phenomena.  No arrangements of phenomena fully objectify their noumenon.  I place the contiguity in brackets.  A noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.

0010 Here is a picture of the Positivist’s judgment.

Figure 01

This figure does not answer test one completely.  But, it is a start.

04/26/22

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (Part 4 of 18)

0011 The first test posed by the authors concerns the apparent lack of compatibility between hermeneutics and phenomenology.

The lack is explained by the rule of the positivist intellect, saying, “No metaphysics.”

0012 Both phenomenology and hermeneutics are capable of situating the Positivist’s judgment.

However, hermeneutics arises from interpretation, which is necessarily metaphysical.  Interpretation is not physics.

0013 Can the same be said for phenomenology?

Phenomenological reduction self-identifies as not metaphysical, even as it elucidates what the noumenon ought to be.

0014 The positivist intellect’s rule gives permission to phenomenology, but not to hermeneutics.

Phenomenology, not hermeneutics, situates the Positivist’s judgment.

This answer is portrayed in Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenological Reductions”.

04/25/22

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (Part 5 of 18)

0015 Test two.

What is the latent dilemma between phenomenology and hermeneutics?

Both phenomenology and hermeneutics are able to situate the Positivist’s judgment.  However, since the rule of the positivist intellect disallows metaphysics, only phenomenology is allowed to situate scientific discourse.  Hermeneutics is programmatically excluded.

0016 How am I to diagram this answer?

First, the Positivist’s judgment unfolds into a content-level nested form, according to the categorical assignments of the elements.  Here is a picture.

Figure 02

0017 According to Comments on Jack Reynolds’ Book (2018) “Phenomenology, Naturalism and Science”, another latent problem stands between science and phenomenology.  Practicing scientists are perfectly happy to work within this content level, as the mechanical philosophers of the 17th century intend.  Hands-on natural scientists3a build models2a of observations2a of phenomena1a.  They take the noumenon1a for granted.

But, by the 20th century, visionary scientists lobby to situate the Positivist’s judgment with a glorified unfolding of the empirio-schematic judgment.

Edward Husserl (1859-1938) counters visionary scientists with phenomenology.  Husserl’s project3b brings the actuality of phenomenological reduction2b into relation of the possibilities inherent in a return to the noumenon1b.

0018 Here is a diagram of the resulting two-level interscope.  The situation-level nested form virtually situates (and emerges from) the content-level nested form.

Figure 03
04/22/22

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (Part 6 of 18)

0019 Before continuing, I note that the relational structures in the prior blogs are presented in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.  A two-level interscope characterizes sensible construction.  Sensible construction presumes a functioning perspective level, even though that perspective level may not be articulated.

0020 Now, I move on to test two, the latent exclusion of hermeneutics by Husserl’s paradigm.

What would a situation-level hermeneutic look like?

0021 Here is my guess, based on the essay.

A hermeneutic paradigm3b brings metaphysical realism2b into relation with the possibilities inherent in interpretation1b.

Figure 04

0022 This arrangement is not permitted.

Obviously, the actuality2 of this situation levelb, metaphysical realism2b, grates against the positivist intellect3a, because it2b defies its3a rule against metaphysics.  Less obviously, a difficulty originates from the reality that hermeneutics3b does not share the same perspective as the positivist intellect3a.  

Where is the perspective level?  

It is latent.

The term, “latent”, qualifies, because the perspective level of the Positivist’s judgment is not articulated.  It2c is just there.

It2c is simply given.

0023 What does this further imply?

Perceptive phenomenologists, such as the Catholic Jean-Luc Marion, note this lack of perspective and wonder what to do with it.  Could hermeneutics apply?  If so, then a normal context of hermeneutics3c could virtually contextualize Husserl’s paradigm3b, as Husserl’s project3b virtually situates the positivist intellect3a.

Would a perspective-level hermeneutics3c condone the rule of the positivist intellect3a?

I do not think so.

04/21/22

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (Part 7 of 18

0024 So, hermeneutics3c does not put Husserl’s project3b into perspectivec.

What does this imply?

Perhaps, the perspective level does not want to be articulated.  Perhaps, it flourishes on the basis of some trickery.  Take a close look at the two-level interscope and guess what that trickery may involve.

0025 At this juncture, I have answered test two.

The latent difficulty between phenomenology and hermeneutics concerns the perspective level, which is not articulated.  Who knows what is in the perspective level?  Many may guess.  But, two points are certain.  Husserl’s project3b and the positivist intellect3a align with an unspoken perspective.  A situation-level hermeneutics3b and the positivist intellect3a do not.

0026 This answer raises the third test, asking, “What is the subject matter of phenomenology3b?”

04/20/22

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (Part 8 of 18)

0027 Test three.

What does phenomenology3b do?

0028 In section three, the authors propose that Husserl’s phenomenology3b approaches reality1a by transcending the explanatory intentionality2a of the exact sciences3a.  Reality1a is a noumenon1a and its phenomena1a.  The explanatory intentionality2a of the exact sciences is the empirio-schematic judgment2a.   Phenomenology3b approaches reality1athrough phenomenological reduction2b.

In sum, phenomenology virtually situates hands-on first-order science.

Figure 05

0029 The authors continue, saying (more or less), “Consciousness (trained in the methods of phenomenological reduction2b) unveils the face of subjectivity (the noumenon1a) that has been eclipsed by positive objectivism (the positivist intellect3a).”

This quote fits the picture of Husserl’s project3b virtually situating hands-on natural science3a.

This quote fits the idea that phenomenological reduction2b elucidates what the noumenon1a must be1b.

0030 Notably, a return to the noumenon1b renders a subjectivity that can be shared by others in the same situation.  Phenomenological reduction2b elucidates an intersubjective being1b in the category of firstness, the realm of possibility.

According to the authors, Husserl’s project3b has been criticized for reducing intersubjectivity to the field of consciousness.  However, consciousness has already been narrowed by hands-on science to a cogito (the essence of the positivist intellect3a, including the rule of no metaphysics).  

So, the terminus of phenomenological reduction2b, what the noumenon1a must be1b (that is, a noumenon1b), is a mind-dependent being, capable of being treated as a mind independent being.  I would go as far as to conjecture that this capacity directly correlates to the intersubjectivity of the noumenon1b.