06/9/21

Looking at Kirk Kanzelberger’s Essay (2020) “Reality and the Meaning of Evil” (Part 15 of 18)

0060 In sections four and five, Kanzelberger pulls more threads through the loops of Poinsot’s scholasticism and Peirce’s postmodernism.  He does so well, that I continue in parallel, like a harmony to his melody.

0061 I turn to privation of judgment2c.

Consider an example.

0061 Crooked lawyers love the sin of omission.  They love to omit the evidence that would cause them to lose the case.  This love is justified by the doctrine of total satisfaction for the client.  The crooked lawyer does not serve justice.  The crooked lawyer serves only his client, even when his client is guilty as charged.

In the domain of morals, the doctrine of total client satisfaction stands in opposition to an oath to serve justice.  Lawyers take an oath to serve justice.  This doctrine deprives the oath of its merit.  Evil is a privation of good.

Legal theory contextualizes a lawyer’s cupidity, even as the lawyer’s exploits defy the attainment of justice.

0061 Is there a hierarchy here?

Crime is what happened3a.  A trial is what is happening3a.  Victory in court is what it means to me3b.  Someone really depraved constructs the legal process that permits it all3c.

There is a hierarchical difference between a corrupt lawyer3b, who objectifies what is happening3a in the pursuit of total victory for his client1a, and a legal theorist3c, who formulates the consensus of what is legally permissible1c.  Legal theorists3c fashion suprasubjective entities, concocting law-determining judgments2c that alter, tweak, nudge, correct and re-configure the intersubjectivity2b within which a moral agent3b signifies.  Legal theorists3c alter the machinery of justice2c.  Evil ex academia1c.

The well-educated cutting-edge legal theorist3c offers norms2c that may oppose the rule of reason and the divine law1c, just as parody opposes tragedy.  The projection of alternate meaning into words1c, such as “client interests”, “service”, “mandates” and so on, mocks the hard-won projection of true meaning1c, where the client’s interests do not outweigh justice and true justice ultimately furthers the interests of us all, including the client.

0062 Here is a picture.

06/8/21

Looking at Kirk Kanzelberger’s Essay (2020) “Reality and the Meaning of Evil” (Part 16 of 18)

0063 What is the catch?

Alternate legal theories2c cannot endure in the absence of the original truth of justice1c.  There are two types of immoral actors.  The practitioners of concupiscence2b, like crooked lawyers, struggle with self-justification1c.  The self-justified2c, like opportunistic legal theorists, strain to defy right reason and divine law1c.  They offer better alternatives2c.  They3coffer them2c in droves.  A multitude of alternatives2c swarm with betterness.

Kanzelberger writes, “Purposeful evil is not a matter of ignoring the moral context of courses of action, but a semiotic disorder involving… a fictive construction… that functions as… an imagined future.”

0064 You mean, like that approaching cloud of legal locusts?

Imagine a world where the rule of reason2c and the divine laws1c are partially, then totally, eclipsed by a swarm of organizational objectives2c, each declaring its own righteousness1c, each supported by its own theoretical imperatives1c and each relying on the power of the state to enforce its dictates.

Imagine a world where certain words1a are made flesh2a, and this winged flesh2a fills the air with what is happening3a, so that all things and events2a actualize theory-distorted subjectivities1a.  

Imagine a world where our phantasms2b are not grounded in truth, but in the projection of meaning2b into once truth-filled speech-alone words2a.

0065 Surely, we have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good an evil.

Like locusts.

There will be hell to pay.

06/7/21

Looking at Kirk Kanzelberger’s Essay (2020) “Reality and the Meaning of Evil” (Part 17 of 18)

0066 Kanzelberger writes, “Moral evil is a dark image.  It weaves a web that bewitches its author, then ensnares others.”

But, the author and the ensnared do not necessarily stand on the same level.

0067 Natural evil makes no sense.  Natural evil is privation of the subject.

Moral evil makes sense.  Moral evil is privation in phantasms.  We selectively use word-symbols deprived of their fullness.  We seek agreement1a, not wisdom1c.

Metaphysical evil defies moral sense, by willfully projecting its own relations between what is and what ought to be2c, into spoken words2a, which cannot image or indicate on their own.

0068 Imagine a nest, full of duly-appointed avian-philic crooked lawyers, passing a law decreeing the latest innovation of their premier legal theorist.  All cats are to be banished from the sovereign realm, because they are symbols of human maliciousness and cruelty.

Here is a brood worthy of Kanzelberger’s philosophical consideration.

06/6/21

Looking at Kirk Kanzelberger’s Essay (2020) “Reality and the Meaning of Evil” (Part 18 of 18)

0069 Kirk Kanzelberger joins Thomas Aquinas with a basic acknowledgment: Evil is a privation of a good.

He then considers natural and moral evil.

In moral evil, he locates a semiotic disorder, in addition to a privation.

He considers the nature of the sign, as formulated by Charles Peirce.

0070 He publishes his argument in a journal worthy of the reader’s support.

Reality: A Journal for Philosophical Discourse

0071 My comments are not so different.  They thread through both Peirce and Poinsot.  They pass through the two loops brought to light by John Deely.

Yet, the are different, in that they offer diagrams based on Peirce’s categories.

0072 Typically, Razie Mah’s comments are published in the smashwords website and carried by a variety of e-book vendors.

Start with A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.

Add A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.

That is all that is needed to introduce oneself to the interscope of social construction.

Figure 09

0073 The three-level interscope appears in the chapter on meaning in the masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”.

The three-level interscope plays a role in A Primer on the Individual In Community.

The three-level interscope serves as a model of langue, in Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us: Language and Evolution.

0074 All these works are available at the smashwords website.

So concludes this look at Kanzelberger’s foray into both Aquinas and Peirce, concerning reality and the nature of privation.

Look to Reality.

God bless.

05/19/21

Looking at Chris Sinha’s Essay (2018) “Praxis, Symbol and Language” (Part 1 of 5)

0001 Chris Sinha, writing from Hunan University, publishes another article on human evolution.  The journal is Interaction Studies (volume 19(2), 2018, pages 239-255).  The complete title is “Praxis, Symbol and Language: Developmental, Ecological and Linguistic Issues”.

The title of Razie Mah’s commentary is Comments on Chris Sinha’s Essay (2018) “Praxis, Symbol and Language”. The commentary is found at the smashwords website under the series: Buttressing the Human Niche.  Other vendors also sell the e-commentary.

0002 This blog complements the commentary.

0003 Sinha’s article covers from the start of the Homo genus, around two million years ago, to the speciation of Homo sapiens, around two-hundred thousand years ago. That is a lot of territory.

Several issues intertwine.  One is individual development (devo).  Another is a transition in natural selection (evo) from ecology-driven adaptations (eco) to adaptations driven by social interactions (socio).

0004 Sinha loves terminology.  He searches for a EcoEvoDevoSocio framework.

05/18/21

Looking at Chris Sinha’s Essay (2018) “Praxis, Symbol and Language” (Part 2 of 5)

0005 What about Sinha’s EcoEvoDevoSocio framework?

0006 The outer terms, “eco” and “socio”, signify a broad arc of human evolution.

Adaptation by a line of apes starts with ecological adaptations.  For example, bipedalism is evolutionarily ancient.

However, the fact that bipedalism frees the hands for communicative gestures creates new opportunities.  A truly human niche appears.  One hominin can intentionally gesture to another.  The other hominin can interpret that gesture.

0007 The frontpiece of the title captures Sinha’s EcoSocio vision.  The praxis (or habits) of intentional manual-brachial gestures for communication proceeds from signaling to functional representation.

Functional representation metaphorically runs around the symbol, defined as a sign-relation whose sign-object depends on conventions, habits, laws and so forth.  The more that intentional manual-brachial gestures act as words, the more symbolic they become.

In this way, hominins become symbol-ready and capable of engaging in language.

05/17/21

Looking at Chris Sinha’s Essay (2018) “Praxis, Symbol and Language” (Part 3 of 5)

0008 Allow me to further elaborate Sinha’s EcoEvoDevoSocio framework.

In the prior blog, the Eco-Socio bookends touch base with the title frontpiece of praxis, symbol and language.

0009 This implies that the EvoDevo inner coupling expresses the title endpiece of developmental, ecological and linguistic issues.

0010 Evo associates to phylogeny.  Phylogenesis consists of adaptations into a niche.  The human niche changes from one where ecology is the primary source of signification to one where symbol-ready hominins are the primary sources of signification.  

Devo associates to ontogeny.  Ontogenesis consists of alterations in DNA, genes, genotypes and phenotypes that permit the drastic shift in the primary source of signification.

0011 Sinha cleverly encapsulates the inner drama of phylogenic and ontogenic changes over evolutionary time(EvoDevo) within the outward motion from an ecology-centered Umwelt to a socially-centered Lebenswelt (Eco-Socio).

05/14/21

Looking at Chris Sinha’s Essay (2018) “Praxis, Symbol and Language” (Part 4 of 5)

0012 Sinha’s EcoEvoDevoSocio framework associates to all the terms in the title of Chris Sinha’s Essay.

0013 Eco-Socio are bookends describing the long arc of time from the emergence of the Homo genus to the appearance of Homo sapiens.  At the start, signification primarily comes from the ecology.  At the end, significations primarily come from social interactions.

0014 EvoDevo are the twin tomes of phylogenesis and ontogenesis, bringing me to the truth-bearing fiction within Sinha’s narrative.

What is this fiction?

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

0015 Biologists have debunked this slogan, as fact.  But, it lives on as fiction.

Why?

It must be true, even though it is factually incorrect.

0016 How else can one draw a thread through these two terms: language and the human brain?

Language goes with phylogenesis.  As discussed in the masterwork, The Human Niche, plus its attendant commentaries, the biological capacity for language evolves in the milieu of hand talk.  Hand talk develops phylogenetically, from signaling, to functional representation, to symbolic communication, then to fully linguistic.  The adaptation of language occurs within the evolution of hand talk.

The human brain goes with ontogenesis.  The capacity to read ecological significations expands to reading intentional manual-brachial gestures.  Intentional gestures retain their semiotic qualities as icons and indexes as they become more conventional, habitual, lawful and so on.  They become more and more like symbols. The neural substrate in the hominin brain finds a way to process symbols.

0017 Ecological significations are icons and indexes.

Intentional manual-brachial gestures are perceived as icons and indexes, even though they increasingly operate as symbols.

0018 So, instead of the slogan, “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”, we can adopt the saying, “ontogeny intersects phylogeny”.

A traffic intersection belongs to both roads. So does the intersection of ontogeny and phylogeny.

05/13/21

Looking at Chris Sinha’s Essay (2018) “Praxis, Symbol and Language” (Part 5 of 5)

0019 Chris Sinha’s essay is a contribution to a huge, obviously well-funded, academic project, led by Prof. Michael A. Arbib, of the University of California at San Diego.  An outline is presented in the same issue of Interaction Studies(19:1-2 (2018) 370-389).  The title is “The Comparative Neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) Road Map for Research on How the Brain Got Language“.

0020 The project’s slogan is a little humorous.

It’s like How the Birds Got Flight.

Does anatomy tell the tale?

To me, comparing the neural structure of the great apes, including models of our hominin ancestors, tells the ontogenesis side of the story.

0021 What about the phylogenesis side of the story?

The story of how the brain got language cannot be restricted to DNA, genes, genotypes, phenotypes and body development.  Phylogenesis cannot be ignored.  In this regard, Chris Sinha’s essay is crucial.  

The intersection of ontogeny and phylogeny re-capitulates the intersection between body development and natural history appearing in Speculations on Thomism and Evolution.

Chris Sinha adds weight to the natural history side, covering environment, ecology, niche, adaptation and natural selection.

0022 To this end, I suggest that the seventeen authors on this magnificent quest consider Razie Mah’s Comments on Chris Sinha’s Essay (2018) “Praxis, Symbol and Language”.  The contribution may be unexpected.  Nevertheless, it is properly attired.

04/23/21

Looking at Jeff Hardin’s Essay (2019) “Biology and Theological Anthropology” (Part 1 of 15)

0001 Is the current scientific consensus on human origins at odds with core theological doctrines at the heart of the evangelical faith?

You bet it is.

0002 Well, is this a blessing in disguise?

It may well be.

How so?

0003 When science clashes with key theological doctrines, such as Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, Christians may need to strive for better theological essentials.

0004 Does the same apply to science?

Can I say, “When the theological doctrine of original sin pushes back against our current consensus on the evolutionary sciences, researchers may need to search for better scientific essentials.”?

0005 On December 11, 2019, Jeff Hardin, member of the Department of Integrative Biology at UW-Madison, publishes his essay, Biology and Theological Anthropology: Friend or Foe?, on the Biologos website.

In the introduction, he joins British neuroscientist, Donald McKay, in asking (more or less), “Does God give us Darwin, Mendel and Rawlinson in order to achieve a less improper interpretation of His Word?”

0006 At the same time, one cannot ignore a reflection.

Does God give us the Bible in order to achieve a less improper interpretation of human natural history, genetics and Near Eastern Literature?

0007 Jeff Hardin, unlike most writers on this confounding topic, does not hide the question in the mirror.

Weirdly, he invites it.