Philosophy exercise: call for critiques

[grysar]

So, 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:

1. This model is quite helpful in understanding what makes an effective system.
   
2. This model can be applied to any of the systems I've described above.
   
3. This model can not be simplified to contain only a single force and it need not be expanded to contain three or more.
   
4. This model is a better window for understanding these systems than other dichotomies: individual/society; order/chaos; good/evil; good/bad; rationality/emotion.
   
5. 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.

Comments

Starting Over, Part One.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm trying to take a step back here and figure out why we're on such different pages here, and I think the problem is this:

I tend to think that a good classification system should be one (or both) of two things: elegant in its ability to classify or useful for analysis. Otherwise, I just don't see the point.

I think part of the problem has come from the fact that I've been arguing that- at present- this system has neither, but without properly separating the lines of argument.

Is your system elegant in its ability to classify? You'll have to pardon some deliberate vagueness in what I mean by "elegant", but the idea I am getting at is that items clearly belong in one category (or more) and conversely that they clearly do NOT belong in the other categories, and furthermore that the common elements that result in being placed in each category are a readily apparent sign of common group membership among the items in the category.

An example of an elegant classification system in this sense is, say, the list of BESM characters by eye colour type. Putting aside a few oddities, it is generally possible to determine which group a character belongs and which ones it does not, and moreover all items in the group clearly show common group membership.

An elegant classification system may or may not be useful for further analysis. The eye colour lists are pretty much dead ends, analytically, aside from some observations on role players' preference for exotic eye colours.

(Continued.)

Starting Over, Part Two.

[(Anonymous)]

(Continued from part one)

An analytically useful classification system may not be elegant (though obviously can't be totally inelegant, or it will no longer classify) but it can yield results. You can draw a conclusion about an item based on its group membership but not invoking the criteria for membership. Similarly, you can suggest relationships between items based on their respective group memberships.

An example of an analytically useful but not really elegant classification system would be, to parallel the one I gave earlier, the "personality type" list of BESM characters that's also been produced. Whether characters belong in one group or another can be somewhat murky, so it is inelegant. But it is analytically useful, in that one can make conclusions about characters based on their group, or hypothesize relationships between characters based on their respective groups, and so on.

(Continued again)

Starting Over, Part Three

[(Anonymous)]

(Continued from part two.)

At this point, I think you've conceded that your terminology and definitions are in a state of disarray to the point where you cannot claim this system is elegant for classification. This can be improved, of course.

Where I think we disagree a bit more is on whether this has the other form of merit, analytical use. My attitude is: show me. I suggest that you haven't done so. You hint that analytical use is forthcoming, but you seem to not have quite worked it out yourself. You allude to not having quite worked out the question you are trying to answer. Once you've worked out the questions this is meant to answer, and moreover proved that it does, its analytic use will have been demonstrated.

It is worth noting at this juncture that not all analytic uses are equal. Almost all classification systems have some limited analytic use. A truly useful and interesting classification system has either got many such uses or else uses of extreme importance and insight.

With some work, this could either have moderate elegance and/or moderate analytical use. I don't think it will ever be the new all-encompassing explanation for human affairs, which would require it to be both extremely elegant and unequaled in analytic value.

Whew. Okay, done.

Nicolas

Addendum to Starting Over

[(Anonymous)]

I should note a few final things. In order to prove that a categorization system is analystically useful, it must be possible to form an analysis that reduces items to their group membership and/or interchanges them. Otherwise, one is presenting totally separate analyses with common terminology.

Again, this is something that I perceive as a likely problem for you. If each separate power/principles dynamic must be examined in its own context and separate conclusions drawn, the categorization system itself is not helpful to producing useful analyses.

Also, analyses can be considered useful even if they are not 100% correct and/or can be assumed to deal with probabilities rather than certainties.

Nicolas

A small irony

[(Anonymous)]

I realize that, by purposely leaving a bit of ambiguity in what I mean by "elegance"- the intent of which was not to confuse, but merely because I didn't feel I had it clear enough in my own head to explain it without further thought- I have in fact created a less-than-totally-elegant classification system for classification systems.

Nicolas

Re: A small irony

[grysar.livejournal.com]

For the record, I didn't concede my definitions were in disarray, just needing to be clarified. I'll be changing my terminology, but only because you people seem to think that elegance seems more dependent on getting close to common usage then in a nice bit of alliteration. ^_~

Your larger critical system is reasonable, but perhaps a mite premature. I'll repost a second iteration shortly, with intention for more later. At this stage of the process I'm really attempting to flesh out a system that has in my head made several things much clearer. Obviously this doesn't yet do this for other people. I tend to believe that that's because it's not yet to the stage where I've achieved a nuanced rather than instictual understanding of it. You are of course welcome to the belief that even once I do, that won't change matters. I will, of course, fully engage your critique once I have the idea developed enough that I believe it to be elegent.

Regardless I'm thinking of replacing principles with obligations. It gets more to the point, can speak to both limitations and requirements for actions, and has normative connotations. That satisfying?

Re: A small irony

[(Anonymous)]

An obligation implies that it is owed to some party. "Restrictions" works better, I think, though it's not perfect either.

And you'll pardon me for taking your admissions that you needed to clarify your definitions and change the terms you are defining as being in any way a sign that things were in an admitted state of disarray.

I did say that once this system is better developed, it might be more useful and/or more elegant. I just tend to evaluate the system in front of me, rather than the one that may or may not develop out of it.

I do tend to doubt that this will develop, with a few drafts work, into the promised new understanding of humanity that is superior to all previous dichotomies.

Nicolas

Re: A small irony

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Pardon granted. ;)

Eh, normative connotations is key. I'm not wedded to obligations, but restrictions doesn't have a normative feel.

Re: A small irony

[(Anonymous)]

I disagree. I would say restrictions has a greater normative component than obligations.

An obligation is usually personal and designed to achieve individual goals. A restriction is usually common to a group and is often intended to impose a common standard.

Nicolas