In our last few philosophers we read, each divides reality into two realities each with its own nuances. These categorical distinctions provide a narrative about human freedom. The acknowledgement of limits of freedom play a major role in Sartre and Merleau-Ponty but not so much in Camus. The recognition of human freedom plays a similar role in Sartre and Camus, but Merleau-Ponty argues for a different kind of recognition which depends equally on those limits.
In Sartre analysis of Bad Faith, he argues that the human reality is a combination of facticity and transcendence. Facticity is the realm in which we are not free, and transcendence is the realm in which we are. The nuances of this division helps Sartre construct a narrative of a subject who is bad faith about either their transcendence or facticity. This division futher reflects a phenomenology of freedom where the feeling of control of events and the realizing of possibilities of the future but cannot control or change the past. Sartre, for instance, implies that the past is part of facticity in his homosexual example of bad faith. I disagree with this phenomenology of freedom because I do not see possibility or freedom as part of human experience or reality, rather what has been mislabeled the experience is actually a false judgement. Humans experience the thoughts of alternatives, the criteria in which they pick from hypothetical, and the actions that result from that thinking, but they do not experience where their thoughts come from. This is an example of where absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Our knowledge now from neuroscience reveals the material of mind to be the same as other things-in-themselves, which, according to Sartre, have mere facticity.
Camus divides reality into the human and that of the world. The human is that of revolt, freedom, and passion, and the world is mundane, determined, and indifferent. The consequences of this division is a narrative about suicide of two extremes. One is resignation to the indifference of the world, and the other is to remake the world as reflecting the human. The first leads to nihilism and suicide. The second leads to escapes into theism, secular ethics, and science all of which posit ultimate truths about the world. Both are forms of suicide because they mean the human must reject his or her own revolt, freedom, and passion. In other words, the human can only truly be alive if they maintain a revolt against the Absurd. Of course, my problem is the whole division between the human and its world. While I am sympathetic to the revolt which distinguishes the human from its world, I believe the human is not distinct from the world and merely part of an indifferent causal chain.
Merleau-Ponty divides the field of freedom into two forces. The out-going Sinngebung and the in-going adversity act to create the field. Merleau-Ponty narrative of the two forces comes from the belief that freedom requires a world in which a subjects act. This is in reaction to a misunderstanding of Sartre philosophy. Merleau-Ponty believes that Sartre's freedom requires only the subject and is abstracted from the real world. I most agree with Merleau-Ponty's freedom because I recognize as well that humans act in the world and whether you consider that acting free or not is irrelevant to the facts of human existence.
I want to examine your views on Camus. You give a fine description of the problem Camus outlines and the suicidal solutions to the conflict. I thought that the last two sentences in this paragraph were a little curious. As consistent with determinism, you regard human choice (or appearance thereof) as reducible to causal chains. This may well be the case, as I am inclined to agree with you. But you seem to imply that, because of this reducibility, the conflict Camus describes is a false and useless one. (Correct me if I am misstating your position.)
ReplyDeleteMy position regards the debate between freedom and determinism, in the metaphysical sense, as irrelevant to the conflict with the absurd. Metaphysical free will is not necessary for one to conflict with the Absurd; rather, it is the appearance of freedom and humankind's longing for meaning in the world against the world's indifference that brings about the absurd. In fact, I believe that if in reality humanity is completely at the mercy of a causally constructed universe, that only makes the conflict with the Absurd all the more palpable. Our appearance of and yearning for freedom in a freedomless world is conducive to the conflict with the Absurd.
Would you go so far as to say that our appearance of freedom has no bearing on our conflict with the Absurd? Does determinism rule out the conflict, despite our natural longing for freedom?
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ReplyDeleteI myself would be interested in an elaboration on the judgement that "acting free or not is irrelevant to the facts of human existence"; perhaps one would first need to define precisely what those facts are. If we mean that physical facts of the universe exist, and might even be called meaningful, idependent of human freedom, then this seems to be a straight reading of Monsieur Merleau-Ponty. But given the determnist slant of the post, perhaps a more extensive meaning is entailed.
ReplyDelete@evinstk: 1) I would argue there is no appearance of freedom (Counter-causal agent), only a common mistake of positing a floating subjective. This floating subjective is the idea that a person may have a thought in which there is no objective signs thereof. Like in the act of deception, the body says one thing, the mind another.
ReplyDelete2) I think that a lack of a human realm distinct from the world greatly undermines the Absurd. I do regret, however, my unqualified assertion that there is no human realm. Such a claim depends on what one means by a human realm. If one means that it is a private, subjective realm, I do not believe in that.
If one means that there is a human-environment distinction, I do believe in that. I do believe there are organizing systems like humans and unorganized matter. It is during organizing process of noises and images that valences come in.
I am not sure if Camus's philosophy is compatible with an objective human realm where the human's 'revolt' is not very different from eating food (organizing matter) except with information. I think this because Camus implies Immanent (Agent) causation of signification, while I am providing a transuent causation (one state of affairs to another).
@Patrick: People will misunderstand me from reading your incomplete quote of what I am arguing. You have me saying "acting free or not" is irrelevant to the facts, but I actually said "whether you consider this [an organism's conscious experience of obstacles is relevant causally to how it behaves and mentally maps its actions] acting free is irrelevant to the facts of human existence."
ReplyDeleteBy facts, I mean something extensive and objective. While definitions and names can change, the facts cannot. By the facts of human existence, I mean something like facticity. Furthermore, as a determinist, I believe that our physical existence is untranscendable, so all that is human is facticity.