Good point.

So isn’t that the past itself is bad, but that conditions were worse than now. If his conditions were to reverse he would have to say the past is worse according to his own measure. — NOS4A2

You've got to the heart of my post, which I appreciate. But I disagree. It isn't that conditions were worse, otherwise he wouldn’t have described present conditions as primitive. He would have described them as bad, unacceptable, or atrocious.

Now, of course I am not saying that he consciously believes that it's the past that's bad rather than the conditions themselves. I am saying that he, and we, slip into this way of thinking and reproduce it, imposing it on history as an abstraction and a myth, obscuring the fine details, dismissing the troublesome realities.

And of course I am not saying that he doesn't describe those conditions as bad elsewhere in the book. Focusing on one short passage, I'm examining how a mythic narrative seeps into our discourse, the result of which is to put the cart before the horse and explain away present evils as belonging essentially to the past.

I also realize that in the book he attempts to show that conditions were generally worse in the past, that general progress by means of Enlightenment is real. And if this is true, then you might say that he is justified in describing them as primitive even when we see them today, because, so the story goes, they characterize the past more than the present. But, even aside from how controversial his evidence is (which someone else might address), this is precisely the blindness of the narrative of Progress. Those conditions are not characteristic only of primitive or scientifically unenlightened societies.

But his use of “primitive” to describe those conditions is the clue to where he’s coming from. Of course he is acknowledging that those conditions exist in the present, but for him they are first and foremost relics, rather than the result of modern problems.

I very much agree. Maybe I’ll say something intelligent about it tomorrow.

That’s a fascinating angle. I can certainly see how the settler colonialism in Africa and India, with its “civilizing” mission, was part of the Progress narrative, but with the Middle East, I’m not so sure. I mean, you’re right, but there was a lot going on. For example, Ataturk, Saddam Hussein and other Ba'athists, the Shah of Iran, Nasser, and Gaddafi led modernization efforts, in many cases against the West. But I do agree that part of the original impetus for this was the encounter with the foreign imperial powers.

Yes, the “othering” that @unenlightened mentioned is directed towards whoever is not in the West and not in the present.

It can be seen as progressive in the sense that as civilization developed at some point (I think China was first) power was given based on merit rather than kinship, which may have resulted power exercised more competently. — praxis

Yes, I was saying pretty much the same thing last week:

Before capitalism, social relations were based on traditions and obligations that had nothing to do with money, and the people at the top had other things to think about, like winning wars, getting in to heaven, or producing an heir (and if they did make money, they didn't actually make it but just took it). A clan chief was obliged to protect his clan members and they owed him loyalty and service; a vassal was obliged to fight for his king to justify holding on to his fief, and also to protect his peasants, who in turn owed him part of their produce; and so on across many variations and times up to the modern period. Capitalism swept most of this away. The result in connection to merit was, ideally, that at last people could be rewarded for their effort and ability, not for their existing attachments of family, class, guild, religion, tradition, obligation, and so on. — Jamal

Otherwise, I do agree that the pervasive sense that everything is getting worse obscures some real progress.

But you’re still a moralist, not yet beyond good and evil — Joshs

And thus, in a sense, beyond Nietzsche.

But a nice point.

Me too. I was watching the Munk debates on both capitalism and populism and the same theme struck me, that the motivating ideology of any movement is not the same as the product. There's a disconnect created by the fact that ideologies gather popular support and as such become tools in themselves which can be wielded in the service of other, completely different ideologies.

I think enlightenment, progressiveness, whatever you call it, is like that. The notion of trusting in science, the rule of law, reason etc is one thing. The purposes that such a trust is put to is another. — Isaac

This fits with what I was saying recently about meritocracy. Whatever its… merits (and I question those), the idea functions as ideology to obscure existing inequality or even to justify it by implying you got to the top on merit, and I’m still poor because I’m lazy and talentless (though the latter is less often stated openly).

I think beyond Nietzsche by bypassing him.

That book looks interesting. Still haven’t got around to Graeber.

Some films I’ve enjoyed a lot in more recent years:

Under the Skin
The Green Knight
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
The Cabin in the Woods
Midsommar
Us, Get Out (haven’t seen Nope yet)
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Triangle of Sadness
Nightcrawler
Birdman
Edge of Tomorrow

There are many I haven’t seen, especially foreign language films. I don’t watch a lot of anything these days.

Hey GMBA, good to see you ag—wait a minute, what’s this?

Isn't there a forum, on some other website, where the buzz of intellectual gnats do not drown out the thought of man? — god must be atheist

I’m offended!

Incidentally, I got the phrase "insufferable enthusiasm" from Nietzsche, writing about progress. Elsewhere he wrote this:

Progress. — Let us not be deceived! Time marches forward; we'd like to believe that everything that is in it also marches forward— that the development is one that moves forward. The most level-headed are led astray by this illusion. But the nineteenth century does not represent progress over the sixteenth; and the German spirit of 1888 represents a regress from the German spirit of 1788. "Mankind" does not advance, it does not even exist. The overall aspect is that of a tremendous experimental laboratory in which a few successes are scored, scattered throughout all ages, while there are untold failures, and all order, logic, union, and obligingness are lacking. How can we fail to recognize that the ascent of Christianity is a movement of decadence? -That the German Reformation is a recrudescence of Christian barbarism? -That the Revolution destroyed the instinct for a grand organization of society? Man represents no progress over the animal: the civilized tenderfoot is an abortion compared to the Arab and Corsican; the Chinese is a more successful type, namely more durable, than the European. — Nietzsche, Will to Power

I quite like the idea of humanity or history as a "tremendous experimental laboratory in which a few successes are scored, scattered throughout all ages, while there are untold failures."

My temptation is to think beyond Nietzsche and say: one day we'll get it right. This would not be to endorse Progress, only to admit that we can find better ways of living.

1. Nowhere is it established how we (enlightened countries) justify such a discreet separation from those benighted countries of war, famine and pestilence. It's as if Pinker treats borders as having some deep cultural/psychological fence around them such that cultures within can be judged in isolation. — Isaac

Wouldn't he just say that in actuality, the Enlightenment was only realized in nation-states, and especially in the US, where he and his friends stand at the pinnacle of history?

2. The assumption that recorded history is equal to 'the past' which, of course it isn't. What goes into the records is a selected subset of everything that actually happened. One of the main critiques I've read of Pinker here is that he takes a single, fairly famously biased, source for his data on Hunter-Gatherer tribes, for example. We shouldn't confuse the academic canon with the lived experiences of the people there. — Isaac

Yes, those are the critiques that I've seen too.

I like (though hadn't thought of it before) your noting that 'the past' is simply assumed to be source of these evils rather than actual material conditions (which, obviously could re-materialise). I agree it dangerously implies we need do nothing, that just passively 'allowing' progress will result in the benefits assigned to it. It has a disturbing paternalistic feel that I don't think is accidental. Pinker's target, after all, is not the forces which keep these benighted countries down. His audience is Western. His target is that particular branch of progressivism which sees technological and capitalist growth as a concern. His message is "stand aside". — Isaac

Exactly. At the same time, I share Pinker's animus towards some of that progressivism. It's complicated.

One gets off the hook by not trying to get off the hook. This is old-fashioned:-- "We are all sinners..." Progress therefore is not made, because progress in life science entails equal progress in death science, progress in healing entails progress in sickening and torture. Individual life-expectancy has increased, but species survival expectancy has radically reduced. — unenlightened

Nicely put. Seen in this light, the claim that the bad bits are just relics is especially preposterous.

I also feel that I cannot disagree with him about the progress since enlightenment, but at the same time I can't agree either. — javi2541997

I feel the same. I call it "dialectical". :grin:

But despite the melancholy behind the OP, I don't share your pessimism. I don't think war is eternal and that conflicts will repeat cyclically forever. I just don't think an overarching idea of progress is the right way to look at history.

By the way, I created this discussion after I saw you post something in another thread about the inevitability of war.

Yep.

I should point out that it's not just liberals who do this. It's obviously at work in Marx and in the revolutionaries who were inspired by him. Maybe this is the one issue where conservatives, of the more old-fashioned kind at least, get off the hook.

:up:

I think that it's because, for Aristotle, and the ancients generally, the cosmos itself was alive. I don't know if it's really pantheistic, although not far from it - more that there was the sense that man's relationship with the cosmos was 'I-Though' rather than our customary 'I-it' relationship (Martin Buber). But I think it's fair to say that for Aristotle, the Cosmos itself was ensouled, for, as a whole, it displays the attributes of all other living beings. The idea of the cosmos as inert matter governed by physical laws was yet to be arrived at. — Wayfarer

But I’ve been reading that IEP article and can’t see the justification for “To be is to be alive; all other being is borrowed being.” I’m not saying it’s untrue (or true), only that I’m trying to see the reasoning in the article and can’t. Your comment here sheds light on it, but it’s still obscure to me.

It’s on my list of things to look into now. :up:

That is interesting.

distinguishing 'beings' from 'things' is an eccentric and idiosyncratic attitude — Wayfarer

But note that distinguishing sentient, conscious, or rational beings from those which are not is certainly not considered eccentric by everyone at TPF.

That’s not so pitiful. I got excited by a small piece of pork on Saturday.

Enjoy.

:party:

Yeah I love those Google tricks. There are other ones here:

20 Google Search Tips to Use Google More Efficiently

In my lexicon, they don't exist, but they're real - real in the same way that, say, scientific principles and constraints and logical laws are real. — Wayfarer

Yes, this seems similar to existents vs beings.

Otherwise, I have to admit that I didn't enter this discussion in a spirit of metaphysical enquiry; I was just trying to sort out a terminological confusion that was disguising itself as a substantial philosophical difference (I think this is similar to the point that @Isaac made above).

Or is it the other way around: a substantial philosophical difference disguised as a terminological debate? Now I'm confused.

Anyway, my own properly philosophical interests right now are the non-metaphysical metaphysics of Theodor Adorno, which doesn't leave much mental room.

I did find it odd that you rejected precisely the usage that was common in the kind of Western philosophy you seem to have most affinity for: traditional metaphysics. I felt like I could show you this, so that's why I intervened.

Even if the debate has been skating over the real issues, it's still been good. :up:

there is no appreciable difference between the verbs 'to be' and 'to exist'. Everyone here generally accepts that, but I dissent — Wayfarer

I forgot to mention: I have not committed myself to that.

I wonder if Platonists would say that the Forms exist. Plato said they were beings, but maybe to say they exist would be to say something more, in a Platonic scheme.

So it all comes back to: there is no appreciable difference between the verbs 'to be' and 'to exist'. Everyone here generally accepts that, but I dissent. I'm quite happy to leave it at that. I will not push the point in future. — Wayfarer

But you can say there is a difference between being and existence and also say that anything that can be said to be is a being. Probably many of the philosophers mentioned in my citations would have upheld that difference. For example, I think some philosophers have said that possible beings might or might not exist, i.e., they are, but they don't always exist. Heidegger has a different distinction that I'm not clear about (in line with ontological vs ontic, I'm guessing). Others will have different distinctions again. All of them, however, go along with beings as anything that can be said to be.

So, how can using the same word for both 'subjects' and 'non-subjects' be 'consistent with a fundamental difference'. If it's the same word, and refers to both classes, then how can it convey 'a fundamental difference'? Or did you mean to write, 'is consistent with there being no fundamental difference between...' — Wayfarer

No I did write it as I meant to.

Maybe this sums it up: It's consistent with a fundamental difference, but it does not convey any such difference. It's neutral. It is also consistent with there being no fundamental difference.

Does that make sense?

So, what do you think is the philosophical signficance of the fact that 'man alone' is capable of 'encountering the question of being', and that no other beings are able to do that. Do you think this is a significant distinction? — Wayfarer

Absolutely!

Note that Heidegger singles out 'human beings', because they alone are able to encounter the question of 'what it means to be'. No other beings - particles and planets, ants and apes - are able to do this. To all intents, that is the same distinction I was seeking to make. — Wayfarer

Yes, that was precisely my point. I thought I'd made that clear. To use "beings" to refer to anything which can be said to be, whether animate or not, is consistent with a fundamental difference between human beings and other beings, or between subjects of experience and things that are not subjects of experience.

I explicitly chose that quote for exactly the reason you've pointed out. It supports my central point.

I'm left quite baffled by this discussion. I'm pretty sure even the occasional modern use of 'being' as 'living entity/person' is derived post hoc from the adjunct of 'being' to 'human being', by contraction to just 'human' or just 'being'. — Isaac

Yes, that was my conjecture too. I'm also guessing it's been strengthened by popular culture, e.g., "the being from another world." I also noticed, while doing my SEP trawl, that many of the articles on Eastern philosophy use it like this.

I could probably do a long list of philosophical citations where "a being" means a person. I guess it comes down to context. — frank

Yes, there are many of those too. When the context is Western metaphysics, the use I've been arguing for seems to be the main one, and it's the minimal, most neutral sense, in line with the grammatical basics: a being is what can be said to be.

Or divine being. — frank

Yep, good point.

I don't know of any cases where "a being" isn't a person. — frank

See my quotations from the SEP. It's the philosophical standard.*

In philosophy there are human beings, divine beings, non-living beings, inanimate beings, possible beings, and so on. You agreed with me on this a page or two ago.

*EDIT: I mean it's the philosophical standard to use it to refer to things that are, whether they are persons or not

All I’ve said all along is that in common speech, beings are differentiated from things. But then I’ve used that to argue for there being a real distinction which is what seemed to trigger the whole debate. The meta-question, if you like, is what is the source of that controversy. Why does it matter that beings are or are not different from things? — Wayfarer

I just want to note, in case there is any doubt about it, that this has nothing to do with why I have been telling you that "beings" in philosophy refers to whatever can be said to be; it is not why @Baden, @Mikie and others have told you the same; and it is not why philosophers use it like that. The term is neutral on the difference between subjects of experience and (other) things, and is most often associated with some kind of assertion of difference. For example, Aristotle distinguishes between rational and non-rational beings, and between living and non-living beings.

Or take part of that quotation about Heidegger:

If we look around at beings in general—from particles to planets, ants to apes—it is human beings alone who are able to encounter the question of what it means to be.

(I bolded that part because you missed it last time around)

Here you can see that the philosophical use of "beings"—the one that I've demonstrated is conventional—is consistent with an assertion of a fundamental ontological difference.

The reason is that saying of individuals/particulars/things that they are is not saying much at all.* It's a starting point. It is precisely because "beings" does not say anything about the properties of or differences between the individuals referred to that it is used.

"Beings" is how philosophers refer to those individuals (I want to use "things" here but I fear you would get the wrong idea) that can be said to be, including those which are animate and inanimate. The only other way of doing this very useful thing is to say "things that are," which has the same meaning; or many philosophers would bring in existence these days, because they have collapsed the difference—if you want to avoid that issue you'll avoid "existents" or "entities".

* Of course, from another angle, when enquiring into the meaning of being, it's saying a lot, and precisely what it's saying is the issue

Even in philosophy "a being" usually refers to a person of some kind — frank

No, that’s not true, unless you mean “a human being.”

language being use — Wayfarer

Except, apparently, when the use is by authors on the SEP or on that Wikipedia page that @Baden cited (and later quoted). Could there perhaps be two uses, one in philosophy and one in popular culture and everyday life?

None of them directly refer to inanimate things as beings — Wayfarer

That is patently untrue. I suggest you read them again. Those that don't name inanimate beings explicitly--and there are two or three which do--directly entail that meaning.

You won't find anything in there to support the contention of rocks being conscious. — Wayfarer

This demonstrates that you are still misunderstanding my point, quite radically. I don't know why you think I was trying to show that rocks are conscious, or that I was trying to show that philosophers thought so. Or is that not what you are saying?

I refuse to admit to an error that I haven't made — Wayfarer

I have led the horse to water--you're the horse in this metaphor--in a golden carriage furnished with soft bedding and silks, carried on the backs of my loyal servants, to a crystal-clear pond of the sweetest purest water in the land, and still you do not drink!

Well, it's been fun trying.

Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree on that, but it's been good discussion. — Wayfarer

I've enjoyed it too, but your position simply can't be maintained. You asked for citations and I provided them. Are you saying that the quotations do not show that it's normal, standard, conventional, and traditional that "beings" in philosophy are whatever can be said to be?

Or are you saying that the authors of the quoted articles are misusing the term? Or are you instead saying that those quotations are a misrepresentative selection?

These are all relevant citations, but I'm afraid that they don't prove the contention that no distinction is made in philosophy between 'beings' and 'things'. — Wayfarer

I agree. I have not been arguing for that position. I have been demonstrating that "beings" is commonly used in philosophy to mean that which can be said to be, or that which is, therefore that you are not justified in saying that beings, to be beings, must be subjects of experience.

Probably for the reasons that I have given. — Wayfarer

Yes, in the very same sentence I said it was probably because your favoured sense of "beings" is now widespread.

Note the distinction here between 'things' subject to the laws of nature and 'beings' in a more general sense. What has been translated as 'substantia' in Latin, and thence 'substance' in English, was 'ouisia' in Aristotle. So the metaphysican studies 'the being' of things, how they 'come to be'. (This is the substance of The Greek Verb to Be and the Meaning of Being by Kahn, although he mainly concentrates on Aristotle's predecessors.) — Wayfarer

Agreed. I don't see how that affects my point though.

This is generally considered archaic in modern philosophy. According to materialism only the bottom rung is considered real, with everything else derived from it by some unexplained power. My general view is that the whole notion the vertical dimension of Being was abandoned in the advent of modernity, which is why the distinctions of different levels of being, and the distinction between things and beings, is no longer intelligible. — Wayfarer

I see where you're coming from, but my point still stands (and stands well-supported now I think).