Philosophy exercise: call for critiques
Jun. 5th, 2005 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grysarSo, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
regyt once told me that philosphy was a meta area of study, that it explored and discovered caves/topics like politics, biology, economics, and moved on while those less meta subjects explored their own cave in depth. I'm not doing full justice to the eloquence of the metaphor, but I think that gets the point across.
In that case I believe this is an exercise in philosophy. I propose, against all comers, an analytic system for understanding effective human action. Specifically for describing codes, honor, moral systems, political systems, economic systems, religions, and the like. I do not seek to describe the actions of animals, unthinking objects, computers, or any other entity that doesn't meet my human-centric definition of self-consciousness.
Namely:
All these systems humans follow hold two opposing but also reinforces forces: power and principles.
Power is both creative and destructive. It gives us drive and is tested in the forge that is reality. Thus it changes as the world changes, for the power of a cave man is not the power of a modern human. It can be internal: sharpness of mind, force of will or strength of body. It can be external: weapons, money, technology, God or gods. It can even be a fundamental rejection of the world and a realization of some truer plane.
Principles are rules, conscious or unconscious. They are restrictions on the means we can employ. They are not goals in and of themselves, except that some goals deny us certain means or demand we use others. They are law, the golden rule, cultural mandates, and the like.
Both of these aspects are necessary. Moreover in an effective system they both must be balanced. Power needs the channel of principle or it will become corrupted: see absolute power or hedonism. Principles alone will lack the ability to achieve their goals or they will stagnate without the renewal of power.
As you get into complex economic or political systems the model can be applied, but complex systems will often have multiple sub-systems that need to check and mutually reinforce one another.
So here are my contentions:
So, I need a quick nap and I'm also smug, so I'll skip the examples for now. I invite anyone to challenge any of my contentions or any other contentions they think are implied. And if you provide me a system, I'll give my breakdown.
Addendum due to Ard's threat of violence. (Note, there's lots of variety, I'll just go with a common one I think of.)
regyt once told me that philosphy was a meta area of study, that it explored and discovered caves/topics like politics, biology, economics, and moved on while those less meta subjects explored their own cave in depth. I'm not doing full justice to the eloquence of the metaphor, but I think that gets the point across.In that case I believe this is an exercise in philosophy. I propose, against all comers, an analytic system for understanding effective human action. Specifically for describing codes, honor, moral systems, political systems, economic systems, religions, and the like. I do not seek to describe the actions of animals, unthinking objects, computers, or any other entity that doesn't meet my human-centric definition of self-consciousness.
Namely:
All these systems humans follow hold two opposing but also reinforces forces: power and principles.
Power is both creative and destructive. It gives us drive and is tested in the forge that is reality. Thus it changes as the world changes, for the power of a cave man is not the power of a modern human. It can be internal: sharpness of mind, force of will or strength of body. It can be external: weapons, money, technology, God or gods. It can even be a fundamental rejection of the world and a realization of some truer plane.
Principles are rules, conscious or unconscious. They are restrictions on the means we can employ. They are not goals in and of themselves, except that some goals deny us certain means or demand we use others. They are law, the golden rule, cultural mandates, and the like.
Both of these aspects are necessary. Moreover in an effective system they both must be balanced. Power needs the channel of principle or it will become corrupted: see absolute power or hedonism. Principles alone will lack the ability to achieve their goals or they will stagnate without the renewal of power.
As you get into complex economic or political systems the model can be applied, but complex systems will often have multiple sub-systems that need to check and mutually reinforce one another.
So here are my contentions:
- This model is quite helpful in understanding what makes an effective system.
- This model can be applied to any of the systems I've described above.
- This model can not be simplified to contain only a single force and it need not be expanded to contain three or more.
- This model is a better window for understanding these systems than other dichotomies: individual/society; order/chaos; good/evil; good/bad; rationality/emotion.
- Any effective system must have both of these aspects and they both must be strong forces in and of themselves.
So, I need a quick nap and I'm also smug, so I'll skip the examples for now. I invite anyone to challenge any of my contentions or any other contentions they think are implied. And if you provide me a system, I'll give my breakdown.
Addendum due to Ard's threat of violence. (Note, there's lots of variety, I'll just go with a common one I think of.)
| System | Power | Principles |
| Christianity (old school) | God | Strict code of sacrifice and golden rule. |
| Buddhism | Enlightenment/Seeing through illusion of reality | Rejecting atachment. |
| Capitalism | Self-interest; hard work; competition; entrepeneurship | Basic market rules: no violence, no monopolies, etc. |
| Theoretical communism | Hard work; power in the hand of the workers; collective effort | Work all you can; don't take more than you need. |
| Totalitarianism | Centralized power without restrictions; government can guide colleective energy of entire society; shaping of individuals to best serve countries need | Unquestioning devotion to leader; leader servers interest of people |
| Democracy | Power is in people's hand | Must accept results of elections; follow election rules; majority must try to serve interests of all |
| Utilitarianism | All means are available when appropriate | Means/ends together must server greater good |
| Natural law | Core desires and needs of humanity | Don't infringe on other's core needs in most cases |
| Kantian | Moral strength; positive example influences others | Don't do anything that you aren't willing to have someone else do |
| Nihilism | Rejection of no-win world | Don't give a shit. |
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Re: In response to the new examples
Date: 2005-06-07 03:45 pm (UTC)Similarly, what do you think all those crazy evil monks in kung fu movies are all about? Enlightenment/seeing through the veil of the world unfocused by the code.
Regardless, note that if the system is simply weak, neither the power or the principles/whatever will really be of consequence. So it's a non-issue.
Re: In response to the new examples
Date: 2005-06-07 04:09 pm (UTC)Nicolas
Re: In response to the new examples
Date: 2005-06-07 05:04 pm (UTC)Re: In response to the new examples
Date: 2005-06-07 05:09 pm (UTC)Oh. You were standing by the results?
Wait, then you have a completely separate dimension, strength/weakness of the system, which is external to your allegedly all-inclusive theory.
Nicolas
Re: In response to the new examples
Date: 2005-06-07 05:11 pm (UTC)