A Dialogue Between (Sigmund) Fre(u)d and Theo(dor Adorno)

The following is a dialogue between a character representing Freud's beliefs about the relationship between society and our psychic life and a character representing Adorno's beliefs on the same thing. Neither character should be read as directly representing the thinker in question, as I am not really that familiar with either. They are only vehicles for discussing a point I have been thinking about while reading Adorno's Minima Moralia. My first foray into the dialogue form, which I have been meaning to do for a while. Probably of limited interest to most, but I had fun...

Fred: ...and that's why I think that the formation and maintenance of society will always require us to substantially curb our instincts and desires. Let me summarise: repression and renunciation of our instinctual life, of our ego, is a condition for the possibility of society at all because of the constitutional inclination of humans towards egoism. Society enforces such repression through the promise of love, the threat of punishment (external authority), and the instilling of guilt in the individual (internal authority). These things are actually good, to some extent. We should align ourselves with the higher social goal of forming a great and successful human community, which requires the renunciation of our instincts and desires rather than the selfish pursuit of our own pleasure. However, this means that, in most cases, the formation of social groups means the aim of happiness for the individual necessarily falls by the wayside. Indeed, I would go further. It almost seems as if the creation of a great human community would be most successful if no attention had been paid to the happiness of the individual at all. This is not as bad as it sounds, though. In individual consciousness, we each act according to the reality principle. The idea is simple: in order to gain some great future pleasure, we defer the gratification of immediate pleasures. Such a principle is constantly at work in our decision-making, and the choice to maintain a society at the expense of our happiness is analogous to this. We put aside our immediate well-being for the sake of something greater than us, society.

Theo: Are you serious about this last bit?

Fred: What do you mean?

The Phenomenological Papers I: Two Sites of Self-Consciousness

This is an old essay that I never published here for some reason and have just substantially revised, though without changing the ideas, which I am not totally happy with now. However, I do think some of them are salvageable and even important. I call this series The Phenomenological Papers because it is one of three essays I have written on similar topics that I will be posting over the next couple of months.

A certain inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells dimly in us; which only our Works can render articulate and decisively discernible. Our Works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible Precept, Know thyself; till it be translated into this partially possible one, Know what thou canst work at. 

— Diogenes Teufelsdröckh

I. There are two ways of achieving self-consciousness. The first is recognition, through other people. The second is work, through creating something that you feel yourself to be the author of. Thus, the former is the route to self-consciousness through beings like us, animate objects, and the latter is through beings not quite like us, inanimate objects. We can gain self-consciousness through persons and things.


II. What is self-consciousness? Roughly, it is the knowledge of our own individual existence. Now, I could mean this in the trivial sense that we all know we exist. However, this knowledge is without content. I call this formal knowledge. True self-consciousness is not something trivial and without content. Rather, it is knowledge that is actual and embodied. I call this concrete knowledge. Here is an example of this distinction.

(Sounds From) The Hole - A Music Newsletter

My friend Liam (author of Mr Paul Desmond) and I are starting a music newsletter on Substack that emails you an album recommendation (and a really short comment on it) every week straight to your inbox. All you have to do is enter your email and it automatically comes to you every week. It will go out every Thursday morning starting this Thursday morning.

You can sign up using this link - I hope you join us!

(Sounds From) The Hole

Philosophising & Living

In a remarkably warm and relatable passage, David Hume famously ends his Treatise Of Human Nature by offering some reflections on how and whether his scepticism ought to reflect itself in his ordinary life. He relates the experience of intellectually dismantling all the implicit beliefs of ordinary life, only to subsequently go out and live that life. What he finds is that his slightest engagement with the simple pleasures of sharing a world with others is enough to wash away the obscurities of abstract reasoning and philosophical theorising:

Rowan Recommends: 5 Great Albums From 5 Underrated Genres

The title should be self-explanatory, but I will be recommending 5 great albums from 5 genres I think are criminally underrated. I've been listening to a lot of new music (at least to me) in sonic spaces unjustly excluded from people's listening. The genres in question are Blues, Soul, Funk, Reggae, and Krautrock. Two quick points about my selection.

First, I tried to avoid classics of the genre that people who do not really listen to the genre might already know. For example, I don't put either Bob Marley or Peter Tosh in the reggae section, even though they are correctly taken to be some of the best of the genre. Same for Otis Redding in soul, Can for Krautrock and so on. However, I do not omit some of the more well-known artists in other genres. For example, I include John Lee Hooker in the blues section, even though most blues fans will be familiar with him and I include James Brown in the funk section, with who everyone is likely familiar. In such cases, and in other cases where I break this rule, I often provide a reason for doing so. It might be because the genre itself is listened to little enough that even the classics will be new to most (funk is like this), because they are essential to the genre, or because a particular album deserves special interest (my John Lee Hooker pick is like this). To counter this, I have also tried to include some stuff that will hopefully be new, even to fans of a given genre. 

Second, there is significant genre overlap when it comes to funk, soul, and some blues. There is not always a particularly clear dividing line between the genres, nor are they particularly well defined. They are very much coming out of the same sonic tradition, especially soul and funk. For example, I put Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul in the funk section, but they could just as easily be soul too. In such cases, I simply choose at my discretion, so there will be some arbitrariness to my taxonomy. However, each genre does have a distinctive sound, and I am pretty confident I have done no album any injustice in this regard.

Anyway, for each genre, I have ordered the albums chronologically and linked two songs from each of them that I think you should listen to if you wanted a sample. I was hoping to include a section on African music, which I have been listening to a lot of. But I could not do it justice by restricting everything to one genre, or merely 5 albums, so I scrapped it. Thus, I might put together a list for that at some future time. Oh and lastly, forgive my digressions. It's not often I write about music, and it turns out I have reckons about it.

Apocryphal Arguments #3: Parmenides & The Way of Truth

This is the third post in a series I'm calling the Apocryphal Arguments series. The idea is to briefly outline, explain, and defend a simple philosophical argument that I think is plausible. It will be in the form of precise premises and conclusions in order to maximise legibility. I aim to post only novel, interesting, and even ridiculous-sounding arguments that might question fundamental sensibilities in order to maximise impact. If all goes to plan each post should be a fun ride.

I want to outline here an infamous argument, one that seems beyond merely apocryphal. It is an argument that also happens to be the oldest remaining sustained (and substantive) written argument in the tradition of western philosophy. (All other works are almost all lost before this period.)  It is also the first work of a philosopher that really drew me in, in a way that nothing had before. Thus, I have a particular affinity for it and the careful reader of my metaphysical works will see that its tendrils still reach their way into my thought to this day. Though one (regrettable) disclaimer I have is that it will be rather more obscure than my previous entries in this series. It just fits the bill so well that I couldn’t put it here as merely another post. Thus, if you are a new reader or not that interested in metaphysics, I recommend reading the previous entries in the series, which you can find here and here. You can also read my arguing along Parmenidean lines for a Being of absolute positivity here.

On Fiction and Fantasy

I recently caught the movie The Break-Up (2006) on TV and watched it the way through. The flick is a typical rom-com of its era, featuring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn as the leads. However, there is a surprisingly rough edge to it. The relationship depicted is genuinely in a bad place, the characters are broadly unsympathetic (which is not wholly unrealistic considering that those entrenched in a breakup often show the worst parts of themselves), and they face serious life-changing problems people really go through. What interested me was how everything unfolded and especially how it ended. This movie is bad, but it is bad, in my view, for a very particular reason: it is pure fantasy (not in the sense of genre, but in the sense of fantasising).

Bergson's Theory of Memory

Just had another two essays published with Epoché! These are on Bergson's theory of memory, focusing primarily on chapters two and three of Matter and Memory. His theory has eluded me for some time but I think I really cracked it with this one. Part one goes over the theory itself, how it improves on empiricist theories, the philosophical motivations for it, and the metaphysics of time. The latter will goes over how it solves some outstanding metaphysical issues. Most notably, Bergson's solution to the mind-body problem, which I think is of serious interest. Here they are:

Creative Recollection: Bergson’s Theory of Memory

https://epochemagazine.org/50/creative-recollection-bergsons-theory-of-memory/

Recollection & Life: Bergson’s Metaphysics of Memory

https://epochemagazine.org/51/recollection-life-bergsons-metaphysics-of-memory/

On Virtue and Goodness

I. I was lucky enough to pick up a second-hand copy of François La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, a book of aphorisms, most of which do not exceed a single sentence or phrase. It was written by a French moralist, first published in 1665. I discuss in brief bursts a couple of interesting themes that pervade it. In doing so, I springboard off of his suggestions and formulate my own theory of virtue. Following this, I link some of his ideas about self-interest to Spinoza's conception of goodness.

A Note on Personal Rationality

I. Bertrand Russell makes a rather funny argument in his thoughtful little essay In Praise of Idleness: 

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilised Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man’s economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling.

But, I shall be told, the case is quite different when savings are invested in industrial enterprises. When such enterprises succeed, and produce something useful, this may be conceded. In these days, however, no one will deny that most enterprises fail. That means that a large amount of human labour, which might have been devoted to producing something that could be enjoyed, was expended on producing machines which, when produced, lay idle and did no good to anyone. The man who invests his savings in a concern that goes bankrupt is therefore injuring others as well as himself. If he spent his money, say, in giving parties for his friends, they (we may hope) would get pleasure, and so would all those upon whom he spent money, such as the butcher, the baker, and the bootlegger. But if he spends it (let us say) upon laying down rails for surface cars in some place where surface cars turn out to be not wanted, he has diverted a mass of labour into channels where it gives pleasure to no one. Nevertheless, when he becomes poor through the failure of his investment he will be regarded as a victim of undeserved misfortune, whereas the gay spendthrift, who has spent his money philanthropically, will be despised as a fool and a frivolous person.

Propositions of Metaphysics

 (Another set of aphorisms! See my last here. Can't help but feel a little embarrassed posting aphorisms as it may seem like I position myself as some kind of Nietzsche, but it's just a nice way to express the ideas you have in little germs you will probably not develop, or can choose to develop later on. Ah, and apologies, these will be quite obscure to most everyone—I have not earned this kind of obscurity!)

1

Bergson is an inversion of Platonism (see An Introduction to Metaphysics) in the sense that rather than flux coming out of forms, forms come out of flux (as illusions of the intellect). Whereas Deleuze is an inversion of Platonism (see Difference and Repetition) in the sense that rather than there being a fixed and eternal set of Ideas, there is a constant reproduction of new ones. One reaches the true meaning of difference while the other does not.

2

Indeed, Deleuze rejoices in his role as sophist—as defined by Plato in the Sophist. Spurred by his rejection of negation, Deleuze is forced to affirm what Plato thinks the sophist does as what reality really is. Namely, the perpetual reproduction of determinate appearances as novel forms generated out of a purely differentiated and indeterminate field. For Deleuze, as for the sophist, there is no truth or falsity, just the problematic.