Philip Pilkington wrote:
> I don't know if I should be simplistic about this, or more
> complex... Okay,
> I'll try both:
>
> (1) Simplistic: 2 + 2 = 4. There's nothing anthopological about
> that. Every
> culture eventually... immutably developed that.
>
> (2) Simplistic: Basic emotions. Neither is there anything
> anthropological
> about that. Every culture shows aspects of "envy", "attachment",
> "hatred",
> "sorrow", "totem", "taboo" etc.
>
> (3) Complex: Whatever happened to our civilisation we show very
> specific
> traits that travel right through. I named some of them in the last
> proposition but I'll give one that we certainly created, and without
> any
> recourse to Reason: Love. That's a weird one. Its sort of like:
> "Totem" +
> "Attachment" if we want to be terribly immutable.
Ironically, you're here uncritically insisting on ontological and anthropological (in the philosophical sense) concepts that, as I pointed out, are inconsistent with those of Hegel and Marx. Their concepts may be mistaken, but you have no way of deciding that question when you misunderstand theirs by projecting onto them your own.
One of theirs (as found, for instance, in the sixth thesis on Feuerbach I quoted) is the ontological concept of "internal relations", i.e. the concept of "essence" (e.g. the human "essence") as the product of relations (which are, in this sense, "internal" relations) rather than as independent of relations ("external" relations).
This distinction is the basis of Whitehead's distinction between a "genetic" and a "mathematical" conception of order.
“The point of a ‘society,’ as the term is here used, is that it is self-sustaining; in other words, that it is its own reason. Thus a society is more than a set of entities to which the same class-name applies: that is to say, it involves more that a merely mathematical conception of ‘order.’ To constitute a society, the class-name has got to apply to each member, by reason of genetic derivation from other members of that same society. The members of the society are alike because, by reason of their common character, they impose on other members of the society the conditions which lead to that likeness.” (A.N.Whitehead, Process and Reality, [Corrected ed.], p. 89)
This "internal relations" conception of "order" limits the applicability of "a merely mathematical conception of 'order'", i.e. it limits the applicability of axiomatic deductive reasoning in general and of "mathematical" reasoning in particular.
For instance, it limits the applicability of arithmetic. 1 + 1 won't always equal two (one of Whitehead's exampes in a spark plus gunpowder).
As Russell puts it (having finally been persuaded by Whitehead that his criticism of the concept as found in Hegel was mistaken):
"Take, for instance, numbers: when you count, you count 'things,' but 'things' have been invented by human beings for their own convenience. This is not obvious on the earth's surface because, owing to the low temperature, there is a certain degree of apparent stability. But it would be obvious if one could live on the sun where there is nothing but perpetually changing whirlwinds of gas. If you lived on the sun, you would never have thought of counting because there would be nothing to count. In such an environment, Hegel's philosophy would seem to be common sense, and what we consider common sense would appear as fantastic metaphysical speculation."
Psychoanalysis provides an explanation of the incomprehensibiity of the concept. The mistaken idea of "relations" as necessarily "external" and the related mistaken identification of "reason" with axiomatic deductive reasoning in general and mathematical reasoning in particular are unconsciously anchored in the instinctive sources of sadism.
That's why the "logic" of those for whom these mistakes are both characteristic and incorrigible is, as Keynes claims in the case of Hayek, "remorseless".
It also explains why some of those who mistakenly identify "rationality" with axiomatic deductive reasoning also mistakenly identify it with a sadistic will to power (which they see everywhere but in themselves).
Ted