Philosophical Papers of Larry Fike, Jr.
These will be slow in coming, but will represent the best of what Larry Fike does as a philosopher. Part of the reason for the delay is the necessary intellectual labor, and part of it has to do with typing everything out all over again, due to a major theft (the fourth in Larry's lifetime). The important thing is that the words be preserved for y'all to ponder and consider. Nothing else matters, frankly. There won't be any "cutting corners" here, so be prepared to take offense and respond. Larry's worked almost 40 years on this material, and he's not about to pretend that suddenly "Truth" doesn't matter because of . . . anything else.
- I think when O'Shaughnessy writes, he's primarily operating at the level of "lived experience," and so dealing with the phenomenal experience of the subject. Some writers in moral philosophy proceed this way as well, so that "shared intuitions," given the descriptions offered, is indeed essential.
- I think this is just one way of doing philosophy, and its purpose in part is to offer a subjectively rich theory that doesn't actually rely upon scientific norms. That's rare for somebody who's capable of philosophical analysis, of course, but I think that's one of the things that makes both his writing style and content relatively unique.
- I think often O'Shaughnessy is talking about *mentally* irreducible states, and therefore not actually addressing the *other* question of whether mental states can be reduced to particular physical states. Of course, he did some of the latter work in his 2-volume work on the will.
- If 3 is roughly right, it would at least make sense that he's not even asking or trying to answer the questions that confront neuroscientists. It's just not a desideratum for him in this book.
- When you remark that you guess blind people are less aware than sighted people for O'Shaughnessy, my hunch is that you may be circumscribing "perceptual awareness" in such a way that it is equated with only one way of perceiving, viz. seeing. Touching, for example, or hearing, are also obviously modes of perceptual awareness.(As well as hearing and tasting, obviously.)
- As for the other 7 billion of us being as equipped as is he to write about subjective experience, I seriously doubt that. He's a trained engineer, and a trained analytical philosopher, and he brings that training to bear on his own experience.
- So while I agree with you about the speculative nature of many of his assertions, and likewise disagree with conclusions he reaches, I find his philosophical style refreshing and engaging and certainly often thought-provoking. I tend to think of him as a "philosopher's philosopher."
- I think people like Nagel and Searle (both of whom mentored me) probably feel similarly about O'Shaughnessy as I've characterized him in 7. above. I find his style and insights mesmerizing and suggestive, but I would hate to try to write a critique of his views. And yeah, he does seem to have a moving target so that you never quite know exactly what it is you've learned, if anything. For me, reading him is simply to be engrossed in a good conversation.
TRUTH MATTERS
'Who's to blame?' is not the question
Orange County Pespectives on Littleton, The Orange County Register COMMENTARY, Sunday, May 9, 1999, p. 4.
"Why?" and "Who is responsible?" are questions repeated as we reflect with horror on the events at Columbine High School. Although they are serious questions that must be asked, perhaps they are not the most important questions.
There are at least two reasons why we wish to determine the causes of this horrifying tragedy. First, it is so that responsibility, or blame, can be assigned; and second, it is in the hope that by pinpointing the causes, we can prevent anything like it from ever happening again. We fear that we cannot control something if we cannot determine with confidence its cause or causes.
Consider, however, the following analogy: A loved one has been seriously injured. What is the wisest course of action? Spending time in speculation over the cause of the injury? Pinpointing who's to blame? No. The wise course of action is to seek and administer medical attention immediately.
Our society prizes cause-and-effect reasoning - scientific reasoning - above all other varieties. But science will not tell you how to enjoy or write a song or a poem. It will not tell you what it feels like to be in love, and it won't explain the way chocolate tastes to you.
Most important of all, cause-and-effect reasoning will not tell us what we want the future to be. Social-scientific explanations only appear to consrict our future options. They provide us with the illusion of control, and ways to dodge the sometimes frightening reality of freedom. If we do not use our imaginations to move beyond the latest studies about what causes youth violence, we will have done less than we can do to change the future.
Young people do not wish to be told why they behave as they do. And adults know that even when we do know why we do some of the destructive things we do, this is not sufficient to insure that we will not go on doing them. Treating young people as though they are somehow more controllable than adults is both naive and, from their perspective insulting. It may be good to know what causes our behavior, but this knowledge should not be mistaken for the solution to our problems.
Socrates famously said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." But he also compared life itself to a profession, in which knowledge and skill come together to produce an excellence [arete]. In a pluralistic society like our own, there need not be a single excellence or end at which our endeavors aim, but adults and young people do well to expose and dicsuss the various ends they are pursuing.
What do our children want? What do we want for them? What do we want for ourselves? What steps might bring this future about? If we do not know the answers to these questions, we cannot hope to realize our dreams, for we have not given voice to them. When uttered by adults, casual comments about "finding out what we want to be when we grow up" echo in the minds of young people who are trying to discover through us what the future holds.
Plato says that democratic souls are dominated by appetite, which clouds our rationally determined goals. The Bible says that where there is no vision, the people perish. It comes to much the same thing. Let us lay aside our speculative curiosities about causes, in favor of giving immediate voice to our visions. Not because it is "necessary," but because we are free to act in constructive, creative ways that emphasize the good deeds and bright futures we are capable of. And then let us spend our time making these real. It will leave us no time to surf the Internet for recipes about how to make bombs, and less time to search our souls about who's to blame for what cannot now be reversed.
