Thanks Chris. Ranciere certainly appears to be someone I should get familiar with. ChatGPT3.5 claims that the quote above appears in “The Ignorant Schoolmaster”. I’m in the process of obtaining a copy.
Re: “To simply follow prior dogma is to be dragged around like the asteroids drawn in the wake of Jupiter’s path around the sun. Trapped within their own thoughtlessness, such people still have an orbital path around the truth but they no longer relate to it. Our capacity to interpret the truths of our own existence become bound to the lazy falsities of doctrines uncritically accepted”
It seems to me that here you’re making two distinct points. The first is the fruitlessness of simply following prior dogma, the second is the trap of uncritically accepting false doctrines. I completely agree, but you then link the second point to a claim that the legacy media is not in the business of uncovering and sharing truthful stories. I wonder about this claim. There’s certainly a lot of truth in it, but just what is the ”legacy media”, and how well-equipped are alternatives to being able to uncover and share truthful stories? Does HCR’s 8/8/24 post (heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-8-2024) tell a true story?
Re: “The prevailing conception holds that to understand truth means collecting ‘true statements’, to hold onto information like a grasping child hoarding its toys. Yet if we have our own relationship to the unseen centre of gravity, we can make true statements as a consequence of our unique orbit.”
Yes, collecting true statements does not in itself result in corralling truth any more that collection bricks and beams result in a house. But how are true statements a necessary consequence of “our own unique orbit”.
Re: “What matters are not the statements we utter, but our deeper appreciation of those inscrutable forces that pull us all inexorably around our own personal orbit of the truth.”
Nice. As I swing around my orbit the majesty and mystery of it all deepens.
While I get a great deal from Jacques Rancière, with your style of thinking you might find him a bit of a struggle. I would suggest you might do better to start with my short-form philosophy book, Wikipedia Knows Nothing, which is available as a free PDF or as a paperback:
This is my only book of epistemology, a short read, and a good introduction to Rancière in its final section. I also think this is in a style you will engage with more easily. It will also answer your question as to how true statements are (in my epistemology) a side effect of true practices. (If you enjoy WKN, The Ignorant Schoolmaster would be an obvious 'follow on'.)
While we're talking about it, this book is my theory of 'knowledge as a practice'. Babette Babich apparently discussed this theory with philosophers at University of Manchester, my alma mater, when she was invited to talk there. The philosophers at this university have never discussed it with me, not contacted me about it - and certainly never invited me to talk there! - despite my living in Manchester for the majority of my adult life. I say this without bitterness (although with a certain wry humour). I would no more blame academic philosophers for their insular thinking than blame a lion for eating a gazelle. It is merely a statement that captures both my 'outsider philosopher' status, and a problem in the academic field I am 'outside'.
You also ask this:
"just what is the ”legacy media”, and how well-equipped are alternatives to being able to uncover and share truthful stories?"
The 'legacy media' are news services that were previously committed to strive towards uncovering the truth, and apologising and issuing corrections when they have failed to do so. This includes newspapers, TV news, and radio news. Because money began to dry up for news services, and because they were all at heart profit centres, they began to accept money from other sources to make ends meet. Associated Press, for instance, accepted a lot of money from 'donations' to report climate stories. This is called 'advocacy journalism', which is an oxymoron. Another choice would be 'propaganda'.
How well-equipped are the alternatives, you ask? An excellent question! Better equipped than the legacy media, is my impression, because when they are written by journalists they are able to maintain journalistic integrity (e.g. Matt Taibbi, the Free Press) and are not beholden to commercial interests that 'own' them. But of course, not all 'alternative' sources are operating as journalists (I'm not), and not all of them are trustworthy, and not all of them are sincere. In this regard, we are entering what some call 'the reputation economy', whereby one's reputation is built through the pursuit of the truth and the sincere speech required to share it. We are not quite there yet... there are still problems, to be sure. But it already seems to me that this new distributed news system has the potential to run rings around the legacy media dinosaurs like early mammals suddenly realising that their time is about to come. I am optimistic about where this is heading. I don't think it can be worse than where we were.
Hi Chris. Yes, you had a url to a pdf for “Wikipedia” someplace and it’s now on my iPad. I’ll work through it and see if I still want more Ranciere. I look forward to learning more about your epistemology.
Who disputes the assertion that with the advent of print journalistic integrity became an essential companion of a democracy? It’s my intention to comment on your “legacy media” response, but I want to do some research first. My two eldest daughters, Gwen and Elise, were both journalists.[1] Diana recently retired from Bloomberg News in Tel Aviv. Elise wrote for the Mercury News in Silicon Valley.
I would love to see you engage on this question of the 'legacy media'! Perhaps the issue can be framed as this: does 'journalistic integrity' require a commitment to pursue the truth wherever it leads (the old journalist ethic) or does it require a commitment to advancing your prior ethical and political commitments, whatever the evidence suggests (the new advocacy reporter ethic)...?
Do let me know what you make of WKN when you've read it!
I’m into WKN. It looks like it’s going to be a great trip! I’ll have to also establish a beachhead on ‘legacy media’. I’m planning on poking my daughters for their comments.
Into WKN chapter 2: Exciting! As the blind man said, “I picked up my hammer and saw.” But pragmatically, what does contact theory say about assessing effective action? - Carry on, jeeves.
Thanks for this, Chris. Not a fan of BadIOU, but I like this notion of Ranciere's as you present it. Many years ago, in formulating my own poetic style, I came to the conclusion that we each had to seek out what we liked and what we didn't like as readers. From there, one could proceed to rationalisations with the purpose of developing an aesthetic. With an individualised or even idiosyncratic aesthetic in hand, one could then apply those notions to one's own writing, and thereby display a unique style. So being overly appreciative or overly accepting of all styles became a hindrance. My sense was that you had to really feel out what you loved and what you hated and what left you neither one way or another. Obviously, this exercise was an exercise in bias and subjectivity, but for good purpose. And no doubt with time, the passion accompanied with such reactions could diminish.
All this to say that Ranciere's explanation of developing one's own relationship to truth resembles this approach of mine to aesthetics. I therefore gravitate toward it despite loathing the French.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here, Asa - we have sadly lost sight of the relationship between aesthetics and truth, which I think is a great shame. Even more so that we have done so using Kant-influenced terms like 'subjective' in a way Kant himself would have repudiated!
As for Badiou et al, I do appreciate the distrust and dislike of the French philosopher crowd, but I cannot help but find great merit in their philosophy even when I disagree with their metaphysics or politics. As someone who makes the effort to 'travel the ethical multiverse' and understand various different ways of being, I am probably more open about whom I'm willing to encounter, and what I am willing to set aside (to 'bracket' as Babette Babich puts it).
This particularly image in Rancière is so powerful and clear that I cannot quite believe it took me so long to write a Stranger Worlds on it. But there is so much to visit, and only so many weeks in the year. 😂
With unlimited love,
Chris.
PS: I have been less active on Substack recently because the family has been travelling in the UK, visiting friends and family. As a result, I have not had as much time to read or comment as I usually do... so if I haven't commented at Analogy recently (and I think I haven't) this is why.
I’m a bit behind in posting this, but one nice feature of Substack is that discussion threads stay around for a while. As someone who is reading and considering posts here at Stranger Worlds in order to become a bit more educated, I couldn’t let this remark just go by. It didn’t appear to be that central to this dialogue, so I queried ChatGBT-3.5, one of several free artificial savants presently available on the web. Other readers might find it interesting.
Rqst: A philosopher friend writes “we have sadly lost sight of the relationship between aesthetics and truth, which I think is a great shame. Even more so that we have done so using Kant-influenced terms like 'subjective' in a way Kant himself would have repudiated!” Please comment.
ChatGPT-3.5: Your friend is pointing out an intriguing tension between contemporary interpretations of Kant's philosophy and what Kant might have actually intended, especially concerning the relationship between aesthetics and truth.
Aesthetics and Truth
In traditional philosophy, aesthetics often intersects with the concept of truth. The ancient Greeks, for example, saw beauty as closely related to the notion of the "good" and "true." In modern times, however, there has been a tendency to separate aesthetics (the study of beauty and art) from epistemology (the study of knowledge and truth), often relegating aesthetics to the realm of the subjective—what is seen as beautiful is considered purely a matter of personal taste.
Kant and Subjectivity
Kant's work, particularly in the "Critique of Judgment," deals extensively with aesthetics. He introduces the idea that judgments of beauty are "subjective," meaning they are based on the feelings of the individual rather than objective properties of the object itself. However, Kant argues that aesthetic judgments have a kind of universality despite their subjectivity. When we find something beautiful, we believe that others should find it beautiful as well, which implies a shared, though not objective, standard.
Misinterpretation in Contemporary Thought
Your friend suggests that contemporary discourse may have misunderstood or oversimplified Kant's ideas, leading to a loss of the connection between aesthetics and truth. When Kant's notion of "subjectivity" is misunderstood, it can lead to the view that aesthetics is purely individualistic, with no relation to truth or shared standards. This modern interpretation contrasts with Kant's belief that aesthetics, while subjective, involves a form of universal communicability, potentially tied to deeper truths about human cognition and perception.
Implications
If aesthetics and truth have been disconnected, as your friend laments, this might result in a diminished appreciation of how beauty can reveal or connect us to truths about the world. Kant’s philosophy suggests that our aesthetic experiences are not just personal whims but might reflect deeper truths about human nature and our shared world. By losing sight of this connection, we might also lose a valuable way of understanding and engaging with the world.
Conclusion
Your friend's critique touches on a significant philosophical issue: the potential misreading of Kant and its consequences for how we understand the relationship between beauty and truth. By reclaiming a more nuanced understanding of Kant, we might be able to restore a richer connection between aesthetics and truth, recognizing that our experiences of beauty are not just subjective preferences but can also convey important insights into the nature of reality.
Thanks for sharing this, Frank! This is one of those rare occasions where the robots are well-suited to the task, and the LLM synthesis you have provided here is not a bad synopsis of these issues at all.
I have great love for Kant's Critique of Judgement, which I have written extensively about, both in terms of the first half (which is about aesthetics) and the second half (which is about teleology, and formed an important part of my book The Mythology of Evolution).
I'm certain I'll touch upon these issues here at Stranger Worlds at some point, although given the eclectic ways that the themes for each month emerge 'when' is anyone's guess! 😁
Thanks Chris. Ranciere certainly appears to be someone I should get familiar with. ChatGPT3.5 claims that the quote above appears in “The Ignorant Schoolmaster”. I’m in the process of obtaining a copy.
Re: “To simply follow prior dogma is to be dragged around like the asteroids drawn in the wake of Jupiter’s path around the sun. Trapped within their own thoughtlessness, such people still have an orbital path around the truth but they no longer relate to it. Our capacity to interpret the truths of our own existence become bound to the lazy falsities of doctrines uncritically accepted”
It seems to me that here you’re making two distinct points. The first is the fruitlessness of simply following prior dogma, the second is the trap of uncritically accepting false doctrines. I completely agree, but you then link the second point to a claim that the legacy media is not in the business of uncovering and sharing truthful stories. I wonder about this claim. There’s certainly a lot of truth in it, but just what is the ”legacy media”, and how well-equipped are alternatives to being able to uncover and share truthful stories? Does HCR’s 8/8/24 post (heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-8-2024) tell a true story?
Re: “The prevailing conception holds that to understand truth means collecting ‘true statements’, to hold onto information like a grasping child hoarding its toys. Yet if we have our own relationship to the unseen centre of gravity, we can make true statements as a consequence of our unique orbit.”
Yes, collecting true statements does not in itself result in corralling truth any more that collection bricks and beams result in a house. But how are true statements a necessary consequence of “our own unique orbit”.
Re: “What matters are not the statements we utter, but our deeper appreciation of those inscrutable forces that pull us all inexorably around our own personal orbit of the truth.”
Nice. As I swing around my orbit the majesty and mystery of it all deepens.
Frank,
While I get a great deal from Jacques Rancière, with your style of thinking you might find him a bit of a struggle. I would suggest you might do better to start with my short-form philosophy book, Wikipedia Knows Nothing, which is available as a free PDF or as a paperback:
https://press.etc.cmu.edu/singles/wikipedia-knows-nothing
This is my only book of epistemology, a short read, and a good introduction to Rancière in its final section. I also think this is in a style you will engage with more easily. It will also answer your question as to how true statements are (in my epistemology) a side effect of true practices. (If you enjoy WKN, The Ignorant Schoolmaster would be an obvious 'follow on'.)
While we're talking about it, this book is my theory of 'knowledge as a practice'. Babette Babich apparently discussed this theory with philosophers at University of Manchester, my alma mater, when she was invited to talk there. The philosophers at this university have never discussed it with me, not contacted me about it - and certainly never invited me to talk there! - despite my living in Manchester for the majority of my adult life. I say this without bitterness (although with a certain wry humour). I would no more blame academic philosophers for their insular thinking than blame a lion for eating a gazelle. It is merely a statement that captures both my 'outsider philosopher' status, and a problem in the academic field I am 'outside'.
You also ask this:
"just what is the ”legacy media”, and how well-equipped are alternatives to being able to uncover and share truthful stories?"
The 'legacy media' are news services that were previously committed to strive towards uncovering the truth, and apologising and issuing corrections when they have failed to do so. This includes newspapers, TV news, and radio news. Because money began to dry up for news services, and because they were all at heart profit centres, they began to accept money from other sources to make ends meet. Associated Press, for instance, accepted a lot of money from 'donations' to report climate stories. This is called 'advocacy journalism', which is an oxymoron. Another choice would be 'propaganda'.
How well-equipped are the alternatives, you ask? An excellent question! Better equipped than the legacy media, is my impression, because when they are written by journalists they are able to maintain journalistic integrity (e.g. Matt Taibbi, the Free Press) and are not beholden to commercial interests that 'own' them. But of course, not all 'alternative' sources are operating as journalists (I'm not), and not all of them are trustworthy, and not all of them are sincere. In this regard, we are entering what some call 'the reputation economy', whereby one's reputation is built through the pursuit of the truth and the sincere speech required to share it. We are not quite there yet... there are still problems, to be sure. But it already seems to me that this new distributed news system has the potential to run rings around the legacy media dinosaurs like early mammals suddenly realising that their time is about to come. I am optimistic about where this is heading. I don't think it can be worse than where we were.
Thanks for engaging, Frank. Always appreciated!
Chris.
Hi Chris. Yes, you had a url to a pdf for “Wikipedia” someplace and it’s now on my iPad. I’ll work through it and see if I still want more Ranciere. I look forward to learning more about your epistemology.
Who disputes the assertion that with the advent of print journalistic integrity became an essential companion of a democracy? It’s my intention to comment on your “legacy media” response, but I want to do some research first. My two eldest daughters, Gwen and Elise, were both journalists.[1] Diana recently retired from Bloomberg News in Tel Aviv. Elise wrote for the Mercury News in Silicon Valley.
Note
[1] www.gwenackerman.com
www.forbes.com/sites/eliseackerman
Hi Frank,
I would love to see you engage on this question of the 'legacy media'! Perhaps the issue can be framed as this: does 'journalistic integrity' require a commitment to pursue the truth wherever it leads (the old journalist ethic) or does it require a commitment to advancing your prior ethical and political commitments, whatever the evidence suggests (the new advocacy reporter ethic)...?
Do let me know what you make of WKN when you've read it!
With unlimited love,
Chris.
Hi Chris,
I’m into WKN. It looks like it’s going to be a great trip! I’ll have to also establish a beachhead on ‘legacy media’. I’m planning on poking my daughters for their comments.
Big topic, and difficult to handle well! Good luck with it, Frank!
Into WKN chapter 2: Exciting! As the blind man said, “I picked up my hammer and saw.” But pragmatically, what does contact theory say about assessing effective action? - Carry on, jeeves.
Thanks for this, Chris. Not a fan of BadIOU, but I like this notion of Ranciere's as you present it. Many years ago, in formulating my own poetic style, I came to the conclusion that we each had to seek out what we liked and what we didn't like as readers. From there, one could proceed to rationalisations with the purpose of developing an aesthetic. With an individualised or even idiosyncratic aesthetic in hand, one could then apply those notions to one's own writing, and thereby display a unique style. So being overly appreciative or overly accepting of all styles became a hindrance. My sense was that you had to really feel out what you loved and what you hated and what left you neither one way or another. Obviously, this exercise was an exercise in bias and subjectivity, but for good purpose. And no doubt with time, the passion accompanied with such reactions could diminish.
All this to say that Ranciere's explanation of developing one's own relationship to truth resembles this approach of mine to aesthetics. I therefore gravitate toward it despite loathing the French.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here, Asa - we have sadly lost sight of the relationship between aesthetics and truth, which I think is a great shame. Even more so that we have done so using Kant-influenced terms like 'subjective' in a way Kant himself would have repudiated!
As for Badiou et al, I do appreciate the distrust and dislike of the French philosopher crowd, but I cannot help but find great merit in their philosophy even when I disagree with their metaphysics or politics. As someone who makes the effort to 'travel the ethical multiverse' and understand various different ways of being, I am probably more open about whom I'm willing to encounter, and what I am willing to set aside (to 'bracket' as Babette Babich puts it).
This particularly image in Rancière is so powerful and clear that I cannot quite believe it took me so long to write a Stranger Worlds on it. But there is so much to visit, and only so many weeks in the year. 😂
With unlimited love,
Chris.
PS: I have been less active on Substack recently because the family has been travelling in the UK, visiting friends and family. As a result, I have not had as much time to read or comment as I usually do... so if I haven't commented at Analogy recently (and I think I haven't) this is why.
I’m a bit behind in posting this, but one nice feature of Substack is that discussion threads stay around for a while. As someone who is reading and considering posts here at Stranger Worlds in order to become a bit more educated, I couldn’t let this remark just go by. It didn’t appear to be that central to this dialogue, so I queried ChatGBT-3.5, one of several free artificial savants presently available on the web. Other readers might find it interesting.
Rqst: A philosopher friend writes “we have sadly lost sight of the relationship between aesthetics and truth, which I think is a great shame. Even more so that we have done so using Kant-influenced terms like 'subjective' in a way Kant himself would have repudiated!” Please comment.
ChatGPT-3.5: Your friend is pointing out an intriguing tension between contemporary interpretations of Kant's philosophy and what Kant might have actually intended, especially concerning the relationship between aesthetics and truth.
Aesthetics and Truth
In traditional philosophy, aesthetics often intersects with the concept of truth. The ancient Greeks, for example, saw beauty as closely related to the notion of the "good" and "true." In modern times, however, there has been a tendency to separate aesthetics (the study of beauty and art) from epistemology (the study of knowledge and truth), often relegating aesthetics to the realm of the subjective—what is seen as beautiful is considered purely a matter of personal taste.
Kant and Subjectivity
Kant's work, particularly in the "Critique of Judgment," deals extensively with aesthetics. He introduces the idea that judgments of beauty are "subjective," meaning they are based on the feelings of the individual rather than objective properties of the object itself. However, Kant argues that aesthetic judgments have a kind of universality despite their subjectivity. When we find something beautiful, we believe that others should find it beautiful as well, which implies a shared, though not objective, standard.
Misinterpretation in Contemporary Thought
Your friend suggests that contemporary discourse may have misunderstood or oversimplified Kant's ideas, leading to a loss of the connection between aesthetics and truth. When Kant's notion of "subjectivity" is misunderstood, it can lead to the view that aesthetics is purely individualistic, with no relation to truth or shared standards. This modern interpretation contrasts with Kant's belief that aesthetics, while subjective, involves a form of universal communicability, potentially tied to deeper truths about human cognition and perception.
Implications
If aesthetics and truth have been disconnected, as your friend laments, this might result in a diminished appreciation of how beauty can reveal or connect us to truths about the world. Kant’s philosophy suggests that our aesthetic experiences are not just personal whims but might reflect deeper truths about human nature and our shared world. By losing sight of this connection, we might also lose a valuable way of understanding and engaging with the world.
Conclusion
Your friend's critique touches on a significant philosophical issue: the potential misreading of Kant and its consequences for how we understand the relationship between beauty and truth. By reclaiming a more nuanced understanding of Kant, we might be able to restore a richer connection between aesthetics and truth, recognizing that our experiences of beauty are not just subjective preferences but can also convey important insights into the nature of reality.
Thanks for sharing this, Frank! This is one of those rare occasions where the robots are well-suited to the task, and the LLM synthesis you have provided here is not a bad synopsis of these issues at all.
I have great love for Kant's Critique of Judgement, which I have written extensively about, both in terms of the first half (which is about aesthetics) and the second half (which is about teleology, and formed an important part of my book The Mythology of Evolution).
I'm certain I'll touch upon these issues here at Stranger Worlds at some point, although given the eclectic ways that the themes for each month emerge 'when' is anyone's guess! 😁
With unlimited love,
Chris.