3/29/2013 Simone Weil

by Nathan Turowsky

This week we will be discussing Simone Weil, the early twentieth-century French philosopher best known for her combination of Christian (or almost Christian) mysticism with direct political action, her 'comic and terrible'--to quote Flannery O'Connor, an admirer of sorts--life story, her pacifism to a greater or lesser extent attenuated by the demands of the unfortunate time in which she lived, her attempts to apply Platonic idealism to everyday life, her at times impenetrable personal dictionary*, and her highly original thought on the nature of time, suffering, and loneliness. Weil's method of doing philosophy was unusual and at times troubling, as was her attitude towards the material conditions of her own existence, and her tempestuous relationships with Judaism and Catholicism make her good reading for Good Friday.

The presentation will focus on Gravity and Grace, the collection and arrangement of Weil's unpublished notebooks released after her death by her close friend, the farmer and sometime philosopher Gustave Thibon. Gravity and Grace is the source of most of Weil's recorded thought on such perennial philosophical subjects as aesthetics and metaphysics as well as such perennial human subjects as longing, absence, chance, and fairy tales. We will read several chapters from the book (they're very short and photocopied handouts will, God willing, be provided) and discuss key ideas such as metaxu--'every separation is a link'--and their relation to other philosophical and religious notions. If we have time we may get into Simone's Cave, Weil's adaptation of the allegory of the cave to the idea, which was relatively new in her lifetime, of most features of human consciousness as products of social forces rather than either biology or the true core of the personality or soul. Her interpretation of Plato has both religious and political implications beyond what other Christian Platonists have historically countenanced as well as having implications for the psychological function of fiction. We may also touch on the broader theme of kenosis, a religious 'emptying' of one's will, and its various sources and incarnations outside of Weil.

Attendees of this meeting will be encouraged to take Weil's thought personally to a greater degree than usual, because her thought exists to be taken personally. If a subject in or way of doing philosophy, science, or art does not act in some way upon the human personality Weil does not consider it worthy of her attention, and thus Simone Weil's attention was a rare and precious thing to attract. Only Jesus Christ, some of the flotsam and jetsam of other religions, and Provençal viticulture really managed it for extended periods of time.



*'Imagination' is a particularly loaded term for Weil, and she throws around the phrase 'great beast' more than the average reader is necessarily comfortable with.

3/8/2013 Herderian Nationalism

by Nathan Turowsky

What is a 'nation', how does it differ from a 'state', and how does 'culture' come into all this? In the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, the answer has seemed simple in much of the Western world: States are those political entities which blanket the planet, and nations are those entities which are formed by the culture or cultures or a state. (Or, if you prefer, states are the tangible rational-legal forms taken by nations, which may or may not have 'culture', an abstract, amorphous, uncountable noun.) Somebody who is a nationalist is committed to the interests of their nation, membership in which is defined by citizenship granted by a state.

Early in the development of nationalist thought, however, 'nation' indicated something very different indeed, a cultural unit or entity which state power could either support or threaten and to which it was in no way theoretically connected. This early non-state nationalism found its most sophisticated expression in the writings of the German philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803), whose nationalism, based on real or perceived cultural affinity, may be defined as 'orthopraxic' as compared to the 'orthodox' nationalism of the citizenship-based modern nation-state. After Herder's death, other European thinkers appropriated different aspects of his thought and writings, which led in directions as varied as anodyne romanticism, militant anti-imperialism, and--in combination with later forms of German nationalism, which Herder in his lifetime opposed--the intellectual seeds of the Third Reich.

Herderian cultural nationalism, as its eponym conceived it, was decentralist, anti-authoritarian, traditionalist, religious, and in its pure form worryingly racist; it was formed out of a cacophony of sometimes contradictory, sometimes bizarrely consonant humanist and reactionary instincts within Herder's psyche, which J.M. Lyon describes in 'The Herder Syndrome' as defined by a deep undefinable sense of not belonging. How have the thoughts of this comparatively second-rate eighteenth-century German thinker borne fruit in more recent times? Where, if at all, do we see them on the modern American 'left' or 'right'? Were they precursors to fascism or anti-imperialism or both? Philosophy Club President Nathan Turowsky will lead us on a magical ride through the carnival funland of early modern political and social thought, with Herder and his ambiguous and frustrating legacy as our guide.

A Thought Experiment

We found this in a reddit thread recently and felt it would be remiss of us not to share it. Here is a thought experiment:

"On Twin Earth, a brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley. There are only two options that the brain can take: the right side of the fork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sight of derailing or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows trolleys. The brain is causally hooked up to the trolley such that the brain can determine the course which the trolley will take.

"On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right. If the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the orphans’ bus will be crossing later that night). One of the orphans that will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrant who would make good utilitarian men do bad things. Another of the orphans would grow up to become G.E.M. Anscombe, while a third would invent the pop-top can.

"If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, ‘Leftie,’ and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital that will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts. If the railman on the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, ‘Leftie’ will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he will inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospital for transplantation. A further result of ‘Leftie’s’ act would be that the busload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by ‘Leftie’ are both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and ‘Leftie’ are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available; however, the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.

"Assume that the brain’s choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of his decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if the brain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result. Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain in such a manner that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.

"What should the brain do?"

Let us know in the comments what you think. (Protractors may not be used.)