why neo-marxism is inherently flawed

my previous entry attempted to debunk "conventional marxism", meaning the beliefs marx espoused in his writings. little did i know that apparently many of his ideas had been misconstrued, misused, or ignored by "orthodox marxists", meaning marxist-leninist and social-democratic thinkers. so given that the existence of the frankfurt school was based on the perceived failures of "marxism" as it was being used by communist regimes in the 1920's and 1930's, i think *that*, in-and-of-itself, refutes orthodox marxism as a viable form of marxism. as it turns out, the "conventional marxism" i criticized closely resembled the frankfurt school's views of marxism in both a revivalist and a revised form. so, i essentially attacked neo-marxism by attacking marx's epistemology and such. but let's examine the frankfurt school via quotes from its wikipedia page and address any differences between it and marx's original writings:


"The problem, Horkheimer argued, is epistemological: we should not merely reconsider the scientist but the knowing individual in general.[17] Unlike orthodox Marxism, which merely applies a ready-made "template" to both critique and action, critical theory seeks to be self-critical and rejects any pretensions to absolute truth."

relativism of this kind is easily refutable. just look at the searle's article titled "refutation of relativism" at the following site: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~jsearle/articles.html


"While critical theory must at all times be self-critical, Horkheimer insisted that a theory is only critical if it is explanatory. Critical theory must therefore combine practical and normative thinking in order to "explain what is wrong with current social reality, identify actors to change it, and provide clear norms for criticism and practical goals for the future."[18] Whereas traditional theory can only mirror and explain reality as it presently is, critical theory's purpose is to change it; in Horkheimer's words the goal of critical theory is "the emancipation of human beings from the circumstances that enslave them".[19]"

ok, this seems to follow exactly what marx had said.


"Whereas both Marxist-Leninist and Social-Democratic orthodox thinkers viewed Marxism as a new kind of positive science, Frankfurt School theorists, such as Horkheimer, rather based their work on the epistemological base of Karl Marx's work, which presented itself as critique, as in Marx's Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. They thus emphasized that Marx was attempting to create a new kind of critical analysis oriented toward the unity of theory and revolutionary practice rather than a new kind of positive science.

i attacked marx's epistemology first and foremost, even over his fundamental economic, political, and historical principles.


"For their part, Frankfurt School theorists quickly came to realize that a dialectical method could only be adopted if it could be applied to itself—that is to say, if they adopted a self-correcting method—a dialectical method that would enable them to correct previous false dialectical interpretations. Accordingly, critical theory rejected the dogmatic historicism and materialism of orthodox Marxism.[28] Indeed, the material tensions and class struggles of which Marx spoke were no longer seen by Frankfurt School theorists as having the same revolutionary potential within contemporary Western societies—an observation which indicated that Marx's dialectical interpretations and predictions were either incomplete or incorrect."

ok, so the most glaring flaw in conventional marxism -- that the downfall of capitalism was imminent, yet did not occur -- is addressed as being either incomplete or incorrect. let's see where that leads...


Contrary to orthodox Marxist praxis, which solely seeks to implement an unchangeable and narrow idea of "communism" into practice, critical theorists held that praxis and theory, following the dialectical method, should be interdependent and should mutually influence each other. When Marx famously stated in his Theses on Feuerbach that "philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it", his real idea was that philosophy's only validity was in how it informed action. Frankfurt School theorists would correct this by claiming that when action fails, then the theory guiding it must be reviewed. In short, socialist philosophical thought must be given the ability to criticize itself and "overcome" its own errors. While theory must inform praxis, praxis must also have a chance to inform theory."

ok, so two things here, both related to each other. first, marx apparently does not have a very deep or insightful explanation of his "philosophy of action". just so you know, philosophy of action is now its own distinct field in metaphysics and is defined by wikipedia as the following:

"Action theory is an area in philosophy concerned with theories about the processes causing intentional (willful) human bodily movements of more or less complex kind. This area of thought has attracted the strong interest of philosophers ever since Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Third Book). With the advent of psychology and later neuroscience, many theories of action are now subject to empirical testing.
Philosophical action theory, or the 'philosophy of action', should not be confused with sociological theories of social action, such as the action theory established by Talcott Parsons."

so marx doesn't address the topic of free will (as i pointed out in an earlier post, except it was aimed at marxists instead of marx himself), he just says we should change the world. ok, while his sentiment was certainly a departure from all philosophy up to that point in time, using the level of sophistication (or lack thereof) in that kind of justification, marx couldn't even pass a college class on philosophy of action. so, marx has done little to persuade me that his philosophy of action justifies the feasibility of his revolutionary goals. if his philosophy of action fails (which in my estimation it certainly has), then the frankfurt school says that we should examine why it failed by examining praxis, and then upon comparing it with theory, realizing what went wrong and learn about how to go about correcting it. i agree with this idea in general. the problem i have is what sort of praxis can be considered legitimate? certainly, since there is no real empirical evidence (praxis) regarding free will (although some neuroscience and psych studies may hint at it one way or another), and we can't go back to finding the "error" in free will (theory), then we cannot modify the theory. as such we are stuck with marx's axiom of "change the world", which is incredibly rudimentary. even contemporary marxists do not have a sufficient answer to the problem of agency in philosophy of action. structuralist marxist david harvey admitted in an interview:

"This flags up the question of agency. In the contemporary world, does it remain the working class? After all, you talk of ‘social movements’ in the 1930s US, but at the core of that was the Communist Party, which stressed the unique role of that class.

This question of agency has to be rethought. I have never been happy with the general depiction in a lot of Marxist thinking of the working class as the agent - particularly when the working class is limited to the factory worker. For me, you would have to incorporate all the people who make the railroads, the cities, etc. It is not simply about the production of things: it is also about the production of spaces.

I have always thought that the general aura surrounding the proletariat in Marxist thinking is too narrow. I wanted it to be much broader, to be much more inclusive of all the people who are working on everything, everywhere - some of whom are easier to organise than others. To me this is very important as a first step, but the second thing is that it is not simply about being exploited in the workplace...

...I ask how we can construct an alliance which is really going to go for the jugular. For me agency right now is a question mark - I do not have a clear theory of it. I know it has to be broader and bigger than the traditional notion of the proletarian revolution. That is one of the things we have to really think about and work on.

There are things happening. In the final calculus, if you had a vast survey and asked everybody in the world, ‘Are you happy with the way capitalism is working?’ I think you would find the overwhelming majority would say ‘no’. Then you would say, ‘Let’s do something about it’. It is my fantasy that you could do that. Everyone would say, ‘Yes, what do we do about it?’ Then the question of agency will resolve itself through social movement."

so harvey admits marx has failings in his original writings, and also admits that at present, he (and likely all other marxists in the world) do not have a clear theory of agency. without a proper theory of agency, marxism remains an incomplete system, and even if everything else in the system were to function perfectly (and even most of marx's most educated and ardent supporters admit that his economic system had some flaws), then when marxism does not go according to plan, the problem of agency always remains as one of the possible culprits as to why marxism has failed up to this point. of course, nobody has a real understanding of agency (philosophers of action certainly do not, let alone economists of all types), so one could attack capitalism as an economic theory based on that. however, the difference is that capitalism is succeeding in the real world and seems poised to do so for quite some time, so ultimately it resolves the problem of agency because the proof is in the pudding -- it has been and is continuing to be actualized. true marxism, otoh, still remains entirely theoretical.


now, here are some tidbits from wikipedia's political philosophy page:

"After World War II political philosophy moved into a temporary eclipse in the Anglo-American academic world, as analytic philosophers expressed skepticism about the possibility that normative judgments had cognitive content, and political science turned toward statistical methods and behavioralism. The 1950s saw pronouncements of the 'death' of the discipline, followed by debates about that thesis.

"Contemporaneously with the rise of analytic ethics in Anglo-American thought, in Europe several new lines of philosophy directed at critique of existing societies arose between the 1950s and 1980s. Many of these took elements of Marxist economic analysis, but combined them with a more cultural or ideological emphasis. Out of the Frankfurt School, thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Jürgen Habermas combined Marxian and Freudian perspectives. Along somewhat different lines, a number of other continental thinkers—still largely influenced by Marxism—put new emphases on structuralism and on a "return to Hegel". Within the (post-) structuralist line (though mostly not taking that label) are thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Claude Lefort, and Jean Baudrillard. The Situationists were more influenced by Hegel; Guy Debord, in particular, moved a Marxist analysis of commodity fetishism to the realm of consumption, and looked at the relation between consumerism and dominant ideology formation."

back to the frankfurt school wikipedia page, here are some of the influences of the frankfurt school:

"Freudian theory -- Critique of the repressive structure of the "reality principle" of advanced civilization and of the normal neurosis of everyday life; discovery of the unconscious, primary-process thinking, and the impact of the Oedipus complex and of anxiety on psychic life; analysis of the psychic bases of authoritarianism and irrational social behavior.

Critique of Positivism -- Critique of positivism as a philosophy, as a scientific methodology, as a political ideology and as everyday conformity; rehabilitation of – negative – dialectic, return to Hegel; appropriation of critical elements in phenomenology, historicism, existentialism, critique of their ahistorical, idealist tendencies; critique of logical positivism and pragmatism.

Culture theory -- Critique of mass culture as suppression and absorption of negation, as integration into status quo; critique of Western culture as a culture of domination, both of an external and internal nature; dialectic differentiation of emancipatory and repressive dimensions of elite culture; Nietzsche's transvaluation and Schiller's aesthetic education."

i previously stated that my issue with the frankfurt school's method of relating theory and praxis was that for philosophy of action no identifiable evidence for praxis could be found, thus causing the theory to be stuck as marx's "change the world". so, it would seem that for philosophy of action, which is now involved in a complementary relationship with aspects of psychology and neuroscience, that one would need *cognitive evidence* in order to change the underlying theory. as the political philosophy page stated, analytic philosophers realized that an absence of cognitive content presented a major obstacle, forcing them to rely on behavior and statistics. on the other hand, the frankfurt school simply adopted the continental intellectual trends of its day, substituting freud, phenomenology, existentialism, and nietzsche for cognitive content. now, i am no expert on any of the aforementioned things, but i know most of freud has been formally disproven, phenomenology and existentialism do not constitute scientific evidence and their philosophical content has been widely condemned by english-speaking philosophy departments (i don't think that's completely fair, as i think students should be aware of the complete history of philosophy, but i also think it shows that most american/british philosophers don't consider those philosophical movements to be worthwhile or relevant, and psychology departments haven't embraced them either, so obviously they don't consider them to be worthwhile or relevant as well), and nietzsche is known for making a lot of claims but not justifying them satisfactorily (i basically proved some of his ideas to be false in a previous blog entry). so to think that you could use these people and movements to replace cognitive content, and thus create evidence in praxis that could be compared back to theory is just absurd. it would also seem to me that because marx's philosophy of action simply amounts to "change the world", that rather modifying this approach when action does not work, that you would simply replace it with whatever theories the aforementioned people and movements have and then work from there. also, you have to remember that philosophy of action and "cognitive content" are being used very broadly here by the frankfurt school, for they aren't doing neuroscience by measuring neurons firing in your brain when you lift a finger after being presented with a certain stimulus; they are talking about a subject's notion of himself and how he interacts with the world around him. so in essence, they are doing a modified, broader, more informal form of behaviorism integrated with cultural studies (in a general sense, not to be confused with "cultural studies" that is now a formal discipline). anyway, i still don't understand how one could integrate freud and nietzsche with marx to explain things, as it would seem to degenerate into an intellectual puzzle instead of providing any real insight as to what was really going on. which leads us to...


"The second phase of Frankfurt School critical theory centres principally on two works: Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) and Adorno's Minima Moralia (1951). The authors wrote both works during the Institute's exile in America. While retaining much of a Marxian analysis, in these works critical theory shifted its emphasis. The critique of capitalism turned into a critique of Western civilization as a whole. Indeed, the Dialectic of Enlightenment uses the Odyssey as a paradigm for the analysis of bourgeois consciousness. Horkheimer and Adorno already present in these works many themes that have come to dominate the social thought of recent years; indeed, their exposition of the domination of nature as a central characteristic of instrumental rationality in Western civilization was made long before ecology and environmentalism had become popular concerns.
The analysis of reason now goes one stage further. The rationality of Western civilization appears as a fusion of domination and of technological rationality, bringing all of external and internal nature under the power of the human subject. In the process, however, the subject itself gets swallowed up, and no social force analogous to the proletariat can be identified that will enable the subject to emancipate itself.
Hence the subtitle of Minima Moralia: "Reflections from Damaged Life". In Adorno's words,
“ For since the overwhelming objectivity of historical movement in its present phase consists so far only in the dissolution of the subject, without yet giving rise to a new one, individual experience necessarily bases itself on the old subject, now historically condemned, which is still for-itself, but no longer in-itself. The subject still feels sure of its autonomy, but the nullity demonstrated to subjects by the concentration camp is already overtaking the form of subjectivity itself.[29]

Of this second "phase" of the Frankfurt School, philosopher and critical theorist Nikolas Kompridis writes that:
“ According to the now canonical view of its history, Frankfurt School critical theory began in the 1930s as a fairly confident interdisciplinary and materialist research program, the general aim of which was to connect normative social criticism to the emancipatory potential latent in concrete historical processes. Only a decade or so later, however, having revisited the premises of their philosophy of history, Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment steered the whole enterprise, provocatively and self-consciously, into a skeptical cul-de-sac. As a result they got stuck in the irresolvable dilemmas of the "philosophy of the subject," and the original program was shrunk to a negativistic practice of critique that eschewed the very normative ideals on which it implicitly depended.[34]

Horkheimer's and Adorno's pessimism
An early criticism, originating from the Left, argues that Frankfurt School critical theory is nothing more than a form of "bourgeois idealism" devoid of any actual relation to political practice, and is hence totally isolated from the reality of any ongoing revolutionary movement. This criticism was captured in Georg Lukács's phrase "Grand Hotel Abyss" as a syndrome he imputed to the members of the Frankfurt School:
“ A considerable part of the leading German intelligentsia, including Adorno, have taken up residence in the Grand Hotel Abyss which I described in connection with my critique of Schopenhauer as "a beautiful hotel, equipped with every confort, on the edge of an abyss, of nothingness, of absurdity. And the daily contemplation of the abyss between excellent meals or artistic entertainments, can only heighten the enjoyment of the subtel conforts offered."[37] ”
Philosopher Karl Popper equally believed that the school did not live up to Marx's promise of a better future:
“ Marx's own condemnation of our society makes sense. For Marx's theory contains the promise of a better future. But the theory becomes vacuous and irresponsible if this promise is withdrawn, as it is by Adorno and Horkheimer.[38]"

so, in the frankfurt school's second phase, a few things happened. they attacked the enlightenment, they obsessed over the idea of the human subject, and they degenerated into an unproductive, self-infatuated pessimism -- all three of these seem to have done little to advance marxism.


following that came the negative dialectic stage, structural marxism, analytical marxism, post-marxism, and of course, habermas. perhaps one day i will care enough to spend some time analyzing the above in a blog entry instead of just glancing at their wikipedia pages. however, the fundamental problem remains: with the exception of habermas, none of the above actually attempt to adequately gauge cognitive content, let alone successfully test for it. as such, they have created their own metaphysics (usually influenced by nietzschian metaphysics so as to ignore the traditional issues of mind/body and free will), which is guided by their own interpretations and preferences (which are usually not rooted in anything considered "factual"), and as a result, you'll get a philosophy that is idealistic, or if not that, then at least an opinion that is highly biased by a personal agenda, and none of that meets the criteria initially established by the frankfurt school to, "combine practical and normative thinking in order to 'explain what is wrong with current social reality, identify actors to change it, and provide clear norms for criticism and practical goals for the future.'" instead, it seems like there is one trend after another, with the end result being some highly intelligent intellectuals going off on a tangent without any accountability for the theories that they espouse. i think i tend to side with richard rorty when it comes to these people:

"In Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America (1998), Rorty differentiates between what he sees as the two sides of the Left, a cultural Left and a progressive Left. He criticizes the cultural Left, which is exemplified by post-structuralists such as Michel Foucault and postmodernists such as Jean-François Lyotard, for offering critiques of society, but no alternatives (or alternatives that are so vague and general as to be abdications). Although these intellectuals make insightful claims about the ills of society, Rorty suggests that they provide no alternatives and even occasionally deny the possibility of progress. On the other hand, the progressive Left, exemplified for Rorty by the pragmatist John Dewey, Whitman and James Baldwin, makes hope for a better future its priority. Without hope, Rorty argues, change is spiritually inconceivable and the cultural Left has begun to breed cynicism. Rorty sees the progressive Left as acting in the philosophical spirit of pragmatism."

now, i'm not sure how much i agree with the philosophies of the pragmatists per se, but i do agree with his criticism of the cultural left and his advocation for some sort of progressive left (to him being the pragmatists philosophers mentioned, to me, i'm not sure who exactly, but obama is a start). i think one of the reasons rorty resorts to pragmatism is simply "common sense". on the continental side, you have these theories spouting off all these radical ideas that are unimplementable, and on the analytic side, the refusal to embrace much political philosophy due to a lack of cognitive content (behaviorism and statistics in the 50s and 60s wasn't very fruitful, and there have only been two noteworthy analytic political philosophy contributions in the past 40 years -- rawls and nozick) has resulted in american and british philosophy being rather isolated and disconnected from political happenings going on in the world outside academia. so seeing as how we are not going to be able to establish meaningful cognitive content for our end purposes (if we could, cognitive science would've already overthrown all the other social sciences), it's only natural to try to be reasonable, pragmatic, and progressive. as for marxism, i still don't see how it can be rectified even with dozens of facelifts -- it simply operates on fundamentally flawed premises about human behavior as far as i'm concerned. if you're looking for some kind of loose, stable socialist state as an end goal for society without using marxism as leading the path to getting there, then i can agree with that, but i also think that it will take a lot longer than we want before things align properly in order for that to occur.

why marxism is inherently flawed

upon revisiting a previous blog entry the other day, i reread my summary of marx's epistemology, largely quoted from a marx reader. what struck me was how philosophically naive it was. so, rather than regurgitating common arguments against marxism (mostly from the capitalist perspective of why marxism cannot function as an optimal economy), i'm going to dissect his epistemology and its implications.

marx's epistemology: "perception (is) an interaction between us, the subject, and the material object. this object (the world around us) becomes transformed in the process of being known. our perception does not discover the truth of the world, just its appearance. thus our knowledge too cannot be the truth. instead, our knowledge consists of practical methods by which we can manipulate and gain control over the natural world. our knowledge of the world is not passive, it is purposive. it is a two-way process -- active and reactive -- in line with the dialectic. the synthesis of scientific knowledge we thus gain enables us to impose patterns of order and to manipulate or anticipate the workings of nature. this process does not arrive at the truth, as it is usually conceived. 'the question of whether objective truth can be attributed to human thought has nothing to do with theory, it is a purely practical question. the truth is the reality and power of thought, which can only be demonstrated in practice.' this leads marx to his famous conclusion: 'philosophers have previously only interpreted the world, but the real task is to change it.'"

the problem with marx is that he assumed 1) science and technology could eventually control nature and that we could approach this goal uniformly and incrementally without any setbacks, and 2) that this desire people have to control nature is compatible or even complementary to a communal existence. what happened is 1) science and technology eventually backfired by drastically -- possibly permanently -- altering our environment and resources, and 2) people only have the incentive to control nature as part of capitalist modes of operation. here is the implausibility of the utopia: the utopia is only plausible when man has convinced himself that he has a) reached a technological ceiling, and b) has fulfilled his pursuit of happiness. B is completely arbitrary and can never be fulfilled because people will long for different eras and cultures corresponding to different phases of technology. A is only a theoretical idea, as technology will never hit a true ceiling. so, that leaves us with a utopia wherein everyone is content at a limited level of technology (living like communist or socialist existentialists, basically) -- this scenario cannot exist even in theory according to marx's own epistemology. however, if it were to exist, it would soon collapse because 1) there are still problems that need to be solved, like diseases, and 2) there is the incentive to innovate (if not to solve problems, then to improve on what we already have that is currently considered acceptable but not optimal), and everyone (or at least, a decent number of people) innovating creates an economic system of competition and thus markets, turning the supposed utopia into a form of capitalism. i suppose marx could conceive of something with equal growth across the board, so society could more forward together as equals or "each to his own", but since the plausibility of have the utopia wherein everyone is content with the current level of technology existing at even one point in time, let alone in continuing stagnancy, is non-existent, so having it unilaterally move forward without a significant change of people's worth with respect to each other is utterly insane. furthermore, this is assuming to begin with that the economic system of the supposed utopia would have to be worldwide to be successful, for the existence, outside of utopian countries, of any society in which innovation and growth occurred would be seen as gaining power, both for pleasure and political/economic purposes, over the utopian societies, and these societies would have to respond, if not out of desire for better material goods, then for their own survival, which would mean discarding the utopia in favor of a more competitive economic system. also, even if a utopia could exist with A being fulfilled, non-technological innovation would create markets, at least in part, to fulfill the problem of B, thus causing a form of capitalism to emerge.

#1 -- the growth of science and technology and the accompanying alteration of our planet -- even though it was done mostly through capitalism instead of communism, still debunks marx's epistemology and proves it to be, in essence, a form a species self-annihilation rather than exultation. the ideas of sustainable living and a symbiotic relationship with nature are inherently anti-marxist both in conflicting with both marx's epistemology in controlling nature via science and marx's idea of a utopia, since having a symbiotic relationship with nature means allowing nature to do some destructive and detrimental acts towards humans, e.g., natural cyclical wildfires. now, i am aware that marxism has been amended via various forms of eco-socialism, but these movements seem to be in conflict with marx's epistemology. one of the justifications i have heard regarding marx's supposed eco-friendly ways is that marx mentioned each generation passing down the planet in better condition to the next. but this doesn't mean marx was an environmentalist, all it means is #1: science and technology could eventually control nature and that we could approach this goal uniformly and incrementally without any setbacks. so, reconciling marx's ideas with 21st century movements like the green party cannot occur without fundamentally altering the foundations of marxism; the greatest threat to humanity right now is the ongoing environmental change, and conventional marxism does not carry the sentiment of cooperating with environmental movements. now, i understand that marxism, particularly in recent decades, has come to be a sort of wastebasket of "anti-capitalism" so that everything wrong with capitalism can be corrected by amending marxism in response. so i ask, why can't capitalism be made "right" or "responsible" similarly? people then point to examples both in theory and in practice to refute this, but then anyone can do the same with marxism, so who knows which side is right (probably neither)? it seems that since there is no real alternative to capitalism (it doesn't seem like it can be done "responsibly" either) and that environmental parties don't inspire revolutions or monumental movements, that the intellectual is forced by default to embrace some form of amended or revised marxism, which i think is a knee-jerk, reactionary way to respond to humanity's problems.

anyway, because of the absence of true environmentalism, conventional marxism (and by conventional, i mean amended versions that still maintain marx's original epistemology) will not prevail at any point in the 21st century. so in short, marxism failed in the 20th century because it misjudged human behavior (people are inherently greedy and relatively stupid and prejudiced (hence preventing social movements on a global scale due to the inability for people of different backgrounds/regions to unite for one cause) -- they are not made greedy by the system, contrary to what marxists want to believe about people, although the system can certainly exacerbate undesirable tendencies, sometimes to quite extreme extents -- and it will fail in the 21st century because it overestimated mankind's ability to control nature without damaging it in the process; mankind's greed (desired technology implemented through capitalism) outweighed mankind's intellect (his ability to make technologically-enhanced lifestyles sustainable and symbiotic with the environment). this sets up a devastating paradox for marxism: if mankind were truly marxist at heart, then they would have the collective intellect (meaning worldwide cooperation) necessary to subdue their inherent greedy desires for developing and using technology for short-term benefit at long-term cost (as well as for establishing one society in a position of power over other societies due to accelerated technological benefit with increased short-term reward at long-term cost, but ultimately a cost that relative to what that country gained would not outweigh the benefits of gaining power; collectively, the world's nations would lose more than they would gain long-term if one country accelerated technology for short-term benefit at long-term cost, but long-term that country would still reap more benefits than costs due to having gained power), and technology would only make incremental steps forward as no new technology would be introduced that would present a risk for long-term detriment. however, in doing so, mankind is not being materialist, but idealist (as in idealism as a philosophy of mind, not "idealistic"), as controlling one's own psychology (controlling one's greed, in this case) is not something that is naturally the result of interactions with the world (the objects of study) and our knowledge gained from those interactions. how can we fix the paradox? well, quite easily: all that would have to happen is for mankind to naturally have the optimal equilibrium between greed and intellect, because in doing so, mankind would not have to control his own psychology because his interactions with the world and the knowledge gained from that would naturally and appropriately regulate it. since this has failed to occur at any point since marx's theories were introduced to the world up to the present day, in my opinion, this is the most damning evidence against the viability of true marxism ever succeeding. marxists could counter with the following excuse: it was a lack of communication to blame, not greed. however, this was disproven as marxist revolutions occurred across a multitude of culture and countries, as enough communication existed to persuade people in these countries to buy into marxism. so what's to blame for marxism's failure within those countries? well, perhaps communication still was not optimal (which i think is a really lame excuse at this point) or there were just a few bad apples in each country who seized power and then forced an unjust system on the masses. and of course, incompetence and/or dishonesty/corruption/greed, etc. among those bad apples didn't represent how people operate in general, it *only* pertained to those political parties in power, or at most, to some sort of systemic dynamic that compels people in certain situations to display authoritarian tendencies -- marxists might say that conditions at the time of those revolutions were not conducive to true marxism, but that future conditions will be. or as zizek said when confronted with the topic during a tv interview about past horrors of marxist revolutions, he defensively replied in a look of disbelief, "something went terribly wrong." yes indeed, something did go terribly wrong in marxism's first go-round (not to mention i just saw an article on the internet a few days ago in which the cuban leader admitted that his country's economy is in extremely poor shape, as in exponentially worse than the american economy, so i guess marxism just can't succeed until capitalism is completely eliminated, hence perhaps one of the reasons why marxists are so vehement about their ideology...). or of course, you could just claim that soon after the revolutions took place, that orthodox marxism instead of true marxism became implemented, resulting in communist totalitarian regimes which were not really marxist. so, of course, the next time marxists seize power, they will have learned from this mistake and will successfully implement either true marxism or some sort of improved, amended version of it.

another thing to consider on this point of greed vs intellect. for one, it assumes that the lack of cooperation is due to greed alone. a new problem is introduced when one realizes that intellect also presents a problem in terms of distrust. in order for communication to completely work, one must assume that what is communicated is completely honest. for example, consider a situation in which there are 5 people in the world -- all scientists and engineers, working on improving technology -- and that one of them discovers something he believes to be controversial -- say something with severe bioethical implications --and thus decides not to share it with his peers, resulting in that person gaining a technological advantage over his peers and thus more power to exert over them than they can on him. so, this lack of communication is not due to greed, but due to intellect; we have to remember that each person's intellect is not just used for intellectual purposes, but also for analyzing and anticipating human behavior. as such, there is the infinite regress of "i think that you'll think that i'll think that you'll think...ad infinitum", thus accounting for a permanent instability in our notions of trust regarding other people, and hence preventing true honest communication from ever taking place. as such, the alternative to the greed vs intellect model -- communication -- is also, even in theory, deeply flawed; it cannot be a legitimate excuse for marxism's previous failures, nor can it be reason for marxism to possibly succeed in the future. also, since we can never have completely accurate translations of other languages, that presents another obstacle in hindering true communication from taking place. the only way for marxism to truly work would be for the collective unconscious and consciousness of all of humanity to be one -- we would have to be of one mind. in my view, having one mind would also entail communism, or "each to his own" as defined by a common agreement (e.g., a football lineman would be entitled to a larger daily quota of food than an average person). the inequalities that occur to do distrust and thus lack of completely honest communication, in my estimation, are more than trivial (perhaps language translation barriers are pretty trivial), and result in more inequality than a commonly agreed upon "each to his own" would allow, thus creating a system wherein a power imbalance would occur, preventing marxism from succeeding.

ok, now that i've exhausted that path, since marxism did not spread over the entire world, that sets up my theory wherein if even one country is not marxist, that it will eventually cause the downfall of marxism in all other marxist countries. so technically, marxists can wiggle out of my trap using their intellectualism to justify marxism's prior failings as a result of a lack of proper communication of intellectual material ("proper" meaning every country in the world must subscribe to marxism). this is what i call the "marxist loophole": it is a self-perpetuating propaganda machine which, via intellectualism, is able to justify its past failures and sets up a blank check for its future, so if it fails hundreds or thousands of years from now it will be able to explain its failures, and if it succeeds, it will be because its intellectual content was so powerfully convincing and due to its truthfulness and appeal that it was able to spread like wildfire across the globe until the entire world became united in the name of marxism. this gives its adherents a blank check too: the more you espouse marxism, the more likely it will come true, and if it doesn't come true in your lifetime, it was because there weren't enough people like you who advocated marxism, and if it does come true, then it was thanks to your efforts in edifying the masses about marxism. interestingly enough, the only way one could truly scientifically disprove marxism is if the mind-body problem and free will issues were resolved philosophically (marxism is supposed to be deterministic, but this is still compatible with both scenarios of free will being true or false) and then supported with universal empirical evidence disproving the ability of marxism to succeed. but come to think of it, when was the last time you heard a marxist dwell on the topics of philosophy of mind or philosophy of action? the answer is *none* (well, except maybe zizek who dabbles in cognitive science every now and then, but never to my knowledge has intertwined any of it with supporting his belief in marxism), because discussing them would effectively neutralize their loophole (although not disprove it) by basically saying, "until we solve these problems, we can't verify whether marxism is actually a viable economic theory." so marxists would reply, "well, since you've been stuck on these problems for hundreds of years and don't appear to be making much progress or have a solution ready in the near future, we're going to stick to our paradigm for explaining how the world works." and off the two parties will go, one departing to philosophy classes, and the other to social science/humanities theory classes (except for the lone philosophy class on marx or general 19th century philosophy ;-)).

as a consolation of sorts, ultimately, imo marx's epistemology and utopia will be realized one day in a limited and amended form in that man will be able to control nature enough so that it can keep everyone somewhat content with pleasure and cover all their human rights and basic human needs so that humans will not have to work to survive: work will be completely voluntary, and voluntary work will operate via some form of capitalism. so, there will be a basic welfare state of sorts established. however, the failure of united incremental steps in advancing technology to occur, which before was attributed to greed (marxists would say it was a communication failure), in this futuristic world can no longer be attributed to a lack of communication: it will become evident that greed is the primary culprit. until then, the idea of the capitalist bubble bursting sort of parallels the pending environmental crisis: at worst and most probable, capitalism will continue to exploit, causing the bubble to burst and the environment to collapse, which will cause a sort of dark age before technology allows humans to repair the damage enough to continue "growing", albeit this time in a more tempered form so as to prevent a future environmental crisis or a "responsible" capitalism will slowly transition us to a more progressive world and the environmental damage, though ostensibly bad, will not be enough to induce a dark age as limited "growth" will occur before we reach a stage where "normal growth" can be reimplemented, albeit in a more tempered form. those are 2 of the possible 4 scenarios -- you can switch the last parts of each to create the other 2 scenarios. but no, no worldwide revolutionary movement overthrowing capitalism is going to occur in the 21st century.

everything is not culturally-mediated (final draft)

one viewpoint i have become acquainted with recently is the idea that everything is culturally-mediated (argued by a friend who is a phd student in geography with a master's in sociocultural anthropology). although the argument for this seems to be self-evident upon first glance, i stumbled upon a key issue that i disagreed with and compelled me to examine the argument further (the argument is listed in steps 1-6 below upon the conclusion of this paragraph). the example was finding a person who had been isolated from any contact with people, and thus culture and attempting to study this person. it seemed quite obvious to me that this person did not possess any culture and that our culture did not prevent us from examining the non-cultural aspects of this person accurately. however, the person who espoused that everything is culturally-mediated ("everything" being all human interactions with other humans and everything else in the universe, "culturally-mediated" being that there is some cultural connection or element involved with all human interactions with other humans and everything else in the universe) maintained that this person probably possessed culture (depending on if you defined traits of culture as being sharable as opposed to shared) and that if he/she did not possess culture, that there was no way for us to assess these non-cultural aspects of the person because everything we do is culturally-mediated (the former coming from a viewpoint that theoretically everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated, and the latter coming from a viewpoint that everything is culturally-mediated, and because of the latter, whatever the "everything is culturally mediated" viewpoint espouses is the correct one and the "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" is incorrect -- the "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" viewpoint is thus a devil's advocate stance of sorts). with that in mind, let me outline the main ideas of this argument (keep in mind that there are other versions as well that i am not going to address here, so this is by no means all exhaustive, all-encompassing rebuttal to the position that everything is culturally-mediated):

1) everyone has culture (definitions of culture vary, but they tend to include -- although they are not limited to -- language, symbolism, artifacts, etc. -- evidence of social interaction)
2) even alone individuals isolated from the rest of society have culture (thus, culture is defined by *sharable*, not necessarily shared traits; obviously, an isolated person would not know about language unless he/she had somehow created his/her own language, which is highly unlikely, so one's definition of culture for this person would have to be narrower than the definition for people in #1)
3) if there are people without culture, we can't study them through the lens of culture (this is a contestation of #2, a contestation that the remaining steps refute; the refutation shows that "everything is culturally-mediated" here means that metaphysics is dependent on epistemology, whereas the possibility that there are people without culture is based on the idea that "everything is culturally-mediated" is solely epistemic -- an alternative version of the "everything is culturally-mediated" that is ultimately disproven. the "lens of culture" being an epistemology that is shaped by cultural influences, and thus is biased and cannot be objective)
4) everything is studied through the lens of culture, and since the lens of culture can never completely determine whether there are people without culture, these people whose cultural status is uncertain are designated as "cultural status unknown" and continue to be studied through the lens of culture.
5) all people who have culture can be studied through the lens of culture. people whose cultural status is "unknown" (this coming from a perspective that "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated") are also studied through the lens of culture (and hence we return to the "everything is culturally-mediated" viewpoint). there is a closed loop at work here: we can never invent a test that can perfectly conclude that a person does not possess culture because tests are inherently culturally-mediated. as such, until proven otherwise (which will be never, according to this framework), we will continue to treat a person whose tests indicate that he/she does not possess culture as a person whose cultural status remains unknown, and therefore remains a viable object of study through the lens of culture. and because of this, we do not have to ever worry about studying non-cultural human things and a possible incompatibility with the lens of culture. thus, in practice, there can never be people without culture, so everything can be studied through the lens of culture.
6) in theory, there can be people without culture, in which case the lens of culture is inapplicable. but since the "purest math" is culturally-mediated -- thus, theoretical scenarios are subject to cultural mediation and not free from cultural influence -- these theoretical scenarios are just extensions of culture and are not reflective of a perfectly abstract, ideal, eternal truth. as such, there are no theoretical non-cultural people, and as a result, everything can and is culturally-mediated.


so the prevailing theme here is that culture pervades all human thought and interaction to the point that even pure abstraction does not possess a truth independent of culture. in this sense, culture seems to be an all-encompassing universal of sorts (the exactness of this will be examined in the remainder of this paragraph), but it can't be a static one for obvious reasons. so basically, the argument implies that culture constitutes both a metaphysical ontology ("everything") and epistemological indicator (the "lens of culture") and that culture's limits are defined by the boundaries of those two. what goes on -- culture -- within the limits of culture is always evolving, and thus in a state of flux, capable of change within them and consisting of an infinite number of possibilities (infinite from a static perspective as well as one of change). what does this mean, exactly? an analogy would be it's like saying that culture (from the static perspective only, for this example) constitutes all real numbers between 0 and 100 instead of all real numbers from negative infinity to infinity (there is still an infinite number of real numbers within each domain), and thus "everything" can be defined in both sets of 0 to 100 and negative infinity to positive infinity. thus, because infinity is equated with encompassing "everything", then by this standard culture encompasses, through what its ontology delimits, "everything" (for example, the infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 100) even when "everything" is not really *everything* (*everything* being all real numbers between negative infinity and infinity). of course, culture is not only defined quantitatively (in fact, little of it is), but quantitatively as well. so, to try to demonstrate how the quantitative analogy can be used for qualitative elements, from an "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" viewpoint, if culture constitutes everything between 0 and 100 (thus all real numbers between 0 and 100 being "cultural"), then all real numbers outside of that set are considered "non-cultural" human things. however, from an "everything is culturally-mediated" viewpoint, 0 to 100 constitutes "everything" and there are no numbers outside of that set. so one problem is that culture assumes that it views things correctly (epistemology) in order for things to be correct (metaphysics). so, coming from an "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" viewpoint, this means culture must either 1) make an arbitrary distinction between what is cultural and non-cultural based on a cultural perspective, or 2) base its distinction on some sort of evidence or information that transcends the cultural perspective. #2 is dismissed because nothing transcends culture (not even reason and empiricism, according to cultural perspectives, anyway), so we are left with #1. a major problem created by #1 is that in making an arbitrary distinction, besides the fact that it is not justified except for the reason that it is cultural, its capability of being made compatible with reality (returning to the "everything is not necessarily culturally-mediated" viewpoint, i'm assuming there is an "external reality", and that reality is not just something we are creating in our minds) leads to a fork in the road, neither of which is desirable. both possible results of #1 are damaging to the case of culture: either the domain of culture metaphysically is virtually everything (in which case culture basically amounts to a worthless term since it is so vague and broad; it only possesses worthwhile meaning if "everything" is framed epistemically) or in claiming something distinct (which is arbitrary, remember), it arbitrarily eliminates another sizable domain simply due to that domain consisting of "non-cultural human" material and thus has unnecessarily prevented us from studying things we could study.

this, however, is dismissible if one denies the existence of an independent reality; if reality must be culturally contextualized, then culture assumes that it views reality correctly (epistemology) in order for reality to be correct (metaphysics) -- this is different from before when there existed the assumption of an "external reality" because denying the existence of reality results is believing in a form of idealism, that nothing exists as real substances "out there" and that the universe is all functioning or reducible to our own consciousness which consists of its own metaphysical properties. of course, this is assuming that there is one universal "culture" for all of mankind that is a common currency among different cultures. if different particular cultures differ on their views of reality, then reality differs from culture to culture because it lies in the eye of the beholder. we now reach another crossroads: either 1) reality is contestable even though reality is not assumed to exist per se because different cultures have different ideas about what constitutes reality, or 2) the "correct" view of reality stems from which culture is dominant and thus, in forcing more people to think of reality through its cultural framework, has reduced reality to power relations. both of these definitions are forms of irrealism, and both derail the idea of reality as independent, neutral, and objective. for #1, views of reality can differ so that there is no overlap among cultures for two reasons: 1) there is a complete communication gap among cultures since no aspects of reality are shared, or 2) overlap, and thus communication can occur, but ultimately is abandoned and rejected in favor of one culture attempting to force its ways on another culture. (if there is a complete communication gap, then people of different cultures cannot communicate their differences in order to accept them and acknowledge each culture's particular power over creating reality. as such, different cultures cannot communicate and as a result, they fight over their definitions of reality as each culture attempts to control more people and thus exert more power in the fight to attain cultural supremacy regarding defining reality. in the case of #2, cultures have simply rejected communication and placed their own culture on a pedestal so as to force it as a superior culture on other deemed "inferior" cultures. the idea of a dominant culture in this case also points to attaining cultural supremacy regarding defining reality.) either one points to a dominant, unified, single idea of defining reality as being dependent on power relations. ultimately, epistemology is subsumed by metaphysics, and the case is no difference here. a single culture possessing a unified idea of reality can be realized by one culture conquering all others -- this is the final outcome of lopsided power relations wherein the dominant conquers the dominated and there is no distinguishable difference between the two as they become one. thus, the endpoint of power relations (which are supposed to be the source of subjectivity) in the metaphysics -- a culture conquering all and uniting them as one culture -- actually results in a uniform epistemology -- one way in which people of the single culture perceive and interpret reality. however, in having only one culture, the subjective nature of epistemology in power relations -- power causing different people of different cultures to think differently about reality because of their culture -- is eliminated because there is only one way of viewing reality. so, even though from a theoretically objective standpoint these people have a subjective view of reality because of their culture, to these people who are unaware of their own cultural bias, their idea of reality, in being the only view of reality, is the correct and objective view of reality to them. as such, while these people do not possess an objective view of reality per se (although they think they do), they do possess and conceive the idea of objectively defining reality. now, one culture hasn't yet conquered all other cultures, so until that happens, can we objectively say that this argument is correct in theory, or does it have to be actualized in reality in order to be fully realized, thus meaning that we cannot currently overcome our inherent cultural bias involved with any form of thinking? this is the part of the argument that someone advocating that everything is culturally-mediated can interject that we can't overcome our cultural bias in conceiving this whole idea and win based on a technicality. however, i would counter with the following simple argument (this part really deserves a separate blog entry by itself for deeper philosophical inquiry): by saying that the argument can only be correct if realized and not just if conceived, then one is assuming the use of "culture-free" reasoning to support the idea that only "cultural" reasoning is correct. in simpler terms, this means that the "everything is culturally-mediated" advocate is attempting to use pure abstraction with language to the fullest degree possible in order to refute my idea that we can use language to think objectively along the lines of pure abstraction and to justify that culture prevents language from being able to be used successfully in such a fashion. so, this person has essentially refuted himself/herself in order to intellectually justify his/her position. now, a seemingly easy way out would be to say that everything is culturally-mediated, which means that my argument is not able to be conceived completely abstractly to begin with, but that there are different shades of communication possible within cultural context. this is a resort to relativism, which would allow him/her to simply argue that some arguments are more intellectual than others, but they are all culturally-mediated (this stands in contrast to the binary from my perspective that you either have a non-culturally-mediated ability to communicate (which doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility for culturally-mediated communication in addition to non-culturally-mediated communication) or that if everything is culturally-mediated, then all shades of communication have degrees of obfuscation to the point that even the shade with the least amount of obfuscation cannot sufficiently conceive of something in abstraction to the degree necessary to satisfactorily communicate the idea). relativism is a fundamental philosophical topic that dates back to debates in antiquity, so obviously there have been a multitude of ideas by a number of philosophers over the years addressing the validity of this topic. from my philosophical background (which i guess you could say is loosely analytic, but definitely not "postmodern"), i have chosen to reject relativism. for a formal rejection of relativism, please read the article titled "refutation of relativism" at the following site: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~jsearle/articles.html.

so if we accept my idea of conceiving a single culture overtaking all other cultures to form a single, unified culture, we reach another crossroads, this time with irrealism pointing back in the direction of realism: if we have an *objective idea of **defining** reality*, then it should follow that we can have an *objective idea of reality* itself unless something non-cultural prevents this from occurring. the only way this could happen is if realism (for a definition of realism, look it up on wikipedia or see how searle defines it) is espoused and this comes into some beliefs of the culture that are irrealist. but either way the situation is resolved: if realism is espoused, then it can correct the irrational beliefs of culture and allow reason and empiricism to prevail (both being non-cultural), but if realism is not espoused, then irrealism prevails and therefore an objective idea of defining reality and an objective idea of reality are congruent in that culture's belief system and thus even though everything is culturally-mediated, since it is only done by one culture that views its belief system as being objective, then the epistemology of that culture does not believe that everything is culturally-mediated, and in an irrealist paradigm, that is all the counts as to whether everything can be considered to be culturally-mediated or not. otoh, if we take #1 (going back to the beginning of the previous paragraph) so that there is overlap between cultures regarding views of reality, then unless these are coincidences (in which case, true communication cannot take place and thus the seeming overlap among cultures is illusory and not actually there), then there is some agreement over the existence of a commonly-accessible independent reality, just not 100% agreement over what it constitutes. so, if there is an agreement cross-culturally of the idea of the existence of an objective reality, then it follows that the notion that culture assumes that it views reality correctly (epistemology) in order for reality to be correct (metaphysics) is incorrect, thus bringing us back to the following dilemma: either the domain of culture must cover everything in order to account for attempting to explain all of reality (in which case culture is not a confounding lens between reality and our interpretation of it) or in claiming something short of everything (which is an arbitrary distinction, remember), it arbitrarily cuts off our ability to inquire about reality. as such, saying that things are culturally-mediated is either not a worthwhile idea (instead of culture being the predominant currency under which everything else is subsumed, now culture is on an even playing field with language/symbolism, psychology, physics, etc. so that whichever lens you decide to view the world with is arbitrary or interest-based) or if it is worthwhile, then it is at the expense of us being able to attempt to examine all of reality using methods that transcend culture (for example, pure abstraction) for no good reason (since we have established the idea of an objective reality, then it should follow that we have tools for examining that objective reality that are not limited by culture). since the latter does not make sense (it makes sense that if we have established the idea of an objective reality, then we should be able to examine it using methods that transcend culture), we are left with the former, which is that the idea that things are culturally-mediated is not a worthwhile idea insofar as 1) culture is not the prevailing currency through which human thought and interaction occur (language/symbolism and other things are just as important), and 2) we can still have objective knowledge about objective reality in spite of cultural influence as objectivism and culture can co-exist without culture having the final say over matters that objectivism is concerned with, but since culture is just a lens that is now on the same playing field as, say, physics (for example, saying that "everything is physically-mediated") or other subject lenses, since the lens we are using is objective, the cultural lens, although it exists, is not employed. since cultural mediation is no longer an issue and we can have objective knowledge about objective reality, it also follows that we can form objective truth from this, and so on (this is something searle has espoused regarding objectivism and the existence of an "external reality"). furthermore, this helps establish that even isolated people who are presumed not to possess any culture can be thoroughly and successfully examined from the perspective of our culture as our culture does not present a barrier between us and the person of study, but rather, has provided the tools necessary for objective inquiry about this person. so in this sense, i suppose everything is culturally-mediated in a latent manner, but ultimately, the process by which we inquire about things can be objective, and thus has detached itself from its cultural origins much like a certain species becomes distinct from previous species after a certain point even though it can be traced back to them. in detaching itself, the process of inquiry has become objective and universal instead of subjective and relativist.

refutation of nietzsche's perspectivism

the following website provides an article discussing nietzsche's perspectivism, epistemic relativism, and some other topics regarding the philosopher:

http://www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp/rjp15_samuel.php

To appreciate Nietzsche's concept of perspectivism, it is important to distinguish between the epistemic (how reality is acknowledged) and the ontological (the reality that is acknowledged). Perspectivism affirms epistemic relativism (i.e., there is no unique reality to be known). For example, if there is a table in the room we might all see it differently. I might just see its surface due to sitting on top of it. You might see its four legs and its long edge due to sitting just before the table. And someone else might see its short edge and only two legs due to sitting on one side of the table. Now we are not able to claim that one way of seeing the table is correct - they are all different ways of properly seeing the table (epistemic relativism). Nevertheless, we would no doubt agree that there is a real table to be seen (ontological realism), and this rules out certain claims (e.g., the table is made of jelly) as wrong.

Nietzsche's "perspectivism" is not therefore simply rejecting truth (full relativism). It acknowledges ontological realism (i.e., there is a reality to be known), but at the same time affirms epistemic relativism (i.e., that any acknowledgement of reality is necessarily from a particular perspective or viewpoint, and this shapes how reality is acknowledged). Nietzsche's critique of the "prejudice" of philosophers is therefore the assumption that there is one way to acknowledge reality, not that there is a reality to be known.


does nietzsche deny the existence of an external reality? no, but for epistemic relativism he confuses ontologically subjective experience (mind) with epistemic objectivity, mistakenly believing the former is epistemic and thus why his epistemology is relative. he thinks that a multitude of views make for a reality relative to each view. what he doesn't get is that a plurality of views can all be within the domain of views that can equally affirm objective reality. if there are multiple correct corresponding viewpoints for each interaction with objective reality, then you have epistemic objectivity with claims to metaphysical/ontological objectivity. if there are multiple correct corresponding viewpoints for each interaction with a reality that is equivalent to itself (seeing different parts of a table and recognizing it is a table, but since they are from multiple perspectives, the table as defined in reality according to this idea is table (subscript 1) = table (subscript 2) = table (subscript n)) but is not itself per se (being itself would mean a tautology: table (subscript 1) *is* table (subscript 1)), and thus is not *the same* objective reality, then you have the possibility for multiple realities as they act as "mirrors", having identical content but being separate entities. however, since the mirrors are interchangeable due to their identical content, each viewpoint can correspond to any of the mirrors. so nietzsche has things "backwards" of sorts (not inverted or the inverse per se, just that the number that was previous associated with epistemology (number is more than one -- many) is now associated with metaphysics/ontology (number is more than one -- many)): with epistemic objectivity you have many viewpoints compatible with one objective reality, but with nietzsche's theory any of many viewpoints is compatible with many realities. having multiple realities (wherein not only is each reality equivalent to the others, but each reality is equivalent to the sum or totality of all the realities combined) is bizarre indeed, and it presents a problem for nietzsche's perspectivism because if there is only one objective reality, and all of nietzsche's mirrors, together, constitute that "the single objective reality", then each viewpoint must correspond to every mirror as well as the sum of the mirrors. in this case, epistemic relativism works at the expense of a "the single objective reality", because that reality is composed of many equivalent realities, so there is not just one "the single objective reality" -- there are two types of reality: a single objective reality (as the sum of the many equivalent realities) and the many equivalent realities. as such, since no "the single objective reality" exclusively can be determined, perspectivism fails. here is a mathematical analogy. i just previously stated that, "not only is each reality equivalent to the others, but the each reality is equivalent to the sum or totality of all the realities combined." what numbers are compatible with the aforementioned scenario? just one: zero (0 + 0 + 0 = 0). metaphysically, one could equate zero with meaning "nothing", so if reality exists as the absence of reality, then that is the only plausible scenario in which perspectivism holds as objective reality exists because there is no difference between the whole of reality and the parts -- the many equivalent realities -- that comprise it. however, this only holds up mathematically; if we take the concept of "mirrors" and have 0 (subscript 1), 0 (subscript 2), 0 (subscript n), etc., then the sum of the equivalent realities is not the same as any of the individual equivalent realities, and thus we have the problem of "the single objective reality" not being able to be determined. so now we must explore other avenues. in order for perspectivism to work -- for epistemic relativism to function with an objective reality -- then there can only be one correct corresponding viewpoint for each interaction with objective reality -- as such, reality is thus reduced to epistemology instead of a metaphysical ontology, making for an anti-realist view even if a person's epistemology correctly corresponds to an objective reality because the objective reality cannot be conceived as such. thus, nietzsche's claim for not rejecting ontological realism due to epistemic relativism is refuted: if epistemology is relative, then ontology is assumed to be as well even if in actuality it is not. however, since nietzsche has allowed for multiple realities, having each viewpoint correspond to only one reality would mean each viewpoint would correspond to a different reality, which is not only anti-realist as conceived, it is anti-realist in being actualized as exactly that since metaphysically there is no single unified ontological reality. in this case, epistemology is relative an ontology is not only assumed to be relative, it in fact is confirmed to be so. as such, nietzsche's perspectivism does not hold up.

now, some thoughts on the rest of the article (which you should probably read before reading the rest of this paragraph since it is essentially me taking notes as i read along). evolutionary theory of the will to power reduces knowledge to power, which i have already refuted on my blog in a previous entry (nietzsche attacks the sciences by saying they are all constructs resultant upon drives in the will to power). by devoting his energies to questioning what truth is, nietzsche evades the question of how he can reconcile epistemic relativism with ontological realism. then he realizes that his theory of power permits the absence of moral claims to truths, so he compensates by saying that morality can be measured by how it contributes to his drives to power. but this is just rubbish because 1) it claims morality approaching an ultimate truth is dependent on one's ability to attain power, so now morals = power = knowledge, and 2) he criticizes the weakness of people when they fail to make moral choices that contribute to the will to power, yet he doesn't explain the reason why this occurs (free will, etc.), he just criticizes it. my guess is he doesn't bring up free will because he already uses will in his will to power, and he can't explain having a will behind a will. instead, nietzsche naturalizes morality, making morality the domain of primordial demands of being human, whereas his drives in the will to power entail a more sophisticated metaphysical domain (nietzsche fails to explain how drives evolve out of or are connected to primordial demands). so in short, nietzsche is criticizing gene/environment states, which is ultimately a criticism that is worthless. this also brings christianity into the picture, since christianity is supposed to defend the weak, but nietzsche deems this as leading to a slave morality, instead of his master morality -- now he creates his own metaphysics to justify his other metaphysics (drives in the will to power). so even if one accepts his epistemic relativism as true, then it has to be reconciled with nietzsche's own attempts to reduce it to a realist ontology (his account of drives in the will to power and how those arise out of natural, primordial states); remember at the beginning i noticed that, "for epistemic relativism he confuses ontologically subjective experience (mind) with epistemic objectivity, mistakenly believing the former is epistemic", and now it appears that he is confusing epistemic relativism with his drives in the will to power (realist ontology). that alone is a difficult task to undertake, to somehow make sense of his seemingly incompatible positions and defend them as being cohesive. however, if one accepts my conclusion that epistemic relativism is false, then one has to reconcile nietzsche's relativist ontology with his realist ontology, and that simply cannot be done. thus, many of nietzsche's core ideas -- perspectivism/epistemic realism, the will to power, and master morality -- are disproven and/or nonsensical.

refutation of anonymous person's philosophy of mind

a friend of mine recently co-authored a journal review of the film inception. i haven't personally seen the film, but the article gives away enough of the plot to give context for its review and suggest possible philosophical implications from the film's content. here is the part of the article concerning what i want to address:


The hierarchical structure of dreams within dreams raises the profound philosophical question: how do you know when you’re dreaming and when you’re awake? For the film’s target, and even occasionally for team members (and also the audience), it is hard to tell the difference between dream and reality. After all, the target has to be convinced he is in a dream (which is itself within another dream). Furthermore, the film contains some ambiguity regarding what, if any level, was reality. The top level of the dream-within-dream hierarchy is presented to the viewer as reality, but, similar to the classic film Dreamscape (dir. Joseph Ruben, 1984), there is reason to suspect that even this top level is a dream. The film remains ambiguous on this matter, and appropriately so, as this ambiguity highlights the ambiguity we must face within our own lives about what actually is real.

The ambiguity about whether our perceived realities are indeed real is a topic of ongoing debate within the philosophy literatures on epistemology and philosophy of mind. A classic thought experiment in this realm is the brain in a vat (Brueckner 2006; Putnam 1981). Here we imagine a human brain placed in a vat of liquids containing all the nutrients necessary for the brain to survive and function. The vat also contains connections for sensory input to and information extraction from the brain. The connections are run through a computer which processes the brain’s thoughts and returns sensory input corresponding to a highly plausible perception of reality – so plausible that it would be indistinguishable from the reality we perceive. The question here is, how do we know we are not brains in vats? A similar thought experiment is the simulation argument (Bostrom 2003). Here, a powerful computer simulation contains simulated minds with all the complexity of our own. In parallel with the brain-in-vat thought experiment, the question here is, how do we not know we are a simulation within a computer program? The simple answer is that we don’t know, and cannot know. While this idea is more fully explored in the movie The Matrix (dir. Larry and Andy Wachowski, 1999), Inception raises the idea that if dreams can be that powerful – and that manipulable – then we may not be able to know whether or not we are in one.


an anonymous person thought that the above 2 paragraphs were basically bs, and responded with his own approach to philosophy of mind. his argument goes as follows:

what is reality?
reality is a perception
what is a dream?
dreams are a perception
done!


now, of course this seems like an oversimplification, and intuitively, it doesn't seem to make sense, but just what exactly is wrong with his argument? i broke it down and found the following faults:


1) he's assuming reality is solely epistemic instead of metaphysical or having a metaphysical component


2) here are my definitions of the two, which i believe to both be correct:

reality is: external physical objects --> perception --> conscious cognition (mostly conscious, but some unconscious too) --> one's experience

dreams are: internal representations formed from conscious and unconscious perception of external physical objects --> unconscious cognition --> one's experience

so, as you can see, by definition, reality and dreams are not equivalent or interchangeable. furthermore, dreams are dependent on reality in order to exist, so technically, you can add the first three steps of "reality" before the first step of "dreams".


3) reality is assumed to be reality (as opposed to being assumed to be a simulation), but dreams are assumed to be a self-created simulation of sorts. since the two appear to be different, the question one must ask is what if reality is a simulation? how would it compare to our dreams? would it be exactly like a dream or would it be somewhat similar but also have differences? a simulated reality would be:

internal simulation --> internal representations formed from the simulation (how they are classified as perception or cognition depends on how one defines the phenomenology of the simulation, but in either case they serve as the "building blocks" from which the ultimate cognition is formed) --> conscious cognition (mostly, but some unconscious too) --> one's experience.

compare that to the dreams definition in #2 and you can see how the two can serve as loose analogies, but they are not one and the same. if one does away with the unconscious/conscious distinction and ignores the perception part, then the only difference is the formation of the initial premise (one which assumes an "external reality" and the other which assumes a simulation, thus accounting for an extra step, although remember that technically for dreams that occur in an "external reality" you can add the first three steps of reality before the first step in dreams). to clarify things and update them, here are the four definitions:

reality: external physical objects --> perception --> cognition --> experience

dreams: internal representations formed from an external reality --> cognition --> experience

simulated reality: simulation --> internal representations (whether they should be classified as perceptions or lower-level cognition remains open to debate) --> cognition --> experience

dreams within a simulated reality: internal representations (lower-level cognition) --> cognition --> experience

technically, since for dreams within a simulated reality internal representations are derived from the simulation, then you can include simulation as a step before internal representations. contrary to the anonymous person's belief that reality and dreams are the same due to perception, the exact opposite is true: the definition of perception is the only thing (in addition to the conscious/unconscious distinction) that separates simulated reality from dreams within a simulated reality. if we cannot differentiate between conscious and unconscious cognition, then it would be impossible to differentiate between perception and cognition, thus making dreams and a simulated reality equivalent.


4) even if reality is solely epistemic, as in some form of idealism, his comparison between the two would be different because for a revision of #2,

reality would be: idealism that projects as a substitute for an external reality --> perception --> cognition (mostly conscious, but some unconscious too) --> one's experience

dreams would be altered too: internal representations formed from conscious perception of idealism --> unconscious cognition --> one's experience

so the differences regardless of whether reality is solely epistemic or not are that dreams are unconscious whereas reality is conscious (mostly) and that reality involves some form of perception whereas dreams do not.


5) his own argument isn't internally sensible. if he had said reality = perception, and dreams = perception, therefore, reality = perception, then at least his argument would make sense if its premises were true (his premises are not true as 1-4 have proven). by saying "a perception", he leaves a lot open to interpretation as he does not denote what perception exactly he is referring to. for example, if reality is perception (subscript 1) and dreams are perception (subscript 2) -- a scenario perfectly plausible given how he wrote his argument -- then reality is not equivalent to dreams.


6) his definitions don't make sense. experience amounts to the holistic endpoint of perception + cognition, so he's missing half of the puzzle. also, he's confusing perception and cognition. if he wants to believe in idealism (reality is epistemic), and thus reality is only perception, then he can do that (although he's wrong in ignoring cognition), but in that case, dreams are not perception, they are cognition, albeit unconscious and being connected to perception on some level if a reality is assumed to exist (perception is required in order for representations to form in a person's mind which a person's cognition then uses unconsciously in forming dreams, so ultimately, in a vulgarly oversimplified form, dreams = cognition). contrasting the two, reality is perception and dreams are unconscious cognition. so not only are they not equivalent, but his model does not take into account the existence of conscious cognition, so his schema entailing reality and dreams is incomplete.