RISING ABOVE ? I CANNOT GIVE AN OPINION

Returning to the matter of sympathy I am somewhat in a quandary. I am, after some thought, finding it difficult to form an opinion. There are several questions that arise. One is whether there is a distinction between sympathy and empathy? Another is whether, when in sympathy with another person’s situation, the opinions one forms as a result of being in sympathy, are sufficiently informed? Or whether one’s opinions on any matter are sufficiently informed.

So far as empathy is concerned, I am informed that it is the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another, or, the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself.

As to sympathy it is being in harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons, or on the part of one person with respect to another. Or further, the harmony of feeling naturally existing between persons of like tastes or opinion or of congenial dispositions, or, still further, the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, especially in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration; a relationship between persons in which the condition of one induces a parallel or reciprocal condition in another.

What Adam Smith does is effectively bring the whole lot together under the name of sympathy. In his lecture M. Rateau emphasized the question of levels or strength of feeling felt by the sympathizer towards the person concerned.  The sympathizer cannot possibly reach the same intensity of feeling as the person concerned. The feelings felt by the sympathizer being one step removed as it were. Smith then argues that the intensity of feeling in the sympathizer increases where the person concerned appears to be in more control of their feelings, caused by whatever situation initiated their great distress or joy in the first place. Indeed, there could come a point at which the person concerned is so cool as to cause the sympathizer to become more agitated by the lack of distress or joy shown by the person concerned.  In general, however, the sympathizer seems to be more drawn in as the person concerned seems able to cope with their feelings. It is seen as being brave, which is viewed as a virtuous quality and consequently more attractive.

To illustrate this point, M. Rateau brought up the matter of Socrates; his acceptance of the verdict against him, his acceptance of the sentence, his refusal to leave town and his acquiescence in drinking the hemlock, all as a result of his determination to obey the law and maintain his principles. We sympathize with his plight and admire his actions as beyond the ordinary. He is seen as a man of integrity, brave, virtuous and principled. The representational painting by Jacques-Louis David amply demonstrates the situation, with Socrates exclaiming to the last and his followers showing various and great levels of distress, in sympathy.

The death of Socrates (1787) by J-L David

Rising above a situation does seem to be viewed as an attractive quality. A person seen fighting back the tears often brings people closer, encouraging them to ‘let it all out’ with supportive pats on the back and hugs.

However, is rising above always the thing to do. Might is not be considered an act of stupidity, or indeed carry with it some level of deception, particularly if the rising above is of no real consequence? There can be situations where rising above is the easier course of action. Surely it is a matter of degree and situation.

In the matter of Socrates, he was accused of moral corruption and impiety. The moral corruption concerned the ‘moral corruption of Athenian youth’. As to the impiety, it consisted of “failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges” and “introducing new deities”.

In the event, friends, followers, and students encouraged Socrates to flee Athens, which action the citizens expected; yet, on principle, Socrates refused to flout the law and escape his legal responsibility to Athens. Apparently, faithful to his teaching of civic obedience to the law, the 70-year-old Socrates executed his death-sentence, and drank the hemlock, as condemned at trial. Yet, it was brought out at trial that at least two of his young followers participated in acts against the democratic government in favour of dictatorships. Not exactly faithful to civic obedience of the law.

Indeed, in 2012, in The New Trial of Socrates an international panel of ten judges held a mock re-trial of Socrates to resolve the matter of the charges levelled against him by Meletus, Anytos, and Lycon, that: “Socrates is a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the state, and he believes in other new divinities of his own”; by split decision, five judges voted “Guilty” and five judges voted “Not guilty”, which acquitted Socrates of corruption of the young and of impiety against the Athenian pantheon. Limiting themselves to the facts of the case against Socrates, the judges did not consider any sentence; the judges who voted the philosopher guilty said that they would not have considered the death penalty for Socrates. The original Athenian jury consisted of some 500 worthies of the city. The guilty verdict was by majority, and it appears the imposition of the death penalty was by way of an even greater majority.  Bearing in mind these events took place in 399 BC, 2415 years ago, clearly views were a bit harsher.

Much of this was unknown to me. Also Socrates was 70, quite an advanced age in 399 BC, although according to some research, that was about average for the ancient Greeks and in some cases they lived even longer. Nonetheless, living longer may not have been right for him. Given all the surrounding circumstances, was he so brave or just accepting the inevitable, or is the mere act of acceptance an act of bravery to be applauded and viewed as virtuous.

So my dilemma and concern about forming an opinion without sufficient information, or to paraphrase Herr Doctor Winkel “I cannot give an opinion, the effects would have been the same.”

There may be a small prize for people who can tell me who Dr Winkel is. 

SYMPATHY FOR TODAY

Today is Adam Smith day at Paris I, with Monsieur Paul Rateau

Paul RATEAU

Maître de conférences [Philosophie]

Curriculum Vitae :

I. TITRES ET DIPLÔMES - Maître de conférences à l’Université Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne) (depuis 2008). - Thèse de doctorat : « La question du mal chez Leibniz : fondements et élaboration de la   Théodicée »,    soutenue à l’Université de Strasbourg (2005).    Directrice de thèse: Mme Martine de Gaudemar (Paris X-Nanterre).  -Agrégé de philosophie (1998).  -Ancien élève de l’École Normale Supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud (1994). II. FONCTIONS ANTÉRIEURES    2008-2007 : Assistant post-doctorant à l’Université de Neuchâtel (Suisse).    2006-2004 : ATER (attaché temporaire d’enseignement et de recherche) à l’Université de Strasbourg.    2003-2000 : AMN (allocataire moniteur normalien) à l’Université de Strasbourg. So far M. Rateau has been the clearest of the lecturer's I have encountered. He is part of the CHSPM - Centre d'histoire des systèmes de pensée moderne.

I have been musing on the stuff we have been reading so far. I do hope it makes sense. At least you can be sympathetic.

Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments is written in seven parts. He begins the first part with “Of the Propriety of Actions”, Section I ‘Of the sense of propriety”. Chapter I, Of Sympathy. He then goes on at some length to discuss how he believes relationships between individuals work. How do ordinary individuals relate to each other in society and what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. Does that behaviour arise naturally, from within, or artificially, of necessity through education and convention?

He appears to be suggesting that in order for individuals to survive there must be a certain degree of ‘sympathy’ between them, that there is some sort of harmony or agreement between them, or on the part of one person with respect to another.  The premise is that there is an universal sympathy between persons arising through the senses of the body, in that every human understands pain and pleasure from their own experience, e.g. by being hit, or injuring oneself through accident, suffering from cold or heat, the loss of a loved one, anxieties of love, jealousy and hate, resentments, in short any number of ‘feelings’ which are viewed as part of the ‘human condition’.

How a person displays those feelings, and how others react to those feelings is dependent on the degree of closeness between them, e.g. wife, child, cousin, friend, casual acquaintance, stranger… The extent and character of the behaviour displayed by the individual exhibiting those feelings, will of course vary in degree and proportion according to circumstances.  Similarly the response, and the extent and character of the behaviour, of the person for whom the display is intended, will vary in some degree depending on circumstances. It is the same for the casual observer of the display. Whether that display is appropriate or inappropriate in the particular circumstances depends on the ‘conventions’ society has accepted as being appropriate or inappropriate in the circumstances. The behaviour can be viewed as an over reaction or woefully lacking in feeling.  Again it is a matter of degree and circumstance. In addition, because of the nature of human sympathy in respect of certain matters, e.g. the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, there is an expectation, by others, that the person concerned will react in a certain way. Whether that is the result of education and convention or indeed natural sympathy, might well depend on the individual concerned. It is a matter of propriety and not just a question of mimicry.

The matter of sympathy, then, is a vital condition in understanding communication between individuals in society, and fundamental to the languages we use. The nature of sympathy will remain unchanged no matter what the situation, where-so-ever we are. The matter of propriety, however, is entirely dependent on the situation and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

After todays lecture there is more to come on this subject - Adam Smith is a problem or perhaps it is M. Rateau.

MULLING AT THE PANTHEON-SORBONNE AND THE TUILLERIE

The teaching methods at 'Paris I' are a bit different from Dartington and Falmouth. Admittedly, my recent pedagogic experience has been with a mere five tutors, one of whom has been particularly influential in my recent academic life. Also, the number of students per lecture was considerably smaller at the English Institutions. This allowed for much more discussion and argument during the course of a lecture. In addition, there were occasional one to one sessions with a tutor, some of which were scheduled but tutors were more or less available at any time on request. In the course of study one felt there was always a close guiding hand of a person willing to listen and give progressive feedback, despite the overall demands on their time, to the work one was doing. At least that was my experience. Here, in Paris, although only an 'auditeur libre', one is pretty much on one's own. I believe there is some access to the teaching staff, but they seem to come in and out of the lectures pretty swiftly. Not many of the students seems to engage directly with the teachers outside the lecture room, save for discussing schedules and such. I may be wrong about that, but it is the impression I have. During the course of a lecture there can be a number of 'exposé' by students. This is a presentation by a student doing a close reading of a particular text. The class is then invited to ask questions of the presenter after which the lecturer then elaborates on the subject, presumably tying it all together. I am no longer used to the speed at which the French speak and, in a crowded room, what with rustlings, other surrounding noises and the irritating habit the French have of shortening words by oral abbreviations, it is difficult to catch everything.

This is just an early impression of things at the moment, the content of the lectures is new to me and I am beginning to appreciate the material. I have not read Hume or Smith in any detail before, and it is exciting stuff. At least I think so. As to Thoreau, well, in the sixties he seemed extremely relevant. Not to say that some of his stuff has lost its edge, but, in my present circumstance, it is not as attractive as the Scottish Enlightenment.  It is still very much a worthwhile subject of study and one cannot help but admire Thoreau's tenacity in trying to make a reality of the words proffered by the first two sentences of the Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the Constitution of the United States. He was very much a man of his time. But that is another story. At least he was around for the camera. 

David Hume 1711-1776

Adam Smith 1723-1790

Henry Thoreau 1817-1862

It is interesting to note that Hume died the year of the Declaration of Independence, Smith died in the infancy of the French Revolution just one year old, and Thoreau died at the beginnings of the American Civil War.

The present study of Hume is from  Volume Two of the Treatise on Human Nature, Book Three - Of Morals, Part II  Of Justice and Injustice, Of the Origin of Justice and Property, Of the Rules which determine property, Of the Obligations of promises; Part III Of other virtues and vices, Of the Origins of the Natural Virtues and Vices.

As to Smith, we are dealing with The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part I Of the Property of Actions, Section I Of the Sense of Propriety, Chapter I Of Sympathy, Chapter III Of the Manner in Which we Judge of the propriety or impropriety of the affections of other Men, by their concord and dissonance with our own.

We have just been for a walk in the Tuilleries Gardens where there is at present an exhibition of various pieces of sculpture.

     

       

A bit nippy, the weather, but lovely and warm in the sun. There is also on display a series of photographs accompanied by displayed text by way of explanation. A bit of performance writing. The pictures are not in the correct order, The texts are in English and French are are meant to be read from one panel to the next as they are incomplete on each panel. The panels are some distance apart and it is not easy, unless one walks quite some distance between them all, to follow the text in some grammatical order. One assumes, as the text concerns instructions for photographing plants and other feature in gardens, that it is meant to be read in some sort of cohesive sequence. Of course I am probably wrong about that, as I am about so many things.

As to sympathy, according to Smith, I cannot say that I was in any kind of sympathetic state in respect of these panels and the absent artist. The photographs, in Celia's opinion, were not very good. I was, according to Smith, in sympathy with her. It is, of course, more difficult to feel or express sympathy in the absence of a subject, nor do I suppose it is possible to be sympathetic to an inanimate object. Does sympathy require, as object, a living creature, and in particular, a creature with which we have some familiarity, or can one feel sympathy towards an object, particularly in respect of a work of art, or piece of craftsmanship, or what some would class as an 'objet trouvé', or indeed any object that takes our fancy.

If we have sympathy as signifier what is the signified? As a representamen, what can the object and interpretant be? With this stuff it is all dependent naturally on context, as with everything.

I am coming to grips with Hume's views on justice and property, whether natural of artifice. Sympathy plays a great role in the emergence of justice and it is no wonder that Hume and Smith were such great friends and in great sympathy with each other. I am still mulling but there will be more of this anon.

PARIS - BEGINNING THE FIRST FOURTEEN DAYS

A year and a half has passed since I last ventured into the blogosphere. Much has happened. I have acquired a season ticket to Guys Hospital along with visits to the GP.  His practice seems to be expanding, which is hardly surprising. It has been an interesting experience, although one I could have done without. Medical treatment, even if apparently successful, is not without it's particular problems. What are called euphemistically side effects can linger on for some considerable time. I will henceforth cease complaining. The important thing is that I have regained the ability to drink and enjoy Chauvet Grand Rose. This is a singularly nice pink champagne once listed the Hachette Guide des Vins as a "vin remarkable". In the 2015 guide it is described as "Un rosé d'assemblage de pinot noir et de chardonnay vinifié sans fermentation malolactique. Nez riche, sur les fruits rouges (fraise des bois) et le sous-bois. Bouche ample, fidèle au nez, tout en fruits rouges (fraise, groseille), sous-tendue par une fraîcheur acidulée" which google loosely translates as "a pinot noir rosé assembly of Chardonnay and vinified without malolactic fermentation. rich nose of red fruit (strawberry) and the undergrowth. wide mouth, faithful to the nose, while red fruit (strawberry, gooseberry), underpinned by a tangy freshness". The rich nose, should be translated as wild strawberries, a very different nose altogether. Nonetheless I am pleased that it is back on the agenda. Other wines still elude me; however, I believe I will cope if from here on I am reduced to drinking only pink champagne. How long that will be is another matter.

In light of these past events a variety of journeys have been undertaken. A wiz round France Spain and Portugal, a quick trip to New York a la recherche du temps perdu. Huntspoint Hospital, where I was born, is no more. It is now a post office. The childhood homes are still in situ and Mount Vernon appears (almost) very much the same going on 68 years and it was 67years ago in June of 1949 that all the family goods were sold off and we moved to France.

2016

1948

So here we are back in Paris, sitting in a flat on the Rue Saint-Hyacinthe corner of the Marche Saint Honore above a lovely wine bar, come brasserie, called Le Rubis. Very nice it is too. 

I have enrolled as an 'auditeur libre' at the Sorbonne Universite Paris I - doing a bit of philosophy

I have been to three classes although the second was cancelled. The first is Justice et Droit  et la Lumiere Ecossaise - in the process of reading from the Philosophical Works of David Hume Volume II, Book III of Morals. Part II Of Justice and Injustice, sections 1 and 2. 

David Hume was discussed

Adam Smith rears up as well in the second class unfortunately cancelled on Monday. We are meant to be dealing with The Theory Of Moral Sentiment, The sense of Property, Chapter 1- Sympathy.  In effect quite a lot of reading to do. The third class, which is quite late, is to do with Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. The class is from 7PM to 9PM with upwards to 30+ students. It takes place in the Pantheon bit of the Sorbonne in a rather large room with a raised platform at the end. Not a theatre but a lecture room. Sometimes difficult to hear. Mostly young final year students doing one of the required courses, a mixture of History of Philosophy, Philosophy and Science, Logic, etc.. There are about six categories they have to deal with. The atmosphere is much the same as it is at any University, save there is not so much in the way of discussion or back and forth banter. I supposed that is difficult with such a large group. One of the students did a presentation of a paragraph from the text. He did read out the English text which he then translated and analysed; however, his English pronunciation was appalling. I confess I found it hard to understand and even more difficult to find the relevant passage to be able to follow his flow. Other students not terribly helpful when asked where and what the class has got up to. They are in their fourth week so it's catch up for me. This presentation was then followed by the lecturer's point of view going over the same passage. Slightly better English but very laborious. As close a reading as one would want. Two hours to discuss the last highlighted section.

Amphi IIB

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as the rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least: 

I am rather enjoying the reading, although I find all these men can so easily be supporters of the Tory Party. Thoreau begins his Civil objections with:

"I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have. "

Smith's "Wealth of Nations" is a apology for the small businessman, what used to be called the backbone of Britain,. and Hume posits that Justice stems from the acquisition and protection of property or rather possessions.. There is indeed a kind of justice that revolves around such matters, but that, in my respectful submission, your honour, is not the whole story.

There is another quote from Thoreau which I believe has a bit of relevance for todays potential voters in the forthcoming elections in the United States, just 4 weeks away:

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.

We could spend a good few hours discussing the above paragraph and no doubt will, but I leave it to you to ponder. 

There was a joke going around in the late forties around the time of Truman's defeat of Dewey in 1948. Lucky Strike cigarettes had a slogan LSMFT - Lucky Strike means fine tobacco. It was taken up by the republicans as LSMFT - Lord save me from Truman - It could easily be brought back, but cigarettes are unpopular -  LSMFT- Lord save me from Trump.

There is a lot more yet to learn. More of this anon,