From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Tue Oct 29 2002 - 07:56:14 GMT
Hi Wim,
Thanks for a most stimulating response. I was hoping you would join in on
this as you always take such scrupulous care with your posts. I'll have to
go back to the static and dynamic thread to see if there is still material
to thrash out between us (I was both leaving a job and moving house at the
time and I might simply have forgotten to reply! sorry...)
However, to the material at hand. You make a number of points relating to
the reification of the levels, viz. talk of addition of the fourth level
rather than a transition to it, and I have some sympathy with your
understanding. However, I think that is a separate issue to the 'naming of
parts', so for the time being I'll put that to one side. If we get to some
agreement on my campaign I'd like to return to it, especially to focus on
your sense that the fourth level begins with ritual (which as you can
imagine fascinates someone like me!! BTW what was the name of the thread
where you pursued this? - I'll rummage in the archives for what you have
already said).
Apropos my shift from arguing for 'individual' to arguing for 'eudaimonic'
as the best description of level four, you write:
> To what extent does that mean a retraction of (22/10 18:54 +0100):
> 'I see ... the defining aspect of becoming an individual as the capacity
for
> independent judgement'?
> Your definition of the 4th level hinging on the role of individuals in it
> and your definition of individuals hinging on their independence from the
> 3th level constitute a circular argument, given the fact that levels are
> discrete in the MoQ.
> I experience a lot of value in defining individuals at the 4th level as
> actors capable to judge independently from social patterns of value, BUT
in
> my view that precludes using the role of individuals in the 4th level as a
> defining characteristic of it.
I was (half-unconsciously) using a specific reference for 'individual', ie
an entity able to make discriminating judgements, ie an entity that is open
to 'wisdom'. At the end of your post you write:
> Recognition that every human
> being (that is not mentally handicapped) experiences this
> addition/transition somewhere between birth and adulthood is a better
method
> I think. I agree that 'emotional maturity' is indeed an important
threshold.
> But should we say that '4th level values are added to someone' or rather
> that 'someone is added to 4th level patterns of values'?
> I'd say that it is not people or societies that 'become' 4th level
patterns
> of values (that wrongly reifies patterns of values), but people or
societies
> that start experiencing 4th level patterns of values (their experience
> bringing them into being).
I have a good deal of agreement with this. I wonder how far it would be fair
to describe someone being added to fourth level patterns of values as being
'born again' (with all the interesting questions that raises about Christian
language - they're not identical, but there are some suggestive parallels).
I still think that 'individual' in the specific sense I mean is distinct to
the fourth level, but it opens up confusion as a form of description, which
David B, Platt and yourself have pointed out ('The term 'individual' should
not be repeated'), and it does become a circular argument. Hence my change;
I'm trying not to be dogmatic in this campaign ;-)
> How 'independent' are these judgements when we can recognize 4th level
> patterns of values in them?
One way of thinking of them is to say that a full explanation of a judgement
reaches a natural terminus in a description of an individual character (and
the virtues they are committed to), not in the social context within which
that individual is embedded. (This does have an interesting connection to
notions of free will, but that really IS another thread!)
> How do we distinguish between dependence on
> social patterns of values and dependence on 4th level patterns of values?
Dependence on social patterns is reasonably well understood - we cannot
exist apart from a social context (even the most extreme hermits were raised
and nurtured by their mothers). But how to distinguish? I'm not sure that
'dependence' is the word I would choose to describe the relationship of an
individual to the fourth level, but I need to consider that more. If pushed,
I would say something about the development of a discriminating
consciousness, which is the product of an appropriate education. The
consciousness is dependent upon the education for its existence, and in many
ways the ongoing development of the individual is a contribution back to the
field of education, especially in the most successful products (the various
types of genius in different fields). Perhaps another way would simply be to
say that there is a whole scale of values against which the actor judges
(and therefore determines) their actions, but I think this is another
circular argument. (So there is a scale of eudaimonic values which are
discrete from the scale of social values.)
> I agree that reason/logic/intellect is/are not the only tool(s) for
> 'educating' the individual and discerning our individual 4th level values.
> See my 3/6 22:53 +0200 post in the 'Static and Dynamic aspects of religion
> and mysticism' thread ... Sensation, thought, emotion and intuition all
have
> an essential role at the 4th level (in the case of emotion and intuition:
> their conscious outcomes rather than the processes leading to these
> outcomes). In the course of 4th level evolutionary progress they get their
> refined forms of observation, reason, empathy and revelation.
> That doesn't imply for me that the 4th level needs renaming: 'intellectual
> level' just means for me 'the level at which intellect operates (among
other
> "tools")'. It doesn't mean that 'intellect' or related concepts
exhaustively
> define that level. Neither does 'social level' imply for me that all
> 'individual' phenomena are excluded from that level. It is for me the
level
> at which (among other phenomena) societies are created and maintained.
In which case I don't think we need bicker about the labels :o) Understood
in this way, I wouldn't have an objection to 'intellect' as the label for
the fourth level (this is a variant of answer #1 that I enumerated in my
post yesterday). Do you have any views on the 'problem #2' that I
articulated, though? Your analysis isn't vulnerable to that objection, of
course, but I was wondering how you would describe the nature of the
'choosing unit' at the fourth level.
> Trying to locate the addition of the 4th level (or the transition away
from
> the 3th level in your terminology) at a specific place and moment in time
> (and drawing conclusions from that about how to define and name the level)
> is not a very sophisticated method I think.
The objections to the naming came first; I was gratified that the history
could be understood in a way consonant with the objections. But surely the
sophistication depends upon the nature of the historical investigation? Or
is there a deeper objection to 'historical investigation as a means of
discerning philosophical truth' here?
> With friendly greetings,
And to you.
Sam
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