Abraham Rotstein, Weekend Notes IX: Difference between revisions

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== Freedom and Technology ==
== Freedom and Technology ==
{{Page |n°=7}} Everything leads back to the shape of inner life. This is axiomatic and is really linked to the question of what is inner life in the complex society.


What is the complexe society? It is technology and that is where the idea of progress comes from. Also science comes from there. Science is an extension of this and the mind penetrates the physical environment.
If we assume that technology is crucial and that inner life is the decisive factor we have to understand the position of an inner life in a technologically complex society. our conviction is that inner life is essential and there is also our adherence to science.
Whitehead talked about the irrationality of facts. The strength of the epistemological position is examining these.
The idea of progress is that of accretional knowledge and looking to the future (the Jewish-Christian position). Salvation and security lie in the future. P. thinks that eternity is the characteristic of compelling truth and wouldn't become more or less true in time.
The complex society is not only complex because of the many firms in the telephone book (this is Arensberg's thought). What makes it so complex is the enormous degree of interdependence; we can't contract out and have where to go, and we remain dependent on these people for the next day.
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Revision as of 17:45, 7 April 2019

Weekend Notes (Overview)


Text in English to type

The Great Transformation and America (2)

Freedom and Technology

[7] Everything leads back to the shape of inner life. This is axiomatic and is really linked to the question of what is inner life in the complex society.

What is the complexe society? It is technology and that is where the idea of progress comes from. Also science comes from there. Science is an extension of this and the mind penetrates the physical environment.

If we assume that technology is crucial and that inner life is the decisive factor we have to understand the position of an inner life in a technologically complex society. our conviction is that inner life is essential and there is also our adherence to science.

Whitehead talked about the irrationality of facts. The strength of the epistemological position is examining these.

The idea of progress is that of accretional knowledge and looking to the future (the Jewish-Christian position). Salvation and security lie in the future. P. thinks that eternity is the characteristic of compelling truth and wouldn't become more or less true in time.

The complex society is not only complex because of the many firms in the telephone book (this is Arensberg's thought). What makes it so complex is the enormous degree of interdependence; we can't contract out and have where to go, and we remain dependent on these people for the next day.

[8]

Human Society

[19] (The temptations in the New Testament is Satan who tested and tempted Jesus).

The Mind (2)

[20] Reciprocity is a basic characteristic of the human mind. We cannot conceive of there not being an adequate response. It is a compelling feature of the mind function whether good is rewarded or evil punished. If something happens in one way then something else happens in another.

The reciprocity in the mutuality of gift-giving is the same as the compulsion of retaliation ('Talic' is the "eye for an eye"). It comes from the human mind demanding as a logical necessity that some change one way must be accompanied by something complementary. In this way we see in retaliation the same thing as reciprocity.

Unless there were symmetrically organized groups there would be no reciprocity. The Great Transformation is based on Thurnwald's thought which Malinowski took over.

We know nothing about the mind, e. g. why a syllogism is compelling. We call the mind, the sum-total of compelling elements. Thus, to call the mind phenomenon subjective is absurd. This would make mathematics logic and geometry subjective.

"Compelling" is a function of an argument and it means that you don't find yourself in a position to contradict it. You accept it is as true and valid and you are unable to think otherwise.

My question: Is there element of overcompensation in idealism?

[21] Saints show their inhuman character all the way.

Overcompensation is Alderian and assumes inferiority complexes. This is the way the surfaces of consciousness works.

We are looking at forces which are not psychological but mind phenomena. The problem of how to distinguish what we say – he laws of inner life – and the psychological, doesn't mean that those phenomena don't exist. But it's a semantic question. We must try and find metaphors and a formula to distinguish between psychology and the mind.

One gets into difficulty on the term "consciousness". it seems to be psychological, but mathematics is not a psychological phenomenon. Political phenomena, the mind, and moral phenomena should be contrasted (distinguished) from psychological phenomena. The contents of the human soul are the same as the content of mind. We mean the compelling elements.

One metaphor that can be used is that the mind is like the ice which flows in the river. Although it is of the same substance as the river the aggregate is different. There is nothing in the mind which is of a different sort of content. It has a different function and this would have to be related to the reform of consciousness. The form is changing.

The mass of the people can't resist. All of them together will not resist the pressure indefinitely.

P. assumes free will. Man's self-description of having [22] free will is correct, but this seems to be to deny the economic forces will compel people to do something. It is not the individual but the mass which is compelled. The individual knows that he is an individual, but the town or population can't resist famine.

Other factors are also involved. All religious assume free will. Science says it can prove that there isn't such a thing. But it proves something different − how the mass will behave in the long run. With a mass there are no loyalties and mind forces enter.

P.'s conclusion is that the individual is under compulsion only from the mind forces but not from psychological forces. All assume a free adherence to it. Even mathematics is that way.

P. uses the mind as synonymous with power in politics, and in psychology with compelling element.

P. wants to stress that knowledge which is revealed and fundamental and which we can't doubt. The source of the compulsion is to accept it as valid knowledge. One can't say that there is compulsion to be compelled by them. 2 plus 2 = 4 and that is so because you call it four. There is a meaning here that you can show. You can transfer this as an operationally verifiable fact. As a fact there is nothing to compel you to submit to this or to consistent thinking in that sphere.

There is no mind phenomenon which has not not something which logic call premises.

In aesthetics, law, ethics, mathematics, and in a number of other disciplines they register these arguments.

Money

Trade and Market (2)

The Great Transformation

Notes

Interdisciplinary Project

Pearl Harbour

Suez

Dubarle

Homans

Jews and Christianity

[28+57] The reason for anti-semitism is that Jews are rightly charged with having brought Christianity into the world and then evading the consequence. (P. thinks it is true). The Jew thinks that the Gentil is pretty silly to be saddled with the religion. It is an unbearable burden.

P. always thought so. The Nazis said that Bolshevism was Christianity all over again and the Jews ought to be destroyed because they are responsible for Christianity.

Editors Notes


Text Informations

Date: April 6, 1957 (Interview)
KPA: 45/06