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Open Book Publishers
Chapter Title: The Symbol of the Symbolists: Aleksandr Blok in the Changing Russian
Literary Canon
Chapter Author(s): Olga Sobolev
Book Title: Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry
Book Subtitle: Reinventing the Canon
Book Editor(s): Katharine Hodgson, Joanne Shelton, Alexandra Smith
Published b... |
Renown not according to plan,
Outside schools and systems, he has not
Been foisted upon us by man.1
The turn of the twentieth century has always been regarded as a period of extreme dynamism in Russian culture — a time when many traditional values were questioned and transformed. During this period the genuine creat... |
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Olga Sobolev
words’,2 the symbolists brought fascinating resources of language and craftsmanship to their metaphysical preoccupations. Often termed the
Silver Age of Russian art, this trend produced a whole host of illustrious authors, including such figures as Val... |
2
Stéphane Mallarmé, ‘Crise de vers’, in Divagations (Paris: Bibliotèque Charpentier,
1897), pp. 235–51 (p. 246); translated in Rosemary Lloyd, The Poet and his Circle
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 55.
3
Harold Bloom, The Western Canon (New York: Riverhead Books, 1995), p. 17.
4
Russian disside... |
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125
5. Aleksandr Blok in the Changing Russian Literary Canon
the notion of restrictive authority, as when literary critics speak of the need ‘to open’ the canon, ‘to expand’ the canon, or ‘to dispense’ with the canon.5 In actuality, scholars agree that there neither is... |
5
John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 34, 81.
6
Ibid., p. 56.
7
Ibid., p. 55.
8
Isaac D’Israeli, an early promulgator of this view, claimed that ‘prose and verse have been regulated by the same caprice that cuts our coats an... |
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126
Olga Sobolev
reflection of the social material base, emphasised the centrality of the cultural field in shaping and facilitating economic development.
Moreover, from the early years of the Soviet state’s existence, literature was considered an effective weapon of c... |
11
Vladimir Lenin, Pamiati Gertsena (Moscow: Politizdat, 1980).
12
As early as 1896 Gor′kii characterised symbolist literature as ‘the songs of decaying culture’, impregnated with the feeling of ‘pessimism and complete apathy regarding actual events’ (Maksim Gor′kii, Sobranie sochinenii, 30 vols.
(Moscow: Khudozhe... |
Out of Blok and Briusov, who chose not to emigrate, Briusov seemed to be the most consistent supporter of the October upheaval, in which he saw a transformative historic event. In 1920 he became a member of the Communist Party and was very active in the People’s Commissariat for Education, acting as the head of its pri... |
13
Narkompros (the People’s Commissariat for Education) was charged with the administration of public education and most other issues related to culture, until it was transformed into the Ministry of Education in 1946. Since the early days of its formation (November 1917) Narkompros gained control over the content of... |
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Olga Sobolev
Arts until his death in 1924. Briusov edited the first edition of the Soviet
Encyclopaedia and supported young proletarian writers (such as, for instance, Andrei Platonov), prioritising their work over the aestheticism of his fellow modernist authors (... |
15
In Briusov’s words, Mandel′shtam’s poetry, ‘cut off from contemporary life, from social and political interests, cut off from the problems of contemporary science, from the search for contemporary world view’, had nothing to offer. Valerii
Briusov, ‘Vtoraia kniga’, Pechat’ i revoliutsiia, 6 (1923), 63–66 (p. 66)... |
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129
5. Aleksandr Blok in the Changing Russian Literary Canon
else isolate oneself from humiliation — that is to say politics and “social activities”’), he now accepted several administrative posts.19 From 1918 to 1921 he worked as a lecturer at the Journalism School, a... |
19
Aleksandr Blok, letter to his mother, 13 April 1909, in Aleksandr Blok, Sobranie sochinenii, 8 vols., edited by V. N. Orlov, A. A. Surkov and K. I. Chukovskii
(Moscow-Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1960–1963), VIII, 281.
20
V. L. Shepelev and V. N. Liubimov, ‘“On budet pisat′ stikhi protiv nas”. Pravd... |
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130
Olga Sobolev
reproduced and disseminated as an expression, or more precisely as an artefact, of the state approved culture. This fact in no way compromises the value of Blok’s oeuvre; but the mechanism of his canonisation requires a more in-depth consideration in th... |
Considering the official canon, shaped through the mechanisms of censorship and education, it is worth bearing in mind that starting from the mid-1920s, Soviet Russia had begun to reconfigure the platform of its cultural agenda. Trotskii’s idea of a world-wide revolution had been gradually phased out; and in 1925 the P... |
vindication of the past and a re-establishment of the concept of cultural heritage.26
The new focus referred to continuity and tradition, and Blok fitted nicely into the scheme. Due to his considerable output and the broad thematic spectrum of his oeuvre, his legacy presented a vast store of material for the Soviet pr... |
26
David Elliot, New Worlds: Russian Art and Society 1900–1937 (London: Thames and
Hudson Ltd., 1986), pp. 22–26.
27
Within the framework of partiinost’ (party-mindedness), any literary work was considered from a purely political perspective, comprising such aspects as a selective approach to the content, which wa... |
132
Olga Sobolev
however, he lacked the necessary political consciousness to embrace the principles of socialist art.
It is true that Blok’s poetry was by nature less esoteric, simpler, and, perhaps, less abstract than that of some other Silver Age authors. Over the years he evinced an extraordinary ability to evok... |
Blok challenged the intelligentsia’s assumption of their shared identity with, and their leading position towards, the Russian people, and appealed to them to surrender their high culture to the popular stikhiinost′ (element). He himself also tried to break out of the artificially created world of aestheticism towards ... |
Although he pursued this vocation with almost suicidal sincerity, fervour and dedication (for his world had always been the world of absolutes), his yearning for a simple life was constantly undercut by profound depression and despair, his feeling of spiritual emptiness and isolation, as well as his disgust in the face... |
As regards the Revolution, during the last period of his creative work, Blok did put forward some political comments, pondering on the messianic destiny of the country, in Vozmezdie (Retribution, 1910–1921) and ‘Skify’ (‘The Scythians’, 1918). Influenced by Solov′ev’s doctrines, he had vague apocalyptic apprehensions a... |
Blok’s poetic inspiration, manifesting itself in his two best-known poems ‘Skify’ and Dvenadtsat′ (The Twelve, 1918).
In Dvenadtsat′, Blok included some eloquent poetic speculation on the meaning of the Revolution in the relentless spiral of human history.
It depicts a group of twelve Red Army soldiers (a clear allus... |
33
For a modern interpretation of the finale of Dvenadtsat′, see Sergei Averintsev et al.,
‘Final “Dvenadtsati” — vzgliad iz 2000 goda’, Znamia, 11 (2000), 190–206.
34
Sergei Hackel, The Poet and the Revolution: Aleksandr Blok’s ‘The Twelve’ (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975).
35
Blok, Sobranie sochinenii, III, 34... |
Dvenadtsat′ entered the school curriculum as ‘the first poem of the October Revolution in Soviet literature’.40 For years it became a trademark of the poet; and for many it remained the only piece of Blok’s writing that they actually knew. It was largely due to Dvenadtsat′ that
Blok has never been effaced from the pal... |
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Olga Sobolev
handbooks (republished in the 1980s), she expended significant effort in securing Blok’s place in the canon through education. Rybnikova was a long-term admirer of the Russian symbolist poets, and her particular sphere of interest was focused on Blok. S... |
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5. Aleksandr Blok in the Changing Russian Literary Canon
mentioning the works of Viktor Zhirmunskii and Vladimir Orlov,
Pavel Gromov and Dmitrii Maksimov, and the detailed analysis of his prosody and poetics by Mikhail Gasparov, as well as the works of the
Tartu-... |
44
V. F. Asmus, ‘Filosofiia i estetika russkogo simvolizma’, Izbrannye filosofskie trudy, 2 vols. (Moscow: Moscow University, 1969), I, 187–237; Iu. N. Davydov,
Begstvo ot svobody. Filosofskoe mifotvorchestvo i literaturnyi avangard (Moscow:
Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1978) also contributed to the area.
45
V. ... |
The second reason was directly related to the dominance of state censorship in the Soviet cultural field, which meant that scholarly works that focused primarily on textual analysis and literary techniques enjoyed a somewhat higher degree of freedom of expression, remote from ideological and political concerns. This pa... |
46
Orlov, ‘Literaturnoe nasledstvo Aleksandra Bloka’, p. 560.
47
Prior to the 1960s edition of Blok’s collected works (8 vols.), his letters were released sporadically and in various editions: Pis’ma Aleksandra Bloka, edited by S.
M. Solov’ev, G. I. Chulkov, A. D. Skaldin and V. N. Kniazhnin (Leningrad: Kolos,
1... |
As regards Blok’s position and function within this kind of alternative, and essentially dissenting canon, these can be best understood by looking closely into the processes of its configuration and the contingencies of its subsequent transmission and preservation. One of the factors to be taken into account is the his... |
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Olga Sobolev
can be said about the symbolist poems of Blok that were produced in
Petrograd by the Alkonost publishing house.
Another relevant factor is that up until the 1960s, quite a f... |
Русь, опоясана реками
И дебрями окружена,
С болотами и журавлями,
И с мутным взором колдуна.52
51
Kornei Chukovskii, Sovremenniki. Portrety i etiudy (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia,
1967), p. 250.
52
Blok, Sobranie sochinenii, II, 99.
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All... |
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Olga Sobolev
И такая могучая сила
Зачарованный голос влечет,
Будто там впереди не могила,
А таинственной лестницы взлет.56
And such a compelling power
Draws the bewitched voice on,
As if ahead there were no grave,
But a flight of mysterious stairs.
Maiako... |
56
Anna Akhmatova, Sochineniia, 2 vols., edited by M. M. Kralin (Moscow: Tsitadel’,
1997), I, 284; translated by Judith Hemschemeyer, The Complete Poems of Anna
Akhmatova, edited by Roberta Reeder, 2 vols. (Somerville: Zephyr Press, 1990), II,
685.
57
Burliuk, quoted by E. I. Naumov in his commentary to Maiakovsk... |
In other words, the representation of Blok in Soviet culture can be characterized by a so-called double exposure. The first layer, configured by the school curriculum, firmly wedded the poet to the Revolution.
It highlighted the patriotism of his lyrics; the revolutionary echoes in Dvenadtsat′; and associated his lega... |
60
V. Shcherbina, ‘O gruppe estetstvuiushchikh kosmopolitov v kino’, Iskusstvo kino, 1
(1949), 14–16 (pp. 14–15).
61
A vivid reflection of this atmosphere can be found in Stanislav Rostotskii’s 1972 film
А zori zdes’ tikhie (And the Dawns Here Are Quiet). The film is set in 1942: five young girls from the divisio... |
Renown not according to plan,
Outside schools and systems, he has not
Been foisted upon us by man.
The fact that Blok was canonised by the Russian intelligentsia as an expression of its self-image is in no way coincidental. The poet had always identified himself with and had a troubled attitude towards the intellige... |
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145
5. Aleksandr Blok in the Changing Russian Literary Canon
sister and wife’, and places himself in the role of that wife’s lover by repeatedly stressing his status as ‘a member of the intelligentsia’.64
According to Mints, the same type of identification is reflecte... |
The feelings of self-doubt, ethical questioning, and reflection are, evidently, a constant factor in intellectual life, not least in that of the
Russian intelligentsia. During the decades of Soviet power their old task of moral criticism and articulating national ideals acquired a new vitality in opposition to the reg... |
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Olga Sobolev
abandonment, introspective reflection, despair and self-loathing — had a distinct parallel in Blok’s own social and cultural position, turning him ipso facto into a canonical icon of the intelligentsia’s views. His legacy (as well as his own image) bega... |
69
D. S. Merezhkovskii, Sobranie sochinenii, 4 vols., edited by O. Mikhailov (Moscow:
Pravda, 1990).
70
S. N. Broitman, Russkaia lirika XIX — nachala XX veka v svete istoricheskoi poetiki
(Moscow: RGGU, 1997); Vladimir Solov′ev i kul′tura Serebrianogo veka, edited by E.
A. Takho-Godi (Moscow: Nauka, 2005); S. ... |
The second issue is related to the tendency to denigrate virtually the entire artistic output promoted in Soviet Russia before Gorbachev’s years of perestroika and glasnost′. It became fashionable for iconoclastic critics to attack ‘liberal’ or ‘dissident’ writers of the socialist realist tradition from various differe... |
71
E. G. Etkind, Tam vnutri: O russkoi poezii XX veka (St Petersburg: Maksima, 1997); A.
M. Etkind, Sodom i psikheia. Ocherki intellektual′noi istorii Serebrianogo veka (Moscow:
Its-Garant, 1996), A. M. Etkind, Eros nevozmozhnogo: Istoriia psikhoanaliza v Rossii
(St Petersburg: Meduza, 1994); A. M. Etkind, Khlyst:... |
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Olga Sobolev
his writings reached an even wider audience through popular culture, when his poem ‘Devushka pela v tserkovnom khore’ (‘A Girl Sang in a Church Choir’, 1905) was used by Slavianskii Bank in a series of its commercials Poeziia v reklame (Poetry in Advert... |
73
The text in the clip using Blok’s poem (shot by Timur Bekmambetov) is read by
Vladimir Mashkov, a cult figure in Russian cinema, which added to the public appeal of the venture. The initiative of using poetry in advertising has now been picked up by another major company Mobile Tele-Systems (MTS), which in 2005 c... |
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149
5. Aleksandr Blok in the Changing Russian Literary Canon
As regards scholarly studies of Blok, this domain represents, perhaps, the most interesting terrain in terms of reconfiguration of the canon, and provides some noteworthy material on the interaction of the so... |
The general socio-political atmosphere of the early 1990s, with its prevailing nihilism, its critical attitude towards the dying system and its destructive tendencies towards communist art, facilitated a series of works that highlighted the apocryphal motifs in Blok’s writings, centred on the notion of theodicy, and on... |
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Olga Sobolev
yeah, without a cross! / Rat-a-tat-tat!’ (‘Svoboda, svoboda, / Ekh, ekh, bez kresta! / Tra-ta-ta!’).78
In Soviet literary scholarship the reading of this passage was traditionally centred on the second line; the alienation from the holy cross (‘Yeah, yeah, without a cross!’) was seen as a manifestat... |
Черный вечер.
Белый снег.
Ветер, ветер!
На ногах не стоит человек.
Ветер, ветер —
На всем божьем свете!82
78
Blok, Sobranie sochinenii, III, 349.
79
V. N. Orlov, Gamaiun: Zhizn’ Aleksandra Bloka (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel′, 1980), p. 190; L. K. Dolgopolov, Poema Bloka ‘Dvenadtsat′’ (Leningrad: Khudozhestve... |
Though invisible, the moon
Lights the flying snow while blurring
Turbid sky and night in one.
Finally, the actions of the protagonists also tied in well with the proposed reading. The disposing of the cross in the passage quoted above (‘Yeah, yeah, without the cross! / Rat-a-tat-tat!’), was seen by some scholars a... |
The beginning of the twenty-first century witnessed yet another change in the canon. With the proliferation of authoritarian trends and consolidation of power in Putin’s Russia, and with the instrumentalisation of religion as an additional mechanism of state manipulation, Blok’s writings now tend to be configured towar... |
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5. Aleksandr Blok in the Changing Russian Literary Canon
form a chapter; several chapters make up a book; every book is part of a trilogy; and this trilogy can be called a “novel in verse”’).88 These studies argue that the entire set of Blok’s poems can be characte... |
88
Blok, Sobranie sochinenii, I, 559; the same idea is mentioned in his letter to Belyi of 6
June 1911 (Blok-Belyi: Perepiska, p. 261).
89
A. I. Il′enkov, ‘O skrytoi kompozitsii liricheskoi trilogii Aleksandra Bloka’, in
Arkhetipicheskie struktury khudozhestvennogo soznaniia, edited by E. K. Sozina
(Ekaterinburg... |
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Olga Sobolev
in the definition of a canonical work. When thinking of the reasons for such a persistent interest in the development of this domain, three main factors have to be brought into the discussion. Firstly, there is a vast amount of material that has only re... |
Finally, when looking at this phenomenon from a more general perspective, one has to consider that, not unlike the post-perestroika years, the Silver Age represents a liminal stage in the history of Russian culture — a time which can be largely characterized as a deep existential crisis, and a time when poetry and art ... |
Blok has never lacked readers, but he has lacked objective critics. He has repeatedly been claimed or rejected for political or cultural-historical reasons which have little to do with his practice as a poet: innovative to the end, yet always mindful of tradition. Now that time is rolling him away, now that he stands r... |
MIND AND COSMOS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Possibility of Altruism
Mortal Questions
The View from Nowhere
What Does It All Mean?
Equality and Partiality
Other Minds
The Last Word
The Myth of Ownership (with Liam Murphy)
Concealment and Exposure
Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament
MIND AND... |
same i.:onJition on any ai.:":(Uirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publii.:ation Data
Nagd1 Thomas1 1937-
MinJ anJ i.:osmos: why the materialist neo-Darwinian i.:oni.:t!ption
of natUrt! is almost i.:ertainly false / Thomas Nagel.
P· i.:m.
ISBN 978-0-19-991975-8 (alk. paper)
1. Cosmology 2. Cosmogony. 3.... |
conducted for many years, and I am grateful to him and to the other
ix
PREFACE
participants for their help. In view of the unorthodoxy of the result,
I hope these thanks will not give offense.
During the writing of the book I received research support from
the Filomen D'Agostino and Max E. Greenberg Faculty... |
scientific understanding. Scientists are well aware of how much they
MIND AND COSMOS
don't know, but this is a different kind of problem-not just of
acknowledging the limits of what is actually understood but of
trying to recognize what can and cannot in principle be understood
by certain existing methods.
... |
relation of mind to the physical world, I believe the weight of
!. For a clear statement, see Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1992) 1 chapter 3.
4
INTRODUCTION
evidence favors some form of neutral monism over the traditional
alternatives of materialism, idealism, and dual... |
common sense.
2. See Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design (New York: Norton, 1986)1 for a canonical exposition, which seems to convince practically everyone.
MIND AND COSMOS
I would like to defend the untutored reaction of incredulity to
the redu... |
selection, once reproducing organisms have come into existence.
However, since the questions concern highly specific events over a
3. For an illuminating account of Darwin's own views about the most basic forms of explanation, see Elliott Sober, "Darwin's Discussions of God;' in Did Darwin Write the "Origin"
Backw... |
My project has the familiar form of trying to meet a set of conditions that seem jointly impossible. In addition to antireductionism,
two further constraints are important: first, an assumption that
certain things are so remarkable that they have to be explained as nonaccidental if we are to pretend to a real under... |
principles on which the process depends.
The question is whether we can integrate this perspective with
that of the physical sciences as they have been developed for a mindless universe. The understanding of mind cannot be contained
within the personal point of view, since mind is the product of a
partly physic... |
With regard to the origin of life, the problem is much harder, since
4. See Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 77-86. Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
argue in the first part of their book What Darwin Got Wrong (New York: Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, 2010) that Darwinian evolutionary theory assigns much too muc... |
of nucleotide sequences into amino acids, together with mechanisms
that can read the code and carry out its instructions-seems particularly resistant to being revealed as probable given physical law alone.5
In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by
criticisms of the prevailing scientific world p... |
8. There are also criticisms of current theories from those who nevertheless expect a reductive solution; for example Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth (New York: Summit Books, 1986); Shapiro, "A Simpler Origin for Life," Scientific
American, February 12, 2007. A very clear ex... |
the scientific project rather than a well-confirmed scientific
hypothesis.
he assumes this is a task for chemistry, he does say (287 ), ''A real potential exists that current theory will never solve the problem at hand, keeping open the possibility for a true revolution in the related and surrounding sciences:' Of ... |
more unifying explanation than the design hypothesis. I disagree
with the defenders of intelligent design in their assumption, one
which they share with their opponents, that the only naturalistic
alternative is a reductionist theory based on physical laws of the type
with which we are familiar. Nevertheless, I... |
thought, and value can be accommodated in a universe consisting at
the most basic level only of physical facts-facts, however sophisticated, of the kind revealed by the physical sciences.
I will use the terms "materialism" or "materialist naturalism" to
refer to one side of this conflict and "antireductionism" to... |
that a reductive materialism can apply even in biology, and therefore
reason to doubt that materialism can give an adequate account even
of the physical world. I want to explore the case for this breakdown,
and to consider whether anything positive by way of a world view is
imaginable in the wake of it.
We an... |
qualia, meanings, intentions, values, reasons, beliefs, and desires to
the otherwise magnificently unified mathematical order of the physical universe. But this does not answer to the desire for a general
understanding of how things fit together. A genuine alternative to
the reductionist program would require an ... |
world in which we find ourselves, and about which experience gives
us some information, can be not only described but understood.
That assumption is behind every pursuit of knowledge, including
pursuits that end in illusion. In the natural sciences as they have
developed since the seventeenth century, the assum... |
and that if many things, even the most universal, initially seem arbitrary, that is because there are further things we do not know, which
explain why they are not arbitrary after all.
The view that rational intelligibility is at the root of the natural
order makes me, in a broad sense, an idealist-not a subjecti... |
there other forms of understanding that can render intelligible what
physical science does not explain?
But first we should consider the view that there are no such limits-that physical law has the resources to explain everything,
including the double relation of mind to the natural order. The intelligibility (to... |
time is therefore the route to the most fundamental explanation of
everything.
Physics and chemistry have pursued this aim with spectacular
success. But the great step forward in the progress of the materialist
conception toward the ideal of completeness was the theory of
evolution, later reinforced and enric... |
in particular have been left behind for good as fundamental forms of
understanding. It is assumed not only that the natural order is intelligible but that its intelligibility has a certain form, being found in
the simplest and most unified physical laws, governing the simplest
and fewest elements, from which all ... |
expressed as theism, in its aspect as an explanation of the existence
and character of the natural world. It is the most straightforward way
of reversing the materialist order of explanation, which explains mind
as a consequence of physical law; instead, theism makes physical law
a consequence of mind.
Consid... |
world picture seem to me to be real. There are things that science as
presently conceived does not help us to understand, and which we
can see, from the internal features of physical science, that it is not
going to explain. They seem to call for a more uncompromisingly
mentalistic or even normative form of und... |
the world we cannot ourselves fully share, but which makes it possible to believe that the world is intelligible, even if not to us. The form
of this transcendent understanding is conceived by extrapolation
from the natural psychological self-understanding we have of our
own intentions. Evolutionary naturalism, b... |
evolved by natural selection can be expected to be generally reliable
in leading us to true beliefs.
Neither of these proposals provides a defense against radical skepticism-the possibility that our beliefs about the world are
systematically false. Such a defense would inevitably be circular,
since any confiden... |
explanation of our capacities, and naturalism does not offer a sufficiently reassuring one.
A theistic account has the advantage over a reductive naturalistic
one that it admits the reality of more of what is so evidently the
case, and tries to explain it all. But even if theism is filled out with
the doctrines... |
not be the kind of understanding that explains how beings like us fit
into the world. The kind of intelligibility that would still be missing
is intelligibility of the natural order itself-intelligibility from
within. That kind of intelligibility may be compatible with some
forms of theism-if God creates a self... |
capacities to create a system that will make sense of the rest. We rely on
evolutionary theory to analyze and evaluate everything from our
logical and probabilistic cognition to our moral sense. This reflects the
view that empirical science is the one secure, privileged form of
understanding and that we can tru... |
particular, it does not explain why we are justified in relying on
them to correct other cognitive dispositions that lead us astray,
though they may be equally natural, and equally susceptible to
evolutionary explanation. The evolutionary story leaves the authority of reason in a much weaker position. This is eve... |
shaken so easily (and, I would add, cannot be shaken on these sorts of
grounds without a kind of false consciousness).
It seems reasonable to run the test equally in the opposite direction: namely, to evaluate hypotheses about the universe and how we
have come into existence by reference to ordinary judgments in ... |
is what P. F. Strawson calls "descriptive metaphysics,"6 and it has
much in common with Wittgenstein's antimetaphysical conception
of the proper task of philosophy.
But while internal understanding is certainly valuable, and an
essential precondition of a more transcendent project, I don't see
how we can stop ... |
6. See P. F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Methuen, 1959 ).
7. I am very much in sympathy with the following statement by Jaegwon Kim: "Metaphysics is the domain where different languages, theories, explanations, and conceptual systems come together and have their mutual ontologi... |
naturalistic account nor a Cartesian theistic one. The existence of
conscious minds and their access to the evident truths of ethics and
mathematics are among the data that a theory of the world and our
place in it has yet to explain. They are clearly part of what is the case,
just as much as the data about the... |
on earth, but no natural fact is cosmologically more significant.
However much we come to understand, as we are in the process of
doing, the chemical basis of life and of its evolution, the phenomenon still calls for a greatly expanded basis for intelligibility.
To sum up: the respective inadequacies of materiali... |
power, is only part of the truth, and that the natural order is far less
austere than it would be if physics and chemistry accounted for
everything. If we take this problem seriously, and follow out its
implications, it threatens to unravel the entire naturalistic world
picture. Yet it is very difficult to imag... |
successes in explaining so much of the natural order. These successes
have so far taken the form of reduction followed by reconstruction:
discovering the basic elements of which everything is composed and
showing how they combine to yield the complexity we observe.
It has become clear that our bodies and centra... |
of God-to the logical positivists, who analyzed the physical world as
a construction out of sense data. Then, in a rapid historical shift whose
causes are somewhat obscure, idealism was largely displaced in later
twentieth-century analytic philosophy by attempts at unification in
the opposite direction, startin... |
All these strategies are essentiallyverificationist, ie., they assume
that all that needs to be said about the content of a mental statement
is what would verify or confirm it, or warrant its assertion, from the
point of view of an observer. In one way or another, they reduce
mental attributions to the external... |
pain or a taste sensation and<!> is the corresponding physical event
in the central nervous system). Since this is not a conceptual truth,
it cannot be known a priori; it is supposed to be a theoretical identity, like "Water= H 20," and can be confirmed only by the future
development of science.
The trouble is ... |
anything nonphysical in accounting for the reference of"pain:'4
These strategies have taken increasingly sophisticated form,
under the headings of causal behaviorism, functionalism, and other
theories of how mental concepts could refer to states of the brain in
virtue of the causal role of those states in contr... |
40
CONSCIOUSNESS
senses. The intrinsic properties of water, its density, electrical conductivity, index of refraction, liquidity between o and 100 degrees centigrade, etc., are all fully explained by Hp and its properties. The
physical properties ofH20 are by themselves sufficient for water.
So if '¥ really is ... |
7. See Paul K. Feyerabend, "Mental Events and the Brain;' Journal of Philosophy 60 (1963):
295-96.
41
MIND AND COSMOS
the inadequacy of our present concepts.8 Major scientific advances
often require the creation of new concepts, postulating unobservable elements of reality that are needed to explain how natur... |
End of preview. Expand in Data Studio
THEORY SOONibus (#1)
May be used for Continuous Pretraining, such as via this NOTEBOOK
An eclectic selection from the library of books, articles, papers, and varied textual curios I've amassed over the years.
Contains works in English, Russian, and French, including a wealth of critical theory, philosophy, translation theory, comparative literature, literary ethics, radical/revolutionary politics (mainly Marxist-Leninist, Libertarian Communist, Anarchist, Situationist, AltWoke/PostWoke, or Post-Anarchist), psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, mathematics, computer science, deep learning, history, and much more!
Hopefully this collection might contribute, even if ever-so-minutely, to the emergence of more ideationally prescient, versatile, and challenging models/agents.
For those who've stumbled on this whilst searching around for datasets, models, spaces, or anything at all of a more radical ilk on here, I may offer some suggestions:
pkd/marxism-medium| {train} column | 85,200 itemsallura-org/the-anarchist-library| {text} column | 7700 items | (by Allura-MOE, a "a queer/trans/plural-run AI-finetuning collective")sweatSmile/marx-dataset| 1000 rows | SCHEMA:Conversations | Sample: [ { "from": "human", "value": "When was the Manifesto of the Communist Party written?" }, { "from": "assistant", "value": "Late 1847." } ]- Deleuze Thinking Machine Space/App by wisdomfunction
- The MarxGPT-2 model by pkd
- Various models + datasets by the highly disciplined vanguardists of WokeAI
- My yesteryearly agitprop generation LoRAs, like this one, made for the Revolutionary Communists of America
- Speaking of RCA, check it out HERE
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