Reddit reviews Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought
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> Science had hitherto been excluded from study of the soul itself.
That is what Kant was trying to protect, I believe, although from a transcendent point of view, which obviously is an error in judgement.
Anyway, is it really the soul science is studying here? (NO). 1860 was the second industrial revolution... what they were feeling the effects of was the beginning of the final act, the-fall-into-total-madness-itself -- the cranking of the wheels of mechanised soul being leached into the decomposing spiritual void. And that artistic masterpiece fulfilled its telos with the brillo boxes, with the final wisps of soul vanishing forever into nothingness (the mental ward of contemporary theory). Apparently as the curtain fell onto the stage for the final time the faint burping echo of Derrida declaring we have lost our ontological centre could be heard all around the auditorium.
In any case the individual soul is a fiction in the first place, in exactly the same sense Western metaphysics was one great fiction too. The question then remains if we have disappeared into a fiction, where exactly are we now?
THE SPECTACLE WOOHOO
edit: I'm just reading past the bit I quoted and it seems I was right about our descent into madness. The whole world has literally lost the plot...
> AS LONG AGO as 1982 psychiatrists were talking about “the multiple personality epidemic.”
I downloaded a book a few months ago about Modernism and madness. I might see if I can find it -
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Madness-Modernism-Insanity-Literature-Thought/dp/0674541375
edit:
> It is unclear whether schizophrenia is one disease or several.
|
> So that’s the answer? There really is such a thing as multiple personal-
ity, because this or that book of rules lists some symptoms, and some
patients have those symptoms? We should be more fastidious than that.
To begin with, the question “Is it real?” is not of itself a clear one. The
classic examination of the word “real” is due to the doyen of ordinary
language philosophers, J. L. Austin. As he insisted, you have to ask, “A
real what?” Moreover, “a definite sense attaches to the assertion that
something is real, a real such-and-such, only in the light of a specific way
in which it might be, or might have beennot
real.”
12
Something may fail
to be real cream because the butterfat content is too low, or because it
is synthetic creamer. A man may not be a real constable because he is
impersonating a police officer, or because he has not yet been sworn in,
or because he is a military policeman, not a civil one. A painting may fail
to be a real Constable because it is a forgery, or because it is a copy, or
because it is an honest work by one of John Constable’s students, or
simply because it is an inferior work of the master. The moral is, if you
ask, “Is it real?” you must supply a noun. You have to ask, “Is it a real
N
?” (or, “Is it real
N
?”). Then you have to indicate how it might fail to
be a real
N
,“areal
N
as opposed to what?” Even that is no guarantee
that a question about what’s real will make sense. Even with a noun and
an alternative, we may not have a real anything: there is no such thing as
the “real” color of a deep-sea fish.
You always know someone is a madman when they start trying to nail jelly (jello) to the wall. The guy who wrote this is from the university of Toronto too, McLuhan would have a field day with this guy lol.
>This epistemological layer does not exist and your term in neuroscience is referring how we perceive the world based on how many different types of sense data we are able to use. For example, we cannot see infra-red, so by our own senses, we will miss that part of reality. Our eyes, only retain a certain spectrum and everything outside of it is invisible to us.
The different types of sense data precisely refer to our human brain and its human perception which is different from other animals' because the type of sense data they use are different. Everything outside the types of sense data we can acquire is invisible to us so what I perceive as visible is different from what other species do. How does this not create an epistemological gap? The neuroscientist david eagleman writes in explaining this concept
>what you are able to experience is completely limited by your biology. This differs from the commonsense view that our eyes, ears, and fingers passively receive an objective physical world outside of ourselves. As science marches forward with machines that can see what we can't, it has become clear that our brains sample a small bit of the surrounding physical world
This is precisely what I'm trying to tell. We do not see the world as it is but perceive it to the extent that evolution has allowed us; and we attribute different qualities to the objects depending on our biology. Crap tastes disgusting to me but it is delicious to flies because our biologies are different. Again, how do you square this with ayn rand's objectivism which rejects this epistemological layer proven by science?
>But you can ask the same question about a colour blind person - if you see yellow, but he sees blue, then who is actually seeing reality as it is?
>The point is that your eyes are an organ with an identity and nature of their own. The colour blind person will only get the colour blue from his eyes and his brain will need to use logic and say 'hold on a minute, I see it as blue, but I know that I am missing some colours on the spectrum and other people may see those colours differently. Maybe if I used special glasses, I can see more colours'.
True but this would still mean we perceive the world differently depending on our brain. The world I perceive and the world in itself are separated by my brain. They are related of course, because if there is no physical world then I can't perceive anything at all, but they are not identical. We see the world through our brains and our brains are suited to our natural environment so different animals see the world differently. I see a cockroach and feel disgusted, and a spider sees it and thinks it is delicious. So is a cockroach disgusting or delicious? It depends on your biology.
>If you bring back in Aristotle's law of identity and apply it to sense organs, brains and consciousness itself, there is no need for all this fantastical make-belief noumena world and mystical rules.
>Kant himself, like a lot of famous mathematicians, takes some small points from reality, makes a formula from it, then applies that formula to its infinite conclusion even when it makes no sense any more.
No one says there are some mystical rules. Kant never says the categories are mystical. They are all universally true and rational tools through which we see the world. Where does kant say they are mystical? Cite the passage please.
>Put simply, when you severe reason from reality, you get subjectivity, relativity.. etc. No matter how much YOU think you are being reasonable, you have no correspondence to reality - it just 'sounds good' in your head. Perhaps you can even attach a past experience to it afterwards, to give it more credibility in your head.
>To me, reading Kant was always like reading the biography of the author of 'Alice in Wonderland' and this was later proved to me when I ran into a psychiatrist that found a strong connections between how schizophrenics view the world and Kant's work.
>https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Modernism-Insanity-Literature-Thought/dp/0674541375
No one is severing reason from reality. You keep saying this because you haven't read a proper book on kant or kant's books themselves. Kant made it clear that he was an empirical realist, that geometry, mathematics, and sciences are objectively true for all humans. Now maybe the mathematics of a dolphin is different from ours, we can't know that but what does it matter? You are a human being so whether you like it or not you have a human brain which says 2 + 2 = 4. Simple as that.
I would recommend betrand russel's book for introduction to philosophy. He isn't perfect but at least he doesn't misinterpret the whole western philosphy like hicks does.
Edit: besides I wonder, would you say aristotle was an objectivist pro reasom thinker or anti reason relativist?
This epistemological layer does not exist and your term in neuroscience is referring how we perceive the world based on how many different types of sense data we are able to use. For example, we cannot see infra-red, so by our own senses, we will miss that part of reality. Our eyes, only retain a certain spectrum and everything outside of it is invisible to us.
But you can ask the same question about a colour blind person - if you see yellow, but he sees blue, then who is actually seeing reality as it is?
The point is that your eyes are an organ with an identity and nature of their own. The colour blind person will only get the colour blue from his eyes and his brain will need to use logic and say 'hold on a minute, I see it as blue, but I know that I am missing some colours on the spectrum and other people may see those colours differently. Maybe if I used special glasses, I can see more colours'.
If you bring back in Aristotle's law of identity and apply it to sense organs, brains and consciousness itself, there is no need for all this fantastical make-belief noumena world and mystical rules.
Kant himself, like a lot of famous mathematicians, takes some small points from reality, makes a formula from it, then applies that formula to its infinite conclusion even when it makes no sense any more.
Put simply, when you severe reason from reality, you get subjectivity, relativity.. etc. No matter how much YOU think you are being reasonable, you have no correspondence to reality - it just 'sounds good' in your head. Perhaps you can even attach a past experience to it afterwards, to give it more credibility in your head.
To me, reading Kant was always like reading the biography of the author of 'Alice in Wonderland' and this was later proved to me when I ran into a psychiatrist that found a strong connections between how schizophrenics view the world and Kant's work.
https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Modernism-Insanity-Literature-Thought/dp/0674541375
This may be too tangential, so pardon its possible irrelevance.
While your question does not presume a link with schizophrenia, there have been several attempts to place its development alongside social and cultural development--particularly in the industrial age and modernism. I would assert that understanding prevalence across all human cultures requires a historical frame, especially since epidemiology of illnesses, particularly mental illness, was not established until fairly recently. Consider these works if you'd like to read about schizophrenia and its historical and cultural contexts.