Sartre vs Camus

Introduction on Sartre vs Camus : War & Philosophy : An historical background

The relationship between Sartre/Camus has modeled the post-war french philosophy.

Since 1943, Sartre and Camus, great friends, are everywhere together. The public, without detail, includes the author of ‘Nausea‘ and of ‘The Stranger‘ under the label ‘Existentialist‘.

After the liberation, existentialism is a much more than a fashionable philosophy, it is a lifestyle and a place: Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Paris area). “Existentialism Is a Humanism” conveniently summarizes this philosophy.

For the public it can be summarized in one phrase: “existence precedes essence“.

Sartre’s existentialism designed first as a philosophy of freedom and responsibility: we are what we do, not beings whose fate is predetermined. The key word of the day is ‘commitment‘.

Camus certainly do not refuse to engage, but refuses the label ‘existentialist’ and even that of a philosopher. From 1947, political disagreements between Sartre and Camus deepen Camus denounced Stalin’s camps, the Communists Sartre household.

In 1952, Jeanson (Sartre’s friend) was published in the journal of Sartre, ‘Modern Times‘, a report highly critical of The Rebel. Camus’s last book is considered as reactionary, and full of misjudgments. Camus, ignoring Jeanson, responds directly to Sartre. The next issue of modern times published next to the letter from Camus’s strong response to Sartre:

“A dark mixture of complacency and vulnerability has always discouraged to say the whole truth … It may be that you were poor, but you are no more. You are a citizen and as Jeanson like me … your moral s’ is first changed into moralism, today it is more than literature, tomorrow it may be immoral. ”

Camus and Sartre will never meet. Yet four years later, when the Red Army crushed the uprising in Budapest, Sartre in turn (followed by a large number of intellectuals) broke with the Communist Party. But the war in Algeria between Sartre again, a supporter of independence, Camus, who still wants to believe a compromise.

Camus and Existentialism

Albert Camus (1913-1960), Nobel Prize in 1957, was first mate then an opponent of Jean-Paul Sartre. Unlike Sartre, man of bourgeois society, Camus was a man of the poor suburbs. Camus feels the representative of the Mediterranean thought, in other words, the clarity (Greek, Latin, classical). Clarity between instrumental in the design of the absurd and the absurd man is above all one who is lucid about life. This attitude of “Hellenic” or “Hellenistic” is even more pronounced than in spite of its contact with Arab culture or Spanish, Camus has never been influenced by Islam remains closed.

Camus’ Existentialism is a despair existentialist, but without the Sartrean nausea and disgust. It is a desperate clairvoyant, founder of the greatness of man and humanism Camusian.

The absurd man is central to the thinking of Camus. As in other existentialist philosophers, the feeling of absurdity is a consequence of the unfounded nature of human existence – not limited to the face of absolute abroad thrown into an uncaring world. But, as shown by Camus, the absurd lies neither in humans nor in the universe: it is the result of their report and the paradoxical realization that the man in a. Several attitudes are possible. Camus denied those attitudes of escape: suicide, which is retracted by removing it, one of the terms of the contradiction (the suppression of consciousness). He also rejects the doctrines of this world lies outside the grounds and hopes that would give meaning to life, religious beliefs, philosophical suicide of thought (Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Shestov).

The absurd man is one who accepts the challenge lucidly, this is the basis of his revolt that leads him to take both his freedom, but also its own contradictions by deciding to live with passion and with only what he knows .

Camus’Works:

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)

The Rebel (1951)

The Stranger (1944)

The Plague (1947)

The Fall (1956),

Sartre: Existentialism is a Humanism: 1946

When considering a manufactured object such as a book or a paper cutter, this object was manufactured by a craftsman who was inspired by a concept he referred to the concept of cut-paper, and also a technique of pre-production part of the concept, which is basically a recipe. Thus, the opener is both an object that occurs in a certain way and, on the other hand, has a defined benefit, and we can not assume a man who would produce a paper knife without knowing What will serve the purpose. Let us say that for the cutter, gasoline – that is to say all the recipes and qualities that can produce it and define it – precedes existence, and so the presence in front of me, like letter openers or such a book is determined. Here we have a technical vision of the world in which we can say that production precedes existence.

The atheistic existentialism, which I represent, […] said that if God does not exist, there are at least being in whom existence precedes essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any concept and that this being is man or, as Heidegger says, the reality-humaine1. What is meant here that existence precedes essence? This means that man first exists, occurs, arises in the world, and that is defined later. Man, as conceived by existentialism, it is not definable, is that it is not first. It will then, and it will be as it is done. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. Man is not only as it develops, but as it wants, and as it develops from there, as he wants after this momentum to the existence, man is nothing other than what it is. This is the first principle of existentialism. […]

We mean that man first exists, that is to say that man is primarily what is thrown into a future, and what is conscious look to the future. Man is primarily a project that is lived subjectively, rather than a foam, a decay or a cauliflower nothing exists prior to this project, nothing is in heaven intelligible2, and the man what he will first have to be projected.

1 – human reality: translated German Dasein (literally “being there”), which means the mode of existence of man, as he is still planned.

2 – In heaven intelligible: in the sky ideas, home, according to Plato, the essences of all things.

Jean-Paul Sartre VS. Albert Camus

Sartre and Camus have written without knowing the works that made them famous. Sartre appreciated The Stranger while Camus was interested in Nausea and The Wall. But we can not imagine more opposite views of the world than Sartre, overshadowed by a profound horror of nature, and that of Camus, by the love of sunny Mediterranean. Friendship difficult joined the two writers after the Liberation Camus never stopped to distance vis-à-vis the existentialism of Sartre. Their rupture, which caused a great stir in 1952 probably marked the divergence of policy choices, Sartre experiencing more and more sympathy and Camus growing horror of Soviet communism. But she spent most divorce between two conceptions of life and literature: humanism, rebellion, love of happiness, love of “good form” Camus, political commitment, revolution, obsession with guilt, disgust with the ” literature “in Sartre. If it is beyond all these differences a certain unity between their respective works, it is in the horizon of the same year, which was common to them and they helped shape. It can be explained that existentialism has little beyond the scope of a generation, and he did not have fertility literature which had shown twenty years earlier, surrealism. Mentor these students have, but no posterity.

Introduction to Phenomenology

Phenomenology : a science of phenomenon

Phenomenology is, in general, descriptive study of a set of phenomena. It often refers to Husserl’s philosophical system and a whole school of thought that claims Husserl’s concepts, or at least the method of Husserl.

Phenomenology derives from a critique of classical metaphysics, and its underlying trend is that of a return to the concrete (“the things themselves” is the major injunction according to Husserl). Indeed Husserl conceives it back as a return to “original intuition” of things and ideas. Husserl considered phenomenology as a rigorous science. He explains this with an mathematical example. He notes, for example, if one can imagine three or four objects intuitively, one can not intuitively represent mile.

Husserl distinguishes two opposite types of relationship to the datum or “intentionality”: the real perception, which originates, and thought, which is only “shoot” the object in an “empty intention”. Developing the distinction between original intuition and thought, full and empty intentionality, phenomenologists hold:

– Or the content of the doctrine of Husserl: they then seek the point of contact between mind and reality, the excess of realism and idealism (Merleau-Ponty is an example: 

“Phenomenology is the study of species, and all the problems, he says, come to define the essence: the essence of perception, the essence of consciousness. But phenomenology is also a philosophy that puts essences into existence “)

– Or his method, and then they apply the principle of an analysis of intuition to the fields of knowledge of others, rather neglected by Husserl in his texts (Sartre and Levinas)

– Or they seek to justify the metaphysical principle of an analysis of phenomena (Eugen Fink).

A theory of the phenomena can not be defined only in relation to a theory of the Absolute Being, or ontology. On this point, speculative phenomenology of Fichte, in Theory of Science, remains a strength and depth unmatched.

Introduction on the Philosophy of Language

Philosophy of language covers a variety of activities:

Philosophers interested in in problems, for example, about mind and knowledge, may frame their questions in various ways. They may ask directly about mind or knowledge; they may talk about the concept of mind or knowldge; or they may begin by asking ho the words ‘mind’ and ‘knowledge’ are used. The belief that philosophical questions may be approached by asking questions about the use of words underlies what is sometimes called linguistic philosophy. Those who practice linguistic philosophy are sometimes said to be be practising the philosophy of language.

The procedure of investigating philosophical questions by reflecting on the uses of words generates another meaning of ‘philosophy of language’. Here there are two questions. First is a general question about the justifiability of approaching philosophical questions via a study of how words are used (see Austin and Wittgenstein). Second, philosophers who study the used of words use such key terms as ‘meaning’, ‘reference’, ‘thruth’ and ‘use’. It is possible to make these terms, used by philosophers and others in talking about language, on this interpretationn then becomes a higher level study of ‘linguistic philosophy’ and of its terms of art.

Although an interest in such terms as ‘meaning’ or ‘truth’ and the like can arise as philosophers deliberate on their methods, it can also arise because philosophers become interested in a study of the nature ans workings of language as a subject in its own right, rather than as a means to the solution of futher philosophical problems.

Philosophy of language become the search for an understanding of the nature and functioning of language. This may lead, as in the later Wittgenstein, to the consideration of the sorts of conditions that have to be met for language to be possible at all. In this kind of philosophy of language we can detect a difference: between those, such as Austin and Wittgenstein, who are happy to study the actual workings of natural languages, and those who believe natural languages to be overly vuage, confused, or imprecise and in need of tidying up. Some of the latter believe the workings of language are best explored through the construction of more precise artificial languages.

Edmund Burke a statesman and british philosopher

 (1729-1797) 

Synthesis of Burke Philosophy

Burke’s major contribution to philosophy was on aesthetics philosophy : “Philosophical Inquiry into the origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful” in which his central argument is that our enjoyment of beauty consists in the way in which imagination is engaged by obscurity  and suggestiveness rather than by intellectual clarity, and, in respect of the sublime, by a pleasurable form of terror and ignorance.

In his later political career, Burke lent his support to both the Irish cause and American independance. However, his “Reflections on the Revolution in France” is a supreme masterpiece of conservative political thought.

Although Burke was very much a Whig rather than a Tory, who had indicted Warren Hastings and supported the American colonists, he at once recognized the “new dealers” of 1789 as makers of a revolution unacceptably, intentionnaly anti-historical, and even perhaps totalitarian.

Adam Smith, as a moral philosopher

Adam Smith, well-known as a scottish economist, is also a philosopher through his essay : Theory of Moral Sentiments. An interesting essay in many ways, and whose intellectual level exceeds – by far – that of our postmodern liberals. But in 1759, this thought, because it was not hegemonic, had yet to be rigorous to be intellectually legitimate. And Adam Smith, therefore, was never a counterfeiter intellectual.

Summary of the theory of moral sentiments

In addition to his nature as God made him (Smith is a believer), the man is a moral being. At least, he must be, by regulating his passions. By a process that is both emotional and intellectual, he has to learn to rationalize his behavior, thinking his moral assessments. Which, for Smith, are therefore within the simple reason, and not in a collective sense of externality producer (revealed religion, state ideology …).

In support of this view, Adam Smith offers two concepts as a guideline in its thinking.

Smith and Hume

The first is taken to David Hume. This is the “sympathy” that Smith sees as the regulator of emotional intensity. This is a communication mechanism of the passions of an individual to another. Compassion, somehow contaminate us. But contamination which, in the rational individual, goes beyond the simple psycho-emotional dimension. We are far, for example, the mechanism of infection attributed to the psychological crowd by Gustave Le Bon. Here, sympathy, reciprocity, must be consistent with its purpose, namely because of the feeling experienced by our interlocutor.

Here comes in the second key concept of Smith. The “impartial spectator” is a neutral observer but altruistic. It has to objectify the situation, with rationality, whether sympathetic or not justified.

The combination of the impartial spectator and of the sympathy makes possible the production of morality.

Note at the outset the contradiction: the impartial spectator is supposed neutral, and yet, to judge, he must have a normative implication. The whole problem of the theory of a corporation registered in the simple reason lies in the finding of this contradiction.

Smith intends to overcome the objection by emphasizing the principle of spontaneous sympathy of men. We consider an attitude again according to some grid references, but required the company to give us our opinion forces us to constantly redefine our reference grid, to fit a normative framework “common sense” meets the requirements of office in a utilitarian perspective. Approach typical of British high society: what is right is what is the maintenance of harmony within the group. The truth is what is useful, and the criterion of utility, the practicality against the requirements of good society.

However, it would not do justice to Smith than to limit its comments to the simple utilitarian creed. There are indeed, in the seminal thinker of the Anglo-Saxon liberalism, a counterweight to utilitarianism, or at least the explicit desire to build one.

Smith asks how to become a good “impartial spectator”? He answers, contributing to the spontaneous sympathy. So, being altruistic in moderation, at the same time as a fair trial, and indifferent to the passions. There is therefore, in Smith, what is sought in vain in many of his contemporary disciples distant: a morality of the honest man. Utilitarianism of Smith is not short-sighted, it is not here to say a all-out relativism. The inclusion of “feedback” between spontaneous sympathy and social utilitarianism provide, at the thought of Adam Smith, a dynamic that allows a certain depth.

Adam Smith and Christian Roots

The values of Smith is a disjunctive synthesis between Christianity and ‘nature’ pagan Stoic. They organize underground production of human type adapted to the utilitarian morality, which is part of the anthropological and producer who produces in return. This man, the “good liberal” if you will, or, frankly, the “good citizen” is characterized by the moderation of his passions, by the distrust of any heading trench- control beyond what the simple reason. Hunger, thirst, leaning to the exchange and sexual passion are strong passions, controlled by nature, and have therefore not be subject to a special sympathy. Unsocial passions such as hatred and resentment, are the only ones not to attract the sympathy without prior knowledge of the causes. In the social passions (generosity, humanity, kindness, compassion, friendship and mutual esteem, all social affections and caring), on the contrary, the excess does not cause aversion or hatred. Sympathy is doubled for the same benevolent affections. Passion, in Smith, is good if and only if it serves the project utilitarian, and is therefore to educate men to cultivate in them the passion “good” (that way), and restrain the passions “bad”.

This educational requirement leads to a “theory of moral sentiments” (here we go), theory in some detail to define a standard, rational basis for conformity. Adam Smith lived at a time when liberalism was born not set solely in terms of material prosperity, not submitted in full to the rule of money – a time, in short, where was a bourgeois ideology on merit. Very critical of the merchant industrious and adventurous speculator, Smith is full of suspicion against too rapid changes of fortune. For him, is seldom reached virtuous, and virtue is indeed indispensable to the maintenance of “good society”. Defender of a social order preserved any sudden break, the liberal theorist first preferred a man to greatness avançât gradually to minimize the resentment of his peers and ensure the legitimacy of its progress. One would think by almost nationalist Paul Bourget, and its “traditionalism by positivism.” In any case, it is light years ahead of liberalism bling today.

Then specify the size and relativize traditional at Smith. It is anti-traditionalist in that with him, the era of “noblesse oblige” is over: wisdom and virtue are permanently separated from wealth and greatness. But the seminal thinker in the Anglo-Saxon liberalism is written in a form of revival of traditional virtues, in that it expects, the middle and lower classes, they implement their abilities and honesty to achieve success deserved. The ambiguity of the speech, all its fragility, is obviously the fact that we do not really see why, once acquired wealth and grandeur, the winners of the competition should continue to subscribe to an ideology of merit which has benefited but will henceforth play against their best interests.

At this stage of development of the thought of Smith, it appears that in his view, only a mutual benevolence, encouraged by the sympathy itself tempered by the impartiality of the spectator, is a vehicle for a sustainable society – and However, it is not seriously that would ensure that mutual goodwill.

This is where liberalism comes to the rescue of utilitarianism. A company, Smith said, does not necessarily need to remain benevolent affections. It has somewhat of a limp. In the absence of friendship, esteem, gratitude, etc.., The utility that each is in the other ensures the balance. The exchange of values may be sufficient, failing link and reciprocity (gift / gift-cons), so that there is no resentment or animosity.

Smith and Liberal Theories

Here we touch the heart of liberal theory: the shift of the Good, as part prescriptive standards, exactly, available equity and a balanced distribution of values. And through the work of Smith, we realize that this shift is not the cause of liberalism, the origin lies fundamentally in utilitarianism, the shift towards the Good is just a functional instrument, to make utilitarianism credible.

The challenge of the theory of moral sentiments was built by Smith, obviously, to establish a framework that would combine anthropological axiological neutrality of the state, excluding most of the class of power, the negation of all exteriority normative, with the notions of virtue, of transcendent Good, and even patriotism, registration of men in the consciousness of belonging to a common destiny. It was to reconcile the “sweet trade” and the traditional view, stating that in a certain part anthropological, the “sweet trade” can reproduce a consistent habit, or at least close to that previously defined by tradition. Dixit Adam Smith: “Common sense is enough to lead us, if not to the liking of the most exquisite line, at least to something that approaches it, and, provided we are strongly eager to do well, our behavior always will be, on the whole, commendable. ”

The problem is that two centuries later, it is obvious to any honest observer that the experience has refuted the theory. The framework defined by anthropological Smith exploded, and the ideology that produced, released this framework, has returned to its own negation: the excesses of amoral sentiments has become the rule.

Introduction to Phenomenology

 Phenomenology : a science of phenomenon

Phenomenology is, in general, descriptive study of a set of phenomena. It often refers to Husserl’s philosophical system and a whole school of thought that claims Husserl’s concepts, or at least the method of Husserl.

Phenomenology derives from a critique of classical metaphysics, and its underlying trend is that of a return to the concrete (“the things themselves” is the major injunction according to Husserl). Indeed Husserl conceives it back as a return to “original intuition” of things and ideas. Husserl considered phenomenology as a rigorous science. He explains this with an mathematical example. He notes, for example, if one can imagine three or four objects intuitively, one can not intuitively represent mile.

Husserl distinguishes two opposite types of relationship to the datum or “intentionality”: the real perception, which originates, and thought, which is only “shoot” the object in an “empty intention”. Developing the distinction between original intuition and thought, full and empty intentionality, phenomenologists hold:

– Or the content of the doctrine of Husserl: they then seek the point of contact between mind and reality, the excess of realism and idealism (Merleau-Ponty is an example: “Phenomenology is the study of species, and all the problems, he says, come to define the essence: the essence of perception, the essence of consciousness. But phenomenology is also a philosophy that puts essences into existence “)

– Or his method, and then they apply the principle of an analysis of intuition to the fields of knowledge of others, rather neglected by Husserl in his texts (Sartre and Levinas)

– Or they seek to justify the metaphysical principle of an analysis of phenomena (Eugen Fink).

A theory of the phenomena can not be defined only in relation to a theory of the Absolute Being, or ontology. On this point, speculative phenomenology of Fichte, in Theory of Science, remains a strength and depth unmatched.

Sartre: Existentialism is a humanism (Summary)

Critics of Sartrean existentialism:

Marxist criticism:

For Marxists, existentialism is a philosophy of failure, inactive. A bourgeois and contemplative philosophy. But also a individualistic philosophy. But according to Sartre, his philosophy is based on action.

On the individualistic criticism, Sartre has difficulty to argue. He will do that later in the Critique of the Dialectical Reason, where he attempts to reconcile the collective logic and the individual approach (concept of praxis).

Catholic critics on the existentialism

If Sartre  undertakes the atheism of his thought, he does not concede that his philosophy is nihilistic (no values). According to him, man is the creator of his own values ​​(as opposed to the spirit of seriousness).

For Sartre, the idea of ​​a Christian existentialism (Jaspers, Kierkegaard, Pascal) is inconsistent: if God exists, then the existence of man is no longer contingent : the essence precedes existence, which is incompatible with human freedom.

Sartre and the existence:

Ek-sistere, for Sartre, means to project oneself outside. Man exists in that he is nothing definite, he becomes what he has decided to be. The notion of human nature is absurd, since it gives the man an essence which man can not tear himself away (only the objects have a nature, a specific function)

Sartre and Freedom:

“Man is condemned to be free”

This sentence is ethical and metaphysical at the same time : If human freedom is absolute, the subject is still involved in a situation (= facticity of being so). But it is man who gives meaning to the situation. Thus a situation is intolerable in itself, because it becomes a project of revolt gave him that. “We have never been more free than under the Occupation.” A tragic situation makes it more urgent action. The world is never the mirror of my freedom.

Freedom is seen as a power of annihilation, as exceeding the given (man is a “for-itself”).

“Being free to be condemned, it means you can not find my limits freedom of others than herself.” Not choosing is a choice (choosing not to choose). The only limit to my freedom is my death, which transformed my life in essence, be in destiny.

Man lives yet poorly this situation of total freedom. He invents subterfuges, including bad faith to escape his freedom. Bad faith is to pretend that one is not free, it is something to dream. Consciousness, Sartre tells us, always trying to coincide with itself, to be completed, to be “in-itself”

Man makes his facticity excuse to get in-itself. Sartre distinguishes 6 types of facticity:

– Being born in a society and a given time

– Having a body

– Having a past

– The fact of existing in a world that existed before

– Does exist among other men (question of intersubjectivity)

– The fact of death (finitude)

For Sartre, we must assume our contingency.

Sartre and intersubjectivity:

The ratio of consciousness in Sartre is in the mode of conflict, as a relation of recognition: each requires the other consciousness to be recognized as conscientious, as free. Now, if I recognize free as free, I’m doing it my master. Others becomes another person when his will, his liberty is opposed to mine (others, “it me who is not me”)

Analysis of the light is illuminating: the gaze of others I found its existence. “People see me so I can see.” The For-itself is also a For-hire.

But when I look at the others in its being fixed, I do my thing looked, so I will be exalted. Conversely, if others look at me, I’m choséifié. I am what others see me.

If the text of Existentialism is a humanism is far from being as specific as the thought of Sartre, it at least has the merit of making his ideas more accessible. It gives an overview of its main concepts (awareness, others, freedom, responsibility, …) and thus remain to be read, again and again.

EMOTION: PHILOSOPHICAL DEFINITIONS

What is an emotion?

Basically, Emotion can be defined as a manifestation of the emotional life, usually accompanied by a pleasurable or painful state of consciousness. Emotion is a disorder of variable duration, an imbalance. The disorder is sometimes violent, and increases movements (anger, excitement), or, alternatively, a motion to stop (or fear “thunderbolt” in love). The emotion is sometimes an exciting, sometimes a narcotic. The impact on the body can go to the syncope, but most often limited to minimal physical manifestations (flushing, pallor, …).

The emotion, unlike the passion that comes as a result of the sustained imbalance, an imbalance is ephemeral, which marks the effort of the individual to bend to circumstances. Emotion is a reaction to a new and unexpected situation.

Depending on the nature of the disorder created, there are often emotional shock and emotional feeling. The second is more durable than the first but also more diffuse.

The nature of this feeling

Before Sartre, emotion was thought as a pure reaction: I see a bear, so I’m afraid. However, in his Theory of Emotions, Sartre has shown that emotion is not a reaction, but a man’s behavior. It is indeed the man who produces and maintains, for example, who is forced to admit his mistakes or take an initiative whose responsibility it weighs may get angry to deny the situation. Emotion is a “magic pipe”, an effort to change the world by his own psychic forces. Emotion seeks to restore the world as the individual who feels like. Every emotion has a meaning, reveals an intention can be conscious.

In short, we are responsible for our emotions. They express the choices we make in our being-in-the-world.

Quotes on emotion by philosophers:

Kant: “The emotion is the feeling of pleasure or displeasure of a current that does not leave the subject to achieve reflection. In emotion, spirit surprised printing loses power over himself “(Anthropology)

Sartre: “An emotion is a transformation of the world”

Alain Badiou: “Emotion is a system of movement that stood in the heart without the permission of the will, and that suddenly changes the color of the thoughts. “

The positivism of Auguste Comte

Born as Isdore Auguste Marie Francois Xavier Comte on January 19, 1798 in Montpellier, France, Auguste Comte was a French philosopher, acclaimed for being the founder of positivism and sociology. He is accredited for naming the science of sociology and giving a system to the subject. Comte was significantly influenced by philosophers that were starting to distinguish and map out an order in human society’s history. Many of these influential philosophers were his contemporaries including Montesquieu, Joseph de Maistre and Marquis de Condorcet, all of whom contributed to Comte’s system of thought.

The start of Comte’s career came after acquaintance with the French social reformer Henri de Saint-Simon. Many of Comte’s early written articles were published in Saint-Simon’s circulations though he broke off from Saint-Simon’s ideology in 1826 due to differing point of views. It was also during this time that Comte commenced a series of lectures dedicated to his system of positive philosophy for private audiences. Between 1829 and 1830 the success of his lectures were delivered to the Royal Athenaeum. The years from 1830 to 1840 were devoted to the writing and publication of Comte’s philosophical work entitled, Cours de Philosophie Positive, translated into English as The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, a six volume publication.

One of Auguste Comte’s major work, Systeme de Politique Positive, translated in English as System of Positive Policy was written after the death of his romantic interest Clotilde de Vaux published between 1851 and 1854. In this work Comte, completed his formulation of the subject of sociology. This major work of Comte laid heavy emphasis on the progress of morality as being the main fixation for human knowledge.

The emergence of Comte’s ideas can been seen as a further indulgence into the ideas of writers from the 18th and early 19th century such as David Hume and Immanuel Kant. The philosophy of positivism contributed by Comte laid under five distinct parts. These parts included is adoption of the scientific method, the law of three stages, classification of science, contribution to philosophies of sciences from anterior to sociology, the creation of positivist social philosophy.

Even though Comte is not credited for the originating the ideas of sociology, he has to his credit the extension of this field of study and systematization its content. Comte successfully divided sociology into two main fields of social statics and social dynamics. According to Comte’s view the foundation of society is based on a person’s individual egoism. According to his thought this is done by division of labor with the combination of a person’s efforts as well as maintaining the social unity that is the responsibility of the government and the state.

Kant and Freedom

In Kant's  philosophy, Freedom is defined as a concept which is involved in the moral domain, at the question: what should I do?

In summary, Kant says that the moral law is only that I know myself as a free person. Kantian freedom is closely linked to the notion of autonomy, which means law itself: thus, freedom falls obedience to a law that I created myself. It is therefore respect its commitment to compliance with oneself.

Practical Reason and Freedom

Practical reason legislates (makes laws and requirements) of free beings, or more precisely the causality of free beings. Thus, practical reason is based on freedom, it is freedom.

Phenomena, in the Kantian thought, are subject to the law of natural causality: each event is the effect of another, and so on to infinity. Unlike the phenomenon of man, in the moral rule is free, ie, it has the power to self-start condition.

Kant ethics is mainly based on the concept of free will and autonomy.

Traditional Freedom

The traditional sense of freedom, is one’s ability to righteously act, speak, and or think the way they wish. Below is the definition that’ll appear after a quick google search.

“The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.”

Philosophers all throughout history, argued that this is the state in which man is most willing to live in. Of course, it is that principle that lead to the declaration of new nations, through self determination.

The ideals that lead to the birth of democratic governments, where the people have the opportunity, and obligation, to rule themselves. Above all else, freedom fuels our desire to actively seek the abolishment of tyranny, liberating those enslaved under it’s rule.

Although many, if not all of these freedoms are positive, it wasn’t the case profound philosophers were asserting. This may be surprising to some, but it’s true. Many free thinkers did indeed advocate for democracy, self determination, and liberation.

However, on top of that, many of these thinkers went on to separate freedom into different categories. Some, even opine that the notions of our traditional freedom are completely backwards!

Kant on  Freedom

The average person, assumes that when presented with alternative choices, would have the freedom to choose one over the other, on the basis of individual desire.

This is what Kant called “The Idea of Freedom”. It is also more commonly known today as libertarian freedom. Kant however, saw freedom differently, and perhaps in a more sophisticated manner.

Libertarians would state that one is free when they can choose what they want. Kant in contrast to that, believes that choosing what you want isn’t freedom. He insisted that acting on the basis of desire is being governed, not by one’s reason, but by their primitive, animalistic instincts.

Kant’s perception of freedom, is the ability to govern one’s actions on the basis of reason, and not desire. This can all be reduced to the concept of Autonomy.

The word Autonomy, derives from Greek, literally translating to self legislator. So the idea, is not to live by one’s animalistic nature imposed on them from birth, but rather to live by the laws you impose on yourself.

So in Kant’s view, libertarian freedom isn’t real, but in reality, is just enslavement of oneself to their desire.

Postmodernism

 That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism. However, it can be described as a set of critical, strategic and rhetorical practices employing concepts such as difference, repetition, the trace, the simulacrum, and hyperreality to destabilize other concepts such as presence, identity, historical progress, epistemic certainty, and the univocity of meaning.

The French philosophers , for example, work with concepts developed during the structuralist revolution in Paris in the 1950s and early 1960s, including structuralist readings of Marx and Freud. For this reason they are often called “poststructuralists.” They also cite the events of May 1968 as a watershed moment for modern thought and its institutions, especially the universities. The Italians, by contrast, draw upon a tradition of aesthetics and rhetoric including figures such as Giambattista Vico and Benedetto Croce. Their emphasis is strongly historical, and they exhibit no fascination with a revolutionary moment. Instead, they emphasize continuity, narrative, and difference within continuity, rather than counter-strategies and discursive gaps. Neither side, however, suggests that postmodernism is an attack upon modernity or a complete departure from it. Rather, its differences lie within modernity itself, and postmodernism is a continuation of modern thinking in another mode.

Habermas argues that postmodernism contradicts itself through self-reference, and notes that postmodernists presuppose concepts they otherwise seek to undermine, e.g., freedom, subjectivity, or creativity. He sees in this a rhetorical application of strategies employed by the artistic avant-garde of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an avant-garde that is possible only because modernity separates artistic values from science and politics in the first place. On his view, postmodernism is an illicit aestheticization of knowledge and public discourse. Against this, Habermas seeks to rehabilitate modern reason as a system of procedural rules for achieving consensus and agreement among communicating subjects. Insofar as postmodernism introduces aesthetic playfulness and subversion into science and politics, he resists it in the name of a modernity moving toward completion rather than self-transformation

Moral Philosophy & Ethics

The importance of moral philosophy in philosophy

Moral Philosophy is one of the major schools of philosophy. Moral philosophy relates to practical philosophy, while metaphysics refers to theoretical philosophy. Morality thus speaks of action (and answers questions such as “May war be fair? Is the death penalty moral?), Some focusing on intentions that preside over actions, others on the consequences of our actions.

Moral philosophy ultimately attempts to answer the following question: What should I do?

Moral Philosophy or Ethics?

We must distinguish moral philosophy from ethics. If the first refers to intersubjectivity (the relation to others), the second refers to personal actions, to the relation of the subject to himself. We often use one for the other in a wrong way.

In some thinkers, ethics is a philosophy derived from ontology (Plato, Sartre), in others derived from politics (Aristotle). Some even reverse the theoretical/practical relationship: moral philosophy is the first philosophy (Levinas), it is from it that the other branches of philosophy must flow.

The origin of morality

There are two ways to look at the source of morality:

the heteronomous theory of morality: the man receives morality from elsewhere that of himself (God, moral law, society). This is the position of St. Thomas, Kant (Critique of Practical Reason), Schopenhauer, Bergson or Durkheim.

the autonomous theory of morality: man creates, invents himself the principles of his action (Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus)

Schools of moral philosophy

Here is a brief overview of the main branches of moral philosophy, from ancient times to the present day.

Formalism or Deontology: Kant’s practical philosophy is related to this current. Formalism asserts that the morality of an act depends on the form of the act, and not on its content.

Individualism: Individualism, in morality, posits the primacy of the individual over the social totality: values emanate from the individual. Nietzsche or Dumont are representatives of moral individualism.

Eudemonism: According to eudemonism, the goal of action is the search for happiness.

Pessimism: Pessimism, in morality, consists in thinking evil prevails over good, so man is condemned to act badly.

Utilitarianism: Utility must be the criterion of action. According to the utilitarians, the principle of utility supposes a calculated search for pleasures (arithmetic of pleasures). In both quantitative and qualitative terms.

Hedonism: Happiness is immediate pleasure. Happiness is enjoyment.

Stoicism: It is the concept of destiny (fatum) that governs the morality of the Stoics. The actions of man must be guided by the acceptance of destiny. The man only mastering his view of things, not the things themselves.

Epicureanism Epicurean morality consists in satisfying only the natural and necessary pleasures.

Consequentialism: Only the consequences of an act make it possible to qualify it in terms of moral or immoral.

Cynicism: Cynicism consists of despising morals, conventions or even traditions.

Ethical Relativism: The relativists consider that no morality can claim to the universal, that the cultures have a proper morality, equivalent to each other.

Altruism: Altruism affirms that only moral acts guided by disinterestedness and the love of others.

Nihilism: Nihilism defends a conception according to which there is no absolute, transcendent morality.

Existentialism: Man invents his way and his morality freely. The bastard, on the contrary, guided by the spirit of seriousness, hides behind a legacy morality.

Hume, Impressions vs Ideas

David Hume’s philosophy is entirely based on this principle that experience causes our ideas : hence Hume is a empiricist. Hume differentiates between impressions or the immediate result of the experience and ideas, or the result of impressions.

Impressions or Ideas ?

Impression is the result of direct experience both internally and externally, is engraved in the soul with great vivacity. By idea, it means the image of these impressions weakened (the faint image of These), used in the Judgement and Reasoning. While the impression is received from outside, the idea is a simple copy, a reproduction of the spontaneous impression. The object is printed twice in the subject: one way in the bright but fleeting sense organs, and in a way lower but more stable in the mind.

Hume follows from these definitions that ideation in the role of the mind is purely passive, and in this sense that Hume can be considered the founder of empiricism, of  more than Roger Bacon, or Locke , who had kept in mind one’s own activity. The result is that the system still banned all metaphysical ideas about the substance, cause and God, or, at least, these ideas become mere nominal form, without objective value. The experience is moving in a narrow field: a specific and concrete in nature, it can not go beyond the individual and the concrete, if the mind is devoid of any clean energy, he will never open the horizons of generality and transcendence.

Hume : Simple Ideas vs Complex Ideas

Simple ideas, and heard, combine in an automatic process, called the association. The association is a kind of attraction that unites and makes mental representations by virtue of their natural affinity. This affinity is manifested in three forms, which are the laws of association: resemblance, contiguity in time and space, and causality in Hume attaches special meaning to the word. Again, the principle of union among ideas is not the energy of the mind, this principle is simple qualities which nature has marked some thoughts as a special sign, and predestined them to spend in a complex. Hume’s philosophy is not an agent of his forces, from inside to outside, it proceeds from outside to inside: it is the perceptions and combinations that make up the minds and perceptions have their own history in qualities of external objects. It would be easy to show that Hume’s arguments have no demonstrative value, but this is not the subject of this work, we merely recall briefly the basic principles of his philosophy, and we try to show the great influence they have exerted on contemporary English school.

Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

 Democracy in America: A philosophical adventure

Alexis de Tocqueville is one of the heads of liberalism. During his trip to the United States, Tocqueville was able to describe the awakening democracy. His approach is totally original compared to a normative philosophy that prevailed in Classics (Montesquieu, Rousseau and the Greeks), Tocqueville rather use a descriptive and clinical approach.

The issue at the heart of the book Democracy in America is this: How can we protect the people from himself? In the first part of Democracy in America, Tocqueville considers the public more as a means of coercion of people by the people than as a guarantor of rationality and freedom. In the second part, the questioning moves to protect people from the despotic democratic state.

Democracy and the power source

American democracy, Tocqueville said, is based on the absoluteness of popular sovereignty. This is the source of legislative power, exercised through elected representatives and renewed frequently. Two key ideas are at the heart of democracy: equality and freedom. In a democracy, the pursuit of equality prevails over that of freedom. This dialectic of democratic principles creates the possibility of self-destruction of the entire democratic system.

The excesses of democracy

It is this potential risk inherent in any democracy, which explains the ambivalence of judgments, both enthusiasts and critics, de Tocqueville. It diagnoses the ills of democracy and attempts to discern, even within the existing system, the remedies that can stop them. The healing of these evils do not occur from the outside, but the trends already present in democracy. Tocqueville observed that the three main threats to the American system are: the tyranny of the majority, individualism and despotism state.

Tocqueville and The tyranny of the majority

Paradoxically, the tyranny of the majority comes from public space. Public opinion, the result of free discussion between citizens within the public space, is in fact the majority opinion. However, this majority, which could be described as rational and legitimate, has a coercive force on minority views and lead them to comply with the prevailing opinion. Thus was born of freedom, public opinion denies thereafter. This tyranny of the majority comes from the absolute sovereignty of the people, which gives him, he believes, “the right to do anything,” the belief in its omnipotence. Therefore, to ensure that minorities are not brought to heel, forced conformism and self-righteousness, we must erect a barrier to this omnipotence. This remedy against the first evil watching democracy is the political association. Tocqueville distinguishes the civil association, whose purpose is different. This second type relates to private affairs of individuals, including religious, commercial or legal, not a political cause. The political association, it has always relative to a public cause. It can be defined as the gathering of individuals around common public interest. In this framework can only express opinions repressed by the majority, the political association gives the scope to be the voice of him who is alone. It is the guarantee unlimited freedom of thought and expression, respect for the rights of citizenship for dissent: they prevent the stigmatization and rejection of views considered deviant and those who defend them. Contrary to despotism, tyranny, democracy is not physical in nature, but immaterial: it is the deviant “a foreigner”. 

Associations have therefore dedicated to “normalize” free thinkers. In addition, the need for its existence is that it can be oppressive, since it is still a minority, according to Tocqueville. 

In fact, an association that would become the majority ceases to be one. Besides being a principle of social and political change, they are also a principle of stability. Since they introduce, of course, factions within the society, but by allowing all opinions to find a place for expression, they prevent the organization of plots or conspiracies. In this, Tocqueville is in line with Kant, because it defends the principle of publicity. Another reason “Kantian” in this observer of American democracy: political associations promote the critical use of reason. Public opinion is the product of reflection, but “once [the majority] is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent,” while discussions continue within these institutions, making permanent political activity. They therefore express a struggle against the Democratic gregariousness and silence of reason.

However, political associations pose a danger, that of anarchy. Their proliferation may in fact cause an infinite partition of popular sovereignty, so that it would be impossible to legislate on the basis of a majority. But this danger is thwarted by their benefits. Political associations are therefore, in this respect, a force of resistance to oppression of the majority, not only against state power. Nevertheless, Tocqueville does not make them the major legislative body of democracy: if they “have the power to attack [the existing law] and to make advance what must exist,” they do not the power to legislate.

Democracy and individualism

This awakening of the spirit, made possible by political associations, is also a revival of “public spirit” of reason. The second evil which threatens democracy is indeed individualism. He calls this tendency of individuals born from the destruction of the hierarchy of links that united in the monarchical system, to lose interest in the great society and retreat to the limited company. This evil is of democratic origin, since equality “breaks the chain and severs every link of it.” So reclusive in their private sphere, citizens directly endanger democracy, one of whose principles is participation in power. Therefore, the associations, but not all types, sanctions, here too, the role of remedy a negative trend for democracy. Indeed, the proliferation civil associations is harmful because they divert public governance. Political associations, on the contrary, “pulling people out of themselves, struggling against the fragmentation of the group and allow them to participate in public life. Paradoxically, therefore democracy is through political associations, which can save individualism, while it was she who gave birth.