Editorial: 22nd Issue September 1st 2019

Blog: http://michaelrdjames.org/

Journal site https://www.aletheiaeducation.eu/

https://joom.ag/A7Pe

The first lecture is entitled “ A Critique of The Conceptual Foundations of

International Politics: Lecture Ten”. The lecturer Jose Antonio Ocampo outlines
a largely critical view of Globalisation:

Ocampo notes that there are three critical issues relating to the institutions of the
International Economic system:

"* An incomplete and biased agenda

* An incomplete set of institutions
* Asymmetry between the agenda and the instruments for actions
* Unsettled relation between globalisation and the nation state
* Developing countries have limited voice and limited participation"

Ocampo, having argued for the first two points earlier in relation to the third
point mentioned above points out that the UN millennium goals clearly had an
agenda but the instruments of action to achieve these goals were lacking:

“The major problem he notes is that the development of international institutions

is lagging behind what the International economy requires. As a consequence he
disagrees with the previous speaker and argues that there is continuing
divergence between the economic growth of industrialised and developing
countries especially in those developing countries outside of Asia which is part
of a trend of longer term increase in International Inequality. He does, however
note a statistic that might be a counterargument against his position:

"Between 2004 and 2007 there was for the first time a faster rate of growth in
the developing countries than in the developed countries. Is this a trend?We do
not yet know, for example if the economies of China and India can function as
locomotives and pull the growth of the world economy forward. According to a
recent UN University study, 88% of the world lives in countries where
inequality is increasing"”

The lecturer points out also that the amount of social spending on education
health and social protection is proportionate to how developed an economy is.
The theoretical modesl used are often problematic:

“There is paradoxically a theoretical bias in this discussion, as there is in

economics generally: a bias which works on the assumption that there is a
constant or uniform state of the system which all actions of the system attempt
to create or maintain. The interesting question to ask is what is the best concept
which we should use to describe this system. Is it the concept of the system of
the healthy body of Aristotle in which there is an energy regulation system
striving to maintain a uniform/constant state of the body giving it a healthy glow
and allowing it to lead a healthy life. Or is the system best described in
psychological or subject like terms in which the actions will be striving not just
to achieve something uniform and constant but rather something better,
something desired, something excellent(areté), something which will be good
and just for the generations of the future.”

Aristotle is evoked as a critical perspective from which to evaluate the problem:

“In the arena of philosophical practical reasoning the key concept is that of
action which has two Aristotelian aspects , that of deliberation before the
process of acting, and the process of "production of the action" after the
deliberation process is over. These two aspects cover two regions of reasoning
or "science" for Aristotle , neither of which are what he would term "theoretical
reasoning" which is defined as the transmission of knowledge via a series of
premises. The two forms of reasoning involved in the two aspects of action
which Aristotle discusses involve a transmission of human desire to a final
premise which describes an action that ought to be immediately taken, or an
object of pleasure. Ocampo is arguing for such a premise relating to an action
which presupposes a transmission of desire after a process of deliberation by a
network of international institutions(in the name of equality) without the
requisite premises, i.e. without the presence of premises of the requisite logical
form. In other words Ocampo is attempting to argue for an ought value laden
premise conclusion without any major premise containing an ought value-laden
statement, thus committing the naturalistic fallacy. Also amongst the is-premises
there ought to be recognition of the appropriate categories under which to
categorise his theoretical notion of a system. The prevailing category is that of
equality: but equality in a physical system where each part or participant in the
system should receive equal benefits and opportunities. If , for example, the
category assumed is that of a physical system like a living body, Aristotle of
course believes that equal treatment of participants should prevail unless there
are significant differences between the recipients of benefits. If trying to
maintain a uniform or constant state of ones body required distribution of
oxygen,nutrition and antibodies to ones organs the function of the organ will
determine how much oxygen nutrition and immunising antibodies should be
received. It would for example be absurd to claim that every organ in the body
should benefit equally: the benefit any particular organ receives will probably be
in proportion to the work it performs in the body. The principle of distribution
then is related to the contribution to the whole which the particular organ or
participant in the system makes, i.e the equality principle does not apply. So this
cannot be the type of system that Ocampo has in mind. What he appears to have
in mind sometimes is that the larger industrialised countries are the beneficiaries
of the work and financing of the non industrialised countries. But is this true?
The evidence for this thesis is not presented. There are implied complaints about
industrialised countries preventing the free flow of technology but there is no
recognition of the work and effort which resulted in the technological
innovation. In what Ocampo refers to as "this hierarchical system" this work is,
according to Aristotle, the significant difference which justifies the fact that a
larger proportion of benefits should accrue to the workers behind this work. It
might be, in fact, that in an Aristotelian economic system, work is the value
which is being measured. Hannah Arendt argued for a threefold distinction to be
observed in this arena of discussion: labour, work and action. Ocampo talks
much about labour but not of work or of action, areas of activity which are more
complex than labour. If it is these two latter categories, work and action, that are
the real generators of value in our society then it is not helpful to construct
economic systems based on the value of equality which at best measure the
value of labour. The issue of the rights of non industrialised nations presuppose
the responsibility of the industrialised nations to assist in the process of the
development of non industrialised countries. This issue or rights can only be
discussed in relation to the ethical ideas of justice which relate to action.
Ocampa wishes for a system of institutions to work and to act in the interests of
the non industrialised actors but there is no coherent model for the justification
of this work and action coming from the field of economic theory. There is more
than an echo here of an old complaint from Socrates who pointed out that doing
what is just, and understanding what is just, requires knowledge.”

The second lecture entitled “The Pathological Nation-State and the European
Project: Aristotle, Kant, Freud and Ricoeur” is an essay about the roots of
populism in pathological social and political conditions:

"Things of this world are in so constant a flux that nothing remains long in the
same state."--(John Locke). This was written 300 years ago and could be an
accurate description of our current states of political affairs. Philosophically,
this suggests that Political theory ought to be at the very least a theory of social
and political change which of course will require some kind of relation to
historical knowledge. Historical knowledge manifests our more significant
social and political memories. Such memories and the narratives embodying
them are a key not just to the identity of individuals but also to the identity of
peoples.

The Problem of personal identity presupposes continuity of our memory which

is one of the criteria of personal identity along with secondly, the criteria of the
continuity of our physical body, and Aristotle would add two further criteria,
namely, the continuity of our social institutions(such as language) and the
continuity of our political institutions and processes. Aristotle claimed in this
context that a good man needs a good state to be good and this echoes a
Platonic assumption that the personality of the good man requires living in a
society with just institutions. In the Republic Socrates attempts to define justice
by reference to the harmonious relations of the parts of the soul of a good man.
His interlocutors think this psychological or anthropological approach is
inadequate and Socrates is forced to appeal to a Platonic Kallipolis or fully
functioning just state in order for his argument to have any chance of achieving
what it set out to do. The Socrates of Plato's Republic is well aware, however,
of the fragility of even a perfect state and the risk of its degeneration into the
pathological forms of a military style Spartan state, and the even worse
pathological forms of oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. For each of these
forms of state there is a corresponding type of personality. For Plato and
Aristotle, in other words, there is a fundamental logical relation between our
descriptions of personal identity and our descriptions of state identity.”

Freud shared this view and did not flinch from using the concepts relating to
individual pathological symptoms in more universal cultural contexts:

“Freudian theory is particularly valuable in the explanation of pathological

phenomena. If the assumption of Plato and Aristotle relating to the logical
identity of personal identity and social or political identity is philosophically
defensable then, even if Freudian theory might lack an important teleological
dimension this might not be of decisive significance when it comes to the
characterisation of pathological phenomena whether it be of a personal or
political nature. Take the phenomenon of group identity which Freud wrote a
paper about(Group Psychology and the Ego). The stronger the bond of
identification with the group, the stronger the reaction to "outsiders" however
minimal the factual differences between the outsiders and the members of the
group might be. This reasoning can be used to ground an objection to the
project of globalization, namely, that the only alternative to the current concept
of the nation state is some kind of world government. Now Kant particularly
rejected the concept of world government on the grounds that this would be
tyrannical. If we connect this Kantian point to the Freudian reflection, the
consequence would seem to be the kind of middle position suggested by
Ricouer in which a European project dilutes national identity and nationalism
on the road to the global project of further dilution of the identification
mechanisms involved in Euro-politanism. Freud clearly described the
pathological consequences of identification mechanisms in relation to the
mobilization of aggression against the Jews, but he did not see the full
consequences of this particular battle between Eros and Thanatos. He died in
1939. Had he been alive he would probably have observed that a German Jew
was just as much a German as any non- Jewish German. His analysis of the
leader of the Germans at the time of Hitler's suicide would have been very cool
and technical. Terms such as "pathological or chronic narcissism",
"paranoia" "delusional"for him were descriptive and explanatory and embedded
in a network of concepts and principles rather than emotionally laden as they
seem to be for us when taken out of their medical context. Hannah Arendt points
out the banality of the way in which the everyday family German
participated in atrocities during the day whilst going home in the evening to be
fathers to their families. In doing so, she argues, this phenomenon bears witness
to the Freudian battle of the giants on the cultural stage. The same mechanism,
if not same instincts, binding a child to his parents binds a citizen to his leader:
one can identify out of love or as a consequence of exposure to aggression.”

The European Project proposed by Ricoeur is then regarded as a staging post on

the journey toward Kantian cosmopolitanism: a project of Peace between
nations and justice and human rights for the inhabitants of such a world.

The third Lecture is entitled Introduction to Philosophical Psychology. Aristotle

Part Six: Aristotle on Art and Tragedy:

“Aristotle insisted upon a threefold distinction of sciences: Theoretical, Practical

and Productive. But he did not envisage that the practical and the productive
sciences would have no connection with the truth.
The human activity of Art, is an activity of mimesis or imitation. Art is imitation
Aristotle argues, not of external nature but rather of mans mind, in particular his
character, emotions and actions. But why does one desire to imitate? Because
firstly,there is both an instinct to imitate demonstrated in the fact that humans
distinguish themselves from animals partly in the fact that they learn from other
humans by imitating them and secondly because we take delight in imitations.
But what then is the telos, the purpose of these mimetic productions? The
creation and appreciation of art must be related of course to the flourishing life
and its explorations of regions of our mind that seek for understanding with
universal intent. The idea of the good object is obviously of major significance
in the arena of artistic activity and must be related to both its intellectual and
emotional aspects. "Universal intent" here obviously refers to organising our
experiences such that we connect emotions and actions that should be connected
and differentiate between emotions and actions where there are real differences.
Such organisation also entails an understanding of the role of the subject and the
role of the object in this process of trying to fathom the depths of the mind. If
we are to believe Psychoanalysis, at the bottom of these depths lie the
shipwrecks of our experience scattered on the ocean bed and the connection of
these fragmented experiences are often not real or as Freud put it, in accordance
with the Reality Principle. Death trumps life in such scenes of the unreal.”

The work of Adrian Stokes is then evoked :

"Structure is ever a concern of art and must necessarily be seen as symbolic,

symbolic of emotional patterns, of the psyche's organisation with which we are
totally involved......Patterns and the making of wholes are of immense psychical
significance in a precise way even apart from the drive towards repairing what
we have damaged or destroyed outside ourselves......in every instance of art we
receive a persuasive invitation...we experience fully a correlation between the
inner and the outer world which is manifestly structured. And so the learned
response to that invitation is an aesthetic way of looking at an object."

The connection between the work of Aristotle is then discussed:

“Hylomorphic theory has been haunting aesthetics from the time of Aristotle up
to and including the Critical writings of Adrian Stokes. In this theory we have a
theory of how the complex human being is teleologically driven in a process of
actualisation/development where powers build upon and integrate with other
powers beginning from the level of the biological moving to the level of self
consciousness via perception, memory and language and terminating in the telos
of the actualisation of the potential of rationality in the spheres of practical and
theoretical reasoning. This process will obviously involve the holistic
organisation of the sensible and intellectual parts of the mind that occurs in
symbolic aesthetic encounters with symbolic aesthetic objects. The Desire to
understand these parts of the mind is for Aristotle part of the idea of the
flourishing life. In a discussion of the representation or imitation of terrible
events like death Aristotle points to the interesting fact that even if pity and fear
may be involved this occurs under an all encompassing attitude of the desire to
learn something from these represented events. Indeed this may be the
"mechanism" of the famous Aristotelian "catharsis" where it is insisted that pity
and fear are purged or purified. The suggestion here is that the situation of these
negative emotions in a positive context transforms them into positive elements
of the experience.”

Stokes relates the discussion to modern Art:

“Impressionism, Stokes claims was a response to the aesthetic poverty of the
streets of our cities and the desire in art to shock its audience thereafter stems,
he argues from a response to a disjointed chaotic environment. Such reflections
lead us to the inevitable conclusion that art must be a kind of therapy for both
artist and appreciator. A thought echoed in his account of the catharsis of the
emotions of pity and fear in our appreciation of tragedy.

Stokes is drawing attention to an aesthetic tragedy in the process of cultural

evolution: a tragedy of which we are largely unaware given the momentum of
the transformation of the physical transformation of our urban environments.
What is the cause of our failure to use the knowledge we have had access to
since Aristotle? Is the desensitising of the aesthetic aspects of our mind the
major factor or it the case that we are witnessing the same relativism in this
arena as we have witnessed in the ethical arena where the assumption of "utility"
has trumped the idea of an actualising process that acquires its identity from a
telos or end in itself which is unconditionally valuable. The Good aesthetic
object and the good ethical action share an attitude toward tragedy which
requires us to learn from them both. "Man desires to know" Aristotle claims in
the Metaphysics. What can we know about tragedy after reading Aristotle's
"Poetics"?”

Aristotle defines Tragedy as:

" the imitation of an action that is serious and complete, and which has some
greatness about it. It imitates in words with pleasant accompaniments, each type
belonging separately to the different parts of the work. It imitates people
performing actions and does not rely on narration. It achieves through pity and
fear, the catharsis of these feelings."

This is connected by Ross to psychoanalysis and the essay concludes with the
judgment:

“Our modern tragedy of course is related to the failure of our present day culture
to be able to speak with a universal voice about itself. Culturally, i.e. politically,
ethically and aesthetically we appear to live in a disenchanted tragic world in
which the voices of Aristotle, Kant and Freud and their followers are drowned
out by the collective contradictory voices of the popular mythical thousand
headed monster. The knowledge spoken of at the beginning of this lecture is no
longer being taught. There are no rescuing heroes anymore and there is no
catharsis for anyone in such circumstances, only disenchantment.”