Is Survival a Value?
Survival in the non-cosncious plane of being is not a value. It spontaneously runs along the flow of implicit biological order wherein human consciousness has no primal focus. Such nature is seen among animals and even newborn babies. They are driven by an instictive force toward a struggle for survival wherein deliberation is non-operative. An unmensch (Nietzsche) through which drive for survival is seen is not consciously aware of what ought to be done. What it does is simply an event in the realm of unconscious regularities. Through constant regularities occurring between its biologival structure and the milieu into which it has been adapted, bilogical needs ar spontaneously generated and do conform to what is.
However, the explicitation of "survival" leads us to a higher plane. Here, survival is thematically presented to human consciousness and thereby acquires a twofold character sujectively dependent upon each individual human being to whom survival becomes an issue. To him who believes that existence is only an accident, survival which is a by-product of this accident is just another accident to which his entire existence is tied-up until the point when he will ultimately disintegrate to nothing. Survival, therefore, in this instance, is not a value--a desirable objective of all human undertakings--but simply an "unsought-for" drive that is inseparable from the necessities spontaneously generated in the unconsious biological dimension of reality. For such types of human, values are only those which he can freely desire within the confines of conscious reflection, wtih no connection whatsoever to the the mysterious stream of blind natural processes completely uncontrolled by human sanity.
Acquisition of Values
Values are acquired through social practice. To constitute reality, the human being is caught in a dialectical relation with the world, By the very nature of this relation, the human being consciously perceives the necessities involved to continuously participate in the historic process. Her/His knowledge of these necessities is a dimension of freedom, for, upon knowing the complexities of living, the human will is then left in an autonomous situation to reflect and act upon it, to change what can possibly be changed.
In action and reflection--praxis--values are acquired; for how can the human being, the "being-for-itself," go on in her/ his struggle to be united with the "self" if there is not a value that will give meaning to her/his aspirations? The human being in her/his becoming is always confronted by possibilities because it is a facticity of her/his existence to be incomplete--always lacking as s/he strides on new situations from moment to moment.
Fundamental Values Crucial for Social Transformation
There are threee fundamental values crucial in dealing with the arduous task of social transformation. These are freedom, responsibility and creativity. Every humanist value that has been given an eminent place in the heart of the human being as s/he partakes in the task of moving toward higher and greater refinement follows from the primacy of these three values.
From the necessities of human existence geared toward social transformation, we can fully harness the value of freedom in terms of decision-making . In the process of being immersed in such kind of situations, i.e., to keep oneself always in touch with what is obtaining in the superstructure of society, responsibility is definitely significant. Both freedom and responsibility are, however, futile if they are not perfectly joined in unison with our wish tocreate a just, humanized and hence humanizing society.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
ON CONTEMPORIZING THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE AND THE ANALYSIS OF THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE
I. Contemporizing the Christian Message
A. A Critique of the Bultmannian Proposal
In his controversial essay “New Testament and Mythology” [New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1984. Augsburg: Fortress)], Rudolf Bultmann makes an observation on the mythical view of the world in the New Testament which was actually the general view of reality in the ancient Semitic world (with specific focus on cosmology). This is precisely the reason why Bultmann contends that ideas found in the Bible related to cosmology and other “allegedly” mythical aspects of reality are already obsolete for us today. Hence, he is making a proposal to reinterpret the Biblical message in the light of our contemporary scientifico-empirical orientation. He believes that these “mythological conceptions” can and must be changed without the hazard of losing the defining characters of Christianity.
I personally believe that the Christian message should truly address the sensitivity and sensibility of man in the contemporary milieu that defines his orientation and being. This amounts to a reinterpretation of the Biblical message—an existentialization, if you will. However, such a reinterpretation does not need to be grounded on the belief that the weltanschauung of the Bible is mythical in character, which is only hypothetical in Bultmann’s presentation. Existentializing reinterpretation is not really a demythologizing (in the Bultmannian parlance) but an attempt to recapture the eternal ancient message of God in contemporary medium with an objective to reach the modern man in his contemporary spiritual needs.
It is not, therefore, the cosmology of the ancient message that determines the reinterpretation but rather the present situation of the contemporary man. Whether the Biblical worldview is mythical or not is not an issue (perhaps, Bultmann has some significant and valuable points that cannot simply be ignored or dismissed but would technically be more functional in the field of Biblical criticism); what matters is that we cannot deny the reality of the supernatural and it is on this plane that God meets man (and vice versa) in a very personal way, and the Bible is replete with encounters of this nature. Drawing universal spiritual messages from them for the purposes of the contemporary man renders the Bultmannian hypothesis insignificant.
B. The Two Approaches to Contemporizing Theology
1.Transformers’ Approach. It starts with the assumption that Christianity’s belief are necessarily attached to the context of the ancient worldview and therefore cannot be sensible if separated from that context. It is not in anyway possible to signify the beliefs by simply restating them in the language understood by modern man because man has radically changed with the passing of time. By this assumption, man is made the measure of truth; thus, making truth relative to a large extent.
2. Translators’ Approach. It shares with the transformers’ approach the desire to be meaningful to the contemporary world. However, the translators strongly emphasize the need for making certain that no other message is being made meaningful but the authoritative message of the Scriptures. They believe that the essence of the message cannot be altered; they can only be put in a new “vessel” to be understood in the language of the receptor. The translators radically oppose the transformers’ effort to make man the measure of truth. God is the measure of truth and if transformation is truly needed, it is man that must be transformed, not the message.
C. A Critique of the Two Approaches to Contemporizing Theology
In looking at the two approaches, let us consider certain conditions:
First, Biblical messages are not monolithic and for my present purpose, I want to make use of two categories to distinguish the types of these messages. There are : 1) culture-bound messages and 2) universal messages. The first type can be transformed while the second can only be translated.
Now the crucial role of a contemporizing agent is his/her ability to properly distinguish between the two. Culture-bound messages are inseparably attached to the ancient worldview and cannot be made sensible by simply restating them. These messages must therefore be transformed but the transformer, on the one hand, must be careful not to traverse the boundary because he might unwittingly ignore some universal principles unnoticeably embedded in the culture-bound messages. The translator, on the other hand, may not be aware of culture-bound messages (e.g., John 13 and I Cor. 11.3-17) and treat them as if they are grounded on universal principles. However, the translator is on a safer ground as a contemporizing agent because his basic concern is simply to transmit a message in a way that it will become meaningful and understandable to the contemporary receptor.
II. The Analysis of Theological Language
A. Verificational and Functional Analyses in Relation to Theological Language
1. Verification analysis is grounded on the assumption that all meaningful statements are those statements that can be verified through sense experience (cf. A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic. 1971. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books). Since theological statements cannot in any way be verified through sense experience alone, they are therefore meaningless.
2. Functional analysis also assumes that the truth or falsity of a statement should be determined but sense experience is not the only criterion of verifiability whereby meaningfulness is determined. The meaningfulness of a statement is rather determined by how the language is used to make that statement understanable to the receptor. In view of this, theological language is meaningful because its concepts and categories are well-understood by the people who are involved participants in its language game wherein specific norms functionally govern the modes of communicability (cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. 1999. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers).
Functional analysis, therefore, is to be preferred over the extremely limited and close-ended verificational analysis. Language is an activity and it is used to communicate in various ways like giving orders, requesting for something, reporting events, expressing a feeling or emotion, etc. Hence, we cannot really prescribe a single criterion to verify the meaningfulness of a statement.
Meaning is inherent in our understanding of language whether what is said is verifiable by sense experience or not. Meaning, actually, has nothing to do with truth or falsity so that a synthetic statement is meaningful as long as it is understood by the receptor regardless of whether it can be verified by sense experience or not.
B. Theological Language as Personal Language and as Metaphysical Synthesis
1. Theological language as personal language. Theological language communicates something about a personal God (in Judaeo-Christian tradition) who has revealed himself to us in a personal way. There is no other way whereby we can know God besides this. Knowing, therefore, is not only done through sense-experience because when we know a person it is not through this method. We know a person only as he reveals himself. God reveals himself as a person in his historic acts and in his communication with prophets.
2. Theological language as a metaphysical synthesis. Every individual person has a worldview to be able to function in a consistent and coherent manner within his life-setting (Sitz im Leben). Such a worldview is synthetic because it encompasses the entirety of life’s experience within a meaningful pattern of reality. Without this synthesis there is no way a person can reasonably act and decide.
This synthesis is metaphysical because its formation is on the conceptual level and becomes functional if meaningfully uttered in convictional terms [Willem Zuurdeg's An Analytical Philosophy of Religion. (1959. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press)]. Theological language is an expression of such synthetic convictional utterances and the meaning of them can only be verified by various metaphysical means. Theological language is, therefore, rightly viewed as a metaphysical synthesis.
A. A Critique of the Bultmannian Proposal
In his controversial essay “New Testament and Mythology” [New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1984. Augsburg: Fortress)], Rudolf Bultmann makes an observation on the mythical view of the world in the New Testament which was actually the general view of reality in the ancient Semitic world (with specific focus on cosmology). This is precisely the reason why Bultmann contends that ideas found in the Bible related to cosmology and other “allegedly” mythical aspects of reality are already obsolete for us today. Hence, he is making a proposal to reinterpret the Biblical message in the light of our contemporary scientifico-empirical orientation. He believes that these “mythological conceptions” can and must be changed without the hazard of losing the defining characters of Christianity.
I personally believe that the Christian message should truly address the sensitivity and sensibility of man in the contemporary milieu that defines his orientation and being. This amounts to a reinterpretation of the Biblical message—an existentialization, if you will. However, such a reinterpretation does not need to be grounded on the belief that the weltanschauung of the Bible is mythical in character, which is only hypothetical in Bultmann’s presentation. Existentializing reinterpretation is not really a demythologizing (in the Bultmannian parlance) but an attempt to recapture the eternal ancient message of God in contemporary medium with an objective to reach the modern man in his contemporary spiritual needs.
It is not, therefore, the cosmology of the ancient message that determines the reinterpretation but rather the present situation of the contemporary man. Whether the Biblical worldview is mythical or not is not an issue (perhaps, Bultmann has some significant and valuable points that cannot simply be ignored or dismissed but would technically be more functional in the field of Biblical criticism); what matters is that we cannot deny the reality of the supernatural and it is on this plane that God meets man (and vice versa) in a very personal way, and the Bible is replete with encounters of this nature. Drawing universal spiritual messages from them for the purposes of the contemporary man renders the Bultmannian hypothesis insignificant.
B. The Two Approaches to Contemporizing Theology
1.Transformers’ Approach. It starts with the assumption that Christianity’s belief are necessarily attached to the context of the ancient worldview and therefore cannot be sensible if separated from that context. It is not in anyway possible to signify the beliefs by simply restating them in the language understood by modern man because man has radically changed with the passing of time. By this assumption, man is made the measure of truth; thus, making truth relative to a large extent.
2. Translators’ Approach. It shares with the transformers’ approach the desire to be meaningful to the contemporary world. However, the translators strongly emphasize the need for making certain that no other message is being made meaningful but the authoritative message of the Scriptures. They believe that the essence of the message cannot be altered; they can only be put in a new “vessel” to be understood in the language of the receptor. The translators radically oppose the transformers’ effort to make man the measure of truth. God is the measure of truth and if transformation is truly needed, it is man that must be transformed, not the message.
C. A Critique of the Two Approaches to Contemporizing Theology
In looking at the two approaches, let us consider certain conditions:
First, Biblical messages are not monolithic and for my present purpose, I want to make use of two categories to distinguish the types of these messages. There are : 1) culture-bound messages and 2) universal messages. The first type can be transformed while the second can only be translated.
Now the crucial role of a contemporizing agent is his/her ability to properly distinguish between the two. Culture-bound messages are inseparably attached to the ancient worldview and cannot be made sensible by simply restating them. These messages must therefore be transformed but the transformer, on the one hand, must be careful not to traverse the boundary because he might unwittingly ignore some universal principles unnoticeably embedded in the culture-bound messages. The translator, on the other hand, may not be aware of culture-bound messages (e.g., John 13 and I Cor. 11.3-17) and treat them as if they are grounded on universal principles. However, the translator is on a safer ground as a contemporizing agent because his basic concern is simply to transmit a message in a way that it will become meaningful and understandable to the contemporary receptor.
II. The Analysis of Theological Language
A. Verificational and Functional Analyses in Relation to Theological Language
1. Verification analysis is grounded on the assumption that all meaningful statements are those statements that can be verified through sense experience (cf. A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic. 1971. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books). Since theological statements cannot in any way be verified through sense experience alone, they are therefore meaningless.
2. Functional analysis also assumes that the truth or falsity of a statement should be determined but sense experience is not the only criterion of verifiability whereby meaningfulness is determined. The meaningfulness of a statement is rather determined by how the language is used to make that statement understanable to the receptor. In view of this, theological language is meaningful because its concepts and categories are well-understood by the people who are involved participants in its language game wherein specific norms functionally govern the modes of communicability (cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. 1999. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers).
Functional analysis, therefore, is to be preferred over the extremely limited and close-ended verificational analysis. Language is an activity and it is used to communicate in various ways like giving orders, requesting for something, reporting events, expressing a feeling or emotion, etc. Hence, we cannot really prescribe a single criterion to verify the meaningfulness of a statement.
Meaning is inherent in our understanding of language whether what is said is verifiable by sense experience or not. Meaning, actually, has nothing to do with truth or falsity so that a synthetic statement is meaningful as long as it is understood by the receptor regardless of whether it can be verified by sense experience or not.
B. Theological Language as Personal Language and as Metaphysical Synthesis
1. Theological language as personal language. Theological language communicates something about a personal God (in Judaeo-Christian tradition) who has revealed himself to us in a personal way. There is no other way whereby we can know God besides this. Knowing, therefore, is not only done through sense-experience because when we know a person it is not through this method. We know a person only as he reveals himself. God reveals himself as a person in his historic acts and in his communication with prophets.
2. Theological language as a metaphysical synthesis. Every individual person has a worldview to be able to function in a consistent and coherent manner within his life-setting (Sitz im Leben). Such a worldview is synthetic because it encompasses the entirety of life’s experience within a meaningful pattern of reality. Without this synthesis there is no way a person can reasonably act and decide.
This synthesis is metaphysical because its formation is on the conceptual level and becomes functional if meaningfully uttered in convictional terms [Willem Zuurdeg's An Analytical Philosophy of Religion. (1959. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press)]. Theological language is an expression of such synthetic convictional utterances and the meaning of them can only be verified by various metaphysical means. Theological language is, therefore, rightly viewed as a metaphysical synthesis.
ABSOLUTISM AND RELATIVISM IN ETHICS
[A Professorial Lecture delivered at the Mabini Hall of Colegio de San Juan de Letran, Intramuros, Manila on 29 January 1998.]
1.0 The Problem and the Hypothesis
1.1 Are moral values relative or absolute?[1]
1.2 Values in general, seen a priori, are absolute—across the board; seen a posteriori, they are basically relative and only become absolute by the process of absolutization.
2.0 The Framework of Analysis
2.1 The paradigm of this discussion is linguistic analytic.[2]
2.2 The linguistic analytic paradigm aims to clarify meanings of concepts, statements, propositions and other utterances so as to facilitate understanding.[3]
2.3 The inferential point of reference of the linguistic analytic paradigm is The Principle of Contextual Dependence.[4]
2.31 The principle of contextual dependence recognizes the metaphysical assumption that there is a multiplicity of contexts.[5]
2.4 The basic contextual loci of this discussion are the community and the individual.[6]
2.41 Based on the metaphysical assumption of the multiplicity of contexts, a community is one among many; so is an individual.
2.42 The epistemological framework of this discussion is based on the three-phase belief acceptability spectrum of:
SUBJECTIVITY > INTERSUBJECTIVITY > OBJECTIVITY[7]
3.0 The Analysis
3.1 Moral values, seen a priori, are absolute—across the board—because of their transcendent origin.[8]
3.2 Using our epistemological framework[9], a priori moral values are posited as an objectivity at the contextual locus of the community where they are intersubjectively accepted.
3.3 However, deviation from some of these moral values is committed at the locus of the individual.
3.31 Such an act is one of subjectivity, wherein some moral values which are originally absolute become relative by the process of relativization.
3.32 In other words, relative moral values are actually relativized a priori moral values rendered as such by the subjective act of an individual.
_____________________________________________________________
ABSOLUTE VALUES > RELATIVIZED VALUES > RELATIVE VALUES
OBJECTIVE > INTERSUBJECTIVE > SUBJECTIVE
COMMUNITY > INDIVIDUAL
_____________________________________________________________
4.0 Moral values, seen a posteriori, are basically relative to the subjective desires, intentions, aspirations and signfications of individuals as they perceive, interpret, and act on the reality they experience individually.[10]
4.1 However, living together in the contextual locus of a particular community, higher desires, intentions, aspirations and significations have to be satisfied on the level of the intersubjective.
4.11 Hence, standardization of moral values agreed upon on the intersubjective level becomes objective in the form of principles and laws that at this point are more identified with the community.
4.12 In short, basically subjective moral values have already attained the level of the absolute by the process of absolutization.
4.121 Therefore, absolute a posteriori moral values are actually absolutized moral values.
_____________________________________________________________
RELATIVE VALUES > ABSOLUTIZED VALUES > ABSOLUTE VALUES
SUBJECTIVE > INTERSUBJECTIVE > OBJECTIVE
INDIVIDUAL > COMMUNITY
____________________________________________________________
5.0 From the above discussion, it is affirmed that moral values, whether apriori or a posteriori are standard and standardized respectively, in the contextual locus of the community. And moral standards (standardized morals) are moral absolutes or to put it in the language of formal logic,
“For any x such that if x is standard (Sx), then x is absolute (Ax).”
Which is equivalent to:
“It cannot be that x is both a standard and not an absolute.”
5.1 Considering the relational discrepancy between the contextual loci of community and individual, the community standardizes and hence absolutizes whereas the individual relativizes. The question now is: Isn’t it possible for a community to relativize, and for the individual to absolutize?
5.2 Further extending the use of our inferential point of reference which is the principle of contextual dependence[11] in its recognition of the metaphysical assumption of the multiplicity of contexts, relativization can occur at the contextual locus of the community if we consider it not as a sole logical universe but rather one among many in the logical universe of a set of communities.
5.21 We have here a case of the multiplicity of contexts wherein each community is a self-sufficient context with its own absolutes.
5.211 Hence, the logic of this assumption goes like this: “If there is a multiplicity of contexts, there is also a multiplicity of absolutes. And in a multiplicity of absolutes, one set of absolutes becomes relative in the face of other absolutes of their respective contexts.”
5.212 Hence, the absolutes of a particular context are rendered inapplicable to the other contexts.
5.3 In the same vein, an individual relativizes in a multiplicity of individuals but absolutizes in the context of his or her own specific locus as an individual.
6.0 The Conclusion
6.1 The linguistic analytic paradigm has led us to satisfy the twofold aim of meaning clarification and understanding facilitation[12] by allowing us to conclude with the statement that “Moral values are absolute and relative” without committing logical contradiction.
6.2 All in all, the entire exercise is but an affirmation of the inferential point of reference: The Principle of Contextual Dependence.[13]
rfp/9jul11
[1] Cf. Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1996), pp. 44-45; Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: A Revolutionary Approach to Man’s Understanding of Himself (New York: Ballantine Books, 1980).
[2] Cf. A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 137; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1997), p.22.
[3] Cf. Arthur C. Danto, What Philosophy Is: A Guide to the Elements (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1968), p.16.
[4] Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. www.filestube.com/p/philosophical+investigations+pdf
[5] Cf. Berger and Luckmann, p.21.
[6] Cf. Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principle of Morals (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
[7] Cf. Kathleen M. Haney, Intersubjectivity Revisited (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1994), p.1.
[8] An origin that transcends human experience. Cf. Immanuel Kant’s “Categorical Imperative.”
[9] Cf. 2.42.
[10] Re a posterori (or empirical) moral values: Cf. Leszek Kolakowski, Positivist Philosophy: From Hume to the Vienna Circle (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1972), pp.224-225.
[11] Cf. 2.3.
[12] Cf. 2.2.
[13] Cf. 2.3.
1.0 The Problem and the Hypothesis
1.1 Are moral values relative or absolute?[1]
1.2 Values in general, seen a priori, are absolute—across the board; seen a posteriori, they are basically relative and only become absolute by the process of absolutization.
2.0 The Framework of Analysis
2.1 The paradigm of this discussion is linguistic analytic.[2]
2.2 The linguistic analytic paradigm aims to clarify meanings of concepts, statements, propositions and other utterances so as to facilitate understanding.[3]
2.3 The inferential point of reference of the linguistic analytic paradigm is The Principle of Contextual Dependence.[4]
2.31 The principle of contextual dependence recognizes the metaphysical assumption that there is a multiplicity of contexts.[5]
2.4 The basic contextual loci of this discussion are the community and the individual.[6]
2.41 Based on the metaphysical assumption of the multiplicity of contexts, a community is one among many; so is an individual.
2.42 The epistemological framework of this discussion is based on the three-phase belief acceptability spectrum of:
SUBJECTIVITY > INTERSUBJECTIVITY > OBJECTIVITY[7]
3.0 The Analysis
3.1 Moral values, seen a priori, are absolute—across the board—because of their transcendent origin.[8]
3.2 Using our epistemological framework[9], a priori moral values are posited as an objectivity at the contextual locus of the community where they are intersubjectively accepted.
3.3 However, deviation from some of these moral values is committed at the locus of the individual.
3.31 Such an act is one of subjectivity, wherein some moral values which are originally absolute become relative by the process of relativization.
3.32 In other words, relative moral values are actually relativized a priori moral values rendered as such by the subjective act of an individual.
_____________________________________________________________
ABSOLUTE VALUES > RELATIVIZED VALUES > RELATIVE VALUES
OBJECTIVE > INTERSUBJECTIVE > SUBJECTIVE
COMMUNITY > INDIVIDUAL
_____________________________________________________________
4.0 Moral values, seen a posteriori, are basically relative to the subjective desires, intentions, aspirations and signfications of individuals as they perceive, interpret, and act on the reality they experience individually.[10]
4.1 However, living together in the contextual locus of a particular community, higher desires, intentions, aspirations and significations have to be satisfied on the level of the intersubjective.
4.11 Hence, standardization of moral values agreed upon on the intersubjective level becomes objective in the form of principles and laws that at this point are more identified with the community.
4.12 In short, basically subjective moral values have already attained the level of the absolute by the process of absolutization.
4.121 Therefore, absolute a posteriori moral values are actually absolutized moral values.
_____________________________________________________________
RELATIVE VALUES > ABSOLUTIZED VALUES > ABSOLUTE VALUES
SUBJECTIVE > INTERSUBJECTIVE > OBJECTIVE
INDIVIDUAL > COMMUNITY
____________________________________________________________
5.0 From the above discussion, it is affirmed that moral values, whether apriori or a posteriori are standard and standardized respectively, in the contextual locus of the community. And moral standards (standardized morals) are moral absolutes or to put it in the language of formal logic,
“For any x such that if x is standard (Sx), then x is absolute (Ax).”
Which is equivalent to:
“It cannot be that x is both a standard and not an absolute.”
5.1 Considering the relational discrepancy between the contextual loci of community and individual, the community standardizes and hence absolutizes whereas the individual relativizes. The question now is: Isn’t it possible for a community to relativize, and for the individual to absolutize?
5.2 Further extending the use of our inferential point of reference which is the principle of contextual dependence[11] in its recognition of the metaphysical assumption of the multiplicity of contexts, relativization can occur at the contextual locus of the community if we consider it not as a sole logical universe but rather one among many in the logical universe of a set of communities.
5.21 We have here a case of the multiplicity of contexts wherein each community is a self-sufficient context with its own absolutes.
5.211 Hence, the logic of this assumption goes like this: “If there is a multiplicity of contexts, there is also a multiplicity of absolutes. And in a multiplicity of absolutes, one set of absolutes becomes relative in the face of other absolutes of their respective contexts.”
5.212 Hence, the absolutes of a particular context are rendered inapplicable to the other contexts.
5.3 In the same vein, an individual relativizes in a multiplicity of individuals but absolutizes in the context of his or her own specific locus as an individual.
6.0 The Conclusion
6.1 The linguistic analytic paradigm has led us to satisfy the twofold aim of meaning clarification and understanding facilitation[12] by allowing us to conclude with the statement that “Moral values are absolute and relative” without committing logical contradiction.
6.2 All in all, the entire exercise is but an affirmation of the inferential point of reference: The Principle of Contextual Dependence.[13]
rfp/9jul11
[1] Cf. Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1996), pp. 44-45; Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: A Revolutionary Approach to Man’s Understanding of Himself (New York: Ballantine Books, 1980).
[2] Cf. A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 137; Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1997), p.22.
[3] Cf. Arthur C. Danto, What Philosophy Is: A Guide to the Elements (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1968), p.16.
[4] Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. www.filestube.com/p/philosophical+investigations+pdf
[5] Cf. Berger and Luckmann, p.21.
[6] Cf. Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principle of Morals (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
[7] Cf. Kathleen M. Haney, Intersubjectivity Revisited (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1994), p.1.
[8] An origin that transcends human experience. Cf. Immanuel Kant’s “Categorical Imperative.”
[9] Cf. 2.42.
[10] Re a posterori (or empirical) moral values: Cf. Leszek Kolakowski, Positivist Philosophy: From Hume to the Vienna Circle (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1972), pp.224-225.
[11] Cf. 2.3.
[12] Cf. 2.2.
[13] Cf. 2.3.
A SOBER LOOK AT "DEATH"
Let’s talk about death this time. But can we really talk about death? Well, perhaps as a concept: “death”. But death as “death” isn’t death at all, existentially. But can we get existential about death? Let’s get experiential about this issue. But can we really get experiential about death? Death cannot be experiential at all. But death is supposed to be experiential as a matter of human event. Now, the question is, can we really talk about “experiential” death when actually, death is the cessation of experience? Even the dying moment in the experience of a human being is not death yet and no one lived to tell that experience. Funny to even consider this matter at all.
We don’t get sad, much less terrorized, when we start to reflect about “our own death” because such is not reality as yet. But can one's death be a reality to her/him? It is what I call “death”. We even tend to get philosophical about it in the existential sense. We can only imagine the sadness; not our sadness but the sadness of those who love us. When we die, such sadness is the “unique” experience precluded to us. It is the death of another that makes death saddening and even terrifying in certain tragic cases.
Death is not within the purview of the subjective experience of the living. Death as a matter of experience is “death” for it is the death of another person that we experience. And “death” as such makes us sad depending on the degree of our closeness to the departed.
"Death" is the only possible way whereby we can talk about death.
We don’t get sad, much less terrorized, when we start to reflect about “our own death” because such is not reality as yet. But can one's death be a reality to her/him? It is what I call “death”. We even tend to get philosophical about it in the existential sense. We can only imagine the sadness; not our sadness but the sadness of those who love us. When we die, such sadness is the “unique” experience precluded to us. It is the death of another that makes death saddening and even terrifying in certain tragic cases.
Death is not within the purview of the subjective experience of the living. Death as a matter of experience is “death” for it is the death of another person that we experience. And “death” as such makes us sad depending on the degree of our closeness to the departed.
"Death" is the only possible way whereby we can talk about death.
"FREETHINKERS": WHO ARE THEY?
Freethinking is not a big thing because, philosophically, every normal person is inherently a freethinker. Thinking is hence always free. An activist in a country under the rule and control of a fascist government may be incarcerated bodily but never mentally. It is therefore not possible under normal circumstances to find a person who is not a freethinker.
Basically, it is very important at this point to be clear about the notion of being free. Initially, the fundamental issue of being free should be seen in a context because talking about freedom per se makes the whole concept of freedom ambiguous. Putting it in a context requires the identification of freedom as "freedom from what" and "freedom to do what". If one is prevented or coerced to do or not to do what s/he thinks should be done or should not be done as a matter of her/his moral prerogative, that is a situation where the issue of freedom becomes crucial. However, never can someone violate the freedom of another to think what the latter wants to think by an application of preventive and coercive forces for such forces do not exist in the mental realm under normal circumstances.
In this light, freethinking is a non-issue. Rather, the more significant issue is one's freedom to express what s/he thinks needs to be expressed because there are societies where there are controlling forces that prevent people to express what they want to express on the one hand and coerce them to express what is against their very own conscience on the other. What matters more therefore is not freethinking but free expression.
Focusing on thinking at this point after determining that freedom to think is a non-issue, what we need more as we deal with matters of political, religious, socio-cultural and economic importance, among others, is critical thinking, both analytic and synthetic.
The challenge therefore is not for us to merely be "freethinkers" but to become critical thinkers. The latter is more meaningful than the former.
Basically, it is very important at this point to be clear about the notion of being free. Initially, the fundamental issue of being free should be seen in a context because talking about freedom per se makes the whole concept of freedom ambiguous. Putting it in a context requires the identification of freedom as "freedom from what" and "freedom to do what". If one is prevented or coerced to do or not to do what s/he thinks should be done or should not be done as a matter of her/his moral prerogative, that is a situation where the issue of freedom becomes crucial. However, never can someone violate the freedom of another to think what the latter wants to think by an application of preventive and coercive forces for such forces do not exist in the mental realm under normal circumstances.
In this light, freethinking is a non-issue. Rather, the more significant issue is one's freedom to express what s/he thinks needs to be expressed because there are societies where there are controlling forces that prevent people to express what they want to express on the one hand and coerce them to express what is against their very own conscience on the other. What matters more therefore is not freethinking but free expression.
Focusing on thinking at this point after determining that freedom to think is a non-issue, what we need more as we deal with matters of political, religious, socio-cultural and economic importance, among others, is critical thinking, both analytic and synthetic.
The challenge therefore is not for us to merely be "freethinkers" but to become critical thinkers. The latter is more meaningful than the former.
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