Books
Here is a somewhat disorganized collection of posts pertaining to books: quotes, recommendations, and reading-based thoughts. There is a book list on my SpiroLattic user page.
Things Read...
Friday, November 24, 2000 *
I've finished reading the Chronicles or Narnia (by C. S. Lewis). It must be at least the fifth time I'm reading them.
Another author who has kept me company lately is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I read One Hundred Years of Solitude a year or two back (it kept me breathless), and during my week-end in England I finished Love in the Time of Cholera.
Le monde du langage des signes
Vendredi 24 novembre 2000 *
Si j'attends d'avoir écrit une critique complète de chaque livre avant de vous le recommander, je risque bien de ne jamais le faire...
Il est temps de se jeter à l'eau!
Des yeux pour entendre par Oliver Sacks.
Critiques sur epinions.com (anglais).
Ce livre est une formidable présentation monde des sourds. Il explore en profondeur les caractéristiques du langage des signes comme langue, et son influence sur le développement et l'épanouissement de ceux qui le parlent.
Un avertissement, toutefois: on court le risque de s'inscrire à des cours une fois le livre terminé!
Oliver Sachs: Des yeux pour entendre
The world of sign language
Friday, November 24, 2000 *
If I wait to write complete reviews of books before recommending them to you, I might never do it.
Let's get going!
Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks.
Reviews on epinions.com.
This book is a great introduction to the world of the deaf. It explores in depth the characteristics of Sign as a language, and its influence on the mind and development of those who use it.
A word of warning, however: you might find yourself taking up classes to learn Sign by the end of the book!
Oliver Sachs: Seeing Voices
Intelligence émotionnelle
Mardi 28 novembre 2000 *
L'intelligence émotionnelle par Daniel Goleman.
Critiques sur epinions.com (anglais) - autres liens à ce sujet
Je me méfie beaucoup des best-sellers américains, surtout lorsqu'ils sont garnis d'une couverture qui fait "psychologie à deux sous". Ne vous laissez pas berner, cet ouvrage est bien plus profond que sa couverture!
Goleman explique en quoi notre aptitude à gérer notre vie émotionnelle et nos relations avec autrui joue un rôle bien plus important en ce qui concerne notre "réussite" dans la vie (sociale, professionelle, affective, santé...) que les capacités dites "intellectuelles" que l'on mesure et développe à l'école.
J'ai compris beaucoup de choses intéressantes sur moi-même en lisant ce livre, et je suis loin d'être une novice en ce qui concerne l'introspection et l'auto-analyse psychologique... ; )
Daniel Goleman: L'intelligence émotionnelle
Emotional Intelligence
Tuesday, November 28, 2000 *
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.
Reviews on epinions.com - related links
I'm often suspicious of american best-sellers, especially in the domain of psychology. Don't let yourself be fooled like I almost was: this book is far from shallow.
It explains how and why skills in the emotional realm play a far more important role in our lives than pure intellect (be it in school, at work, with family, or dealing with illness) - even though the development of these skills is not coached in any way, and left to chance.
I understood quite a few things about myself while reading this book - and I'm not particularly thick when it comes to introspection and psychological analysis : )
Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence
The Baby Book
Wednesday, January 17, 2001 *
Miss Pea's last post about her sleepless baby got me hunting around the web.
In India, I had read this great childcare book of Aleika's, but unfortunately I forgot the name of the author. I'm happy to say I have dug out all the useful information for you.
The Baby Book was written by William and Martha Sears. They advocate Attachment Parenting - which can be brought down to these main points:
- breastfeeding
- responding to baby's cues
- wearing the baby
- sharing sleep
The last point is of course very much frowned upon in our modern western society (by the way, the only one in history to have such a weird conception of child-rearing...). Even when I manage to explain to my friends all the advantages for the baby and the parents, it always comes down to the final question: what about sex?
Dr. Sears' site has a mine of very interesting information on parenting, of course.
You can also find info and links to articles on the Muslim attachment parenting page, although the site might be a little hard on your eyes and your browser.
William & Martha Sears: The Baby Book
Maeterlinck
Samedi 20 janvier 2001 *
Je suis en train de préparer un séminaire de littérature française sur le Cosmos chez Maurice Maeterlinck, auteur belge du tournant du siècle.
Si l'on entend parler de lui, c'est principalement pour la première partie de son théâtre, qualifié de "symboliste". Il a cependant produit dans la deuxième partie de sa vie toute une série d'essais "philosophiques", dans lesquels il développe une vision de l'homme, du monde et du cosmos teintée de parapsychologie.
Ayant enfin réalisé que mes recherches à son sujet (tant sur internet qu'à la bibliothèque) n'aboutissaient pas puisque je m'obstinais à écrire son nom "Maeterlink", j'ai pu constater qu'on ne fait pas plus honneur à ses essais on-line. Dommage.
La ressource la plus intéressante que j'ai déterrée est finalement celle de la médiathèque de la communauté française de belgique
Au début de son théâtre, Maeterlinck montre l'homme pris sous le poids de forces qui le dépassent. Une forme de "destin", si l'on veut bien. Si le "pessimisme" qui accompagne cette vision du monde s'estompe dans la suite de son oeuvre, il en reste l'idée d'une force inconnue qui régit l'univers et les hommes, d'une unité fondamentale.
C'est cette idée qui pointe dans ses essais tardifs, en rapport avec la quatrième dimension, l'éther, l'espace-temps, la gravitation, l'infinité de l'univers et son inconnaissabilité. Elle nous ramène finalement dans la "métapsychique" et au concept d'une intelligence "commune" sous-jacente aux êtres individuels.
Tout ceci est bien entendu très approximatif... il y a encore du pain sur la planche!
Gender Issues
Samedi 20 janvier 2001 *
Women's Work : The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber is a book of Aleika's that I read in India, and that I started reading again this afternoon during Akirno's nap.
This book is definately a must-read for anybody interested in gender issues, textiles, prehistory, anthropology or women.
Elizabeth Wayland Barber's account of women's work with textiles throughout the times makes a fascinating read. It is amazing how much information from our past can be deduced from a few bits of string or cloth.
The author's basic assumption is that the division of labour between men and women is mainly related to childbearing, as explained in Judith K. Brown's little "Note on the Division of Labor by Sex". The fact that women bear the children and are sole capable of breastfeeding has an impact on the type of task that the community can rely on women to do (which doesn't mean—and this is often a point of misunderstanding—that women would not be able to do the tasks that the society relies on men to do).
I think that in today's rush towards equality, this is an issue which is sometimes rather hastily walked past by some - especially in this age of formula bottles, cribs, pacifiers, prams, nurseries and tv-baby-sitting.
Certainly, a woman doing the same job as a man should earn the same salary. There is no question for me about that. I don't either think that women should stay at home doing nothing but cook and sew and raise the children. But women and men will never occupy the same place in society. Some jobs will always be occupied by men rather than women. Women will always bear and nurse the children.
A man with a young child can technically hold a management job which keeps him in the office 70 hours a week. A woman with a nursing baby can difficultly do the same thing, can she? And even if she did so before her maternity break, how much time will go by before she is up to it again? And - maybe more important - what consequences are there for the child's development when her mother goes rushing back to her busy life after 12 small weeks of mat' leave?
Do you still wonder that more men than women occupy this kind of position? I don't.
Elizabeth Wayland Barber: Women's Work : The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
Hypothesis
Thursday, April 19, 2001 *
As you might have noticed by peeking at the sidebar, I'm currently reading The Web of Belief (W.V.O. Quine & J.S. Ullian). It is a little study of rational belief. What makes us believe this or that is true? How are our beliefs held together? What makes us give up one belief for another?
Truth and even reasonable beliefs cannot be deduced solely from observation or self-evident truths. In science as well as everyday life, we frame hypotheses to help hold together our web of beliefs. A hypothesis would explain, if it were true, some things that we already believe.
Hypothesis, where successful, is a two-way street, extending back to explain the past and forward to predict the future. What we try to do in framing hypotheses is to explain some otherwise unexplained happenings by inventing a plausible story, a plausible description or history of relevant portions of the world.
Five virtues count in favor of a hypothesis:
- conservatism of existing beliefs
- modesty - as opposed to extravagance
- simplicity
- generality
- refutability
I find these are interesting criteria to measure one's beliefs about the world upon.
W.V.O. Quine & J.S. Ullian: The Web of Belief
Paroles
Sunday, June 03, 2001 *
[...] l'enfant qui se tait est mille fois plus sage que Marc-Aurèle qui parle. Et cependant, si Marc-Aurèle n'avait pas écrit les douze livres de ses Méditations, une partie des trésors ignorés que notre enfant renferme ne serait pas la même.
Maurice Maeterlinck: introduction à "Fragments" de Novalis
Paroles
Sunday, June 03, 2001 *
Car il n'est pas normal d'être mort aujourd'hui, et ceci est nouveau. Etre mort est une anomalie impensable, toutes les autres sont inoffensives en regard de celle-ci. La mort est une délinquance, une déviance incurable. Plus de lieu ni d'espace/temps affecté aux morts, leur séjour est introuvable, les voilà rejetés dans l'utopie radicale - même plus parqués: volatilisés.
Jean Baudrillard: L'échange symbolique et la mort
Paroles
Sunday, June 03, 2001 *
Notre soif de justice vient uniquement de l'idée anthropomorphe que nous nous faisons de Dieu.
*
Le libre arbitre et la préscience divine sont ou universelle sont inconciliables.
*
Chercher Dieu, c'est se chercher sur les hauteurs.
*
Maurice Maeterlinck: L'ombre des ailes
Flot
Sunday, June 03, 2001 *
L'intégralité de l'oeuvre de Maeterlinck a été mise à l'Index, si jamais vous aviez des doutes. Ils ne sont pas beaucoup à avoir eu cet "honneur".
Maurice Maeterlinck: L'ombre des ailes
Génie
Sunday, June 10, 2001 *
Depuis ma plus tendre enfance, j'ai la vicieuse tournure d'esprit de me considérer comme différent du commun des mortels. Cela aussi est en train de me réussir.
*
Les ânes voudraient que j'observe pour moi-même les conseils que je proclame pour les autres. C'est impossible puisque moi je suis complètement différent...
Salvador Dali: Journal d'un génie
Tableaux
Sunday, June 10, 2001 *
Le fait que moi-même, au moment de peindre, je ne comprenne pas la signification de mes tableaux, ne veut pas dire que ces tableaux n'ont aucune signification: au contraire leur signification est tellement profonde, complexe, cohérente, involontaire, qu'elle échappe à la simple analyse de l'intuition logique.
Salvador Dali: Oui
Dans les camps
14 août 01 *
Je suis en train de lire Si c'est un homme de Primo Levi. Récit de camp de concentration, lecture difficile — peut-être à cause d'une sensibilité fragilisée par ce voyage — durant laquelle j'ai dû quoi qu'il en soit à plusieurs reprises poser le livre quelques minutes avant de pouvoir continuer mon chemin à travers ces mots disant tant de souffrance et d'humiliation.
Le plus dur est ce constat de Primo Levi qui se dessine au fil des pages: ce n'est pas le meilleur qui survit au camp, ni le plus digne, ni le plus courageux. Le camp pervertit l'humanité, et pour y survivre, il faut intégrer cette perversion. Etre un bon travailleur de camp qui "fait ses heures" et "se contente de sa ration", c'est se destiner à finir plutôt tôt que tard sous forme d'un petit tas de cendres. Les valeurs morales de notre société ne peuvent plus s'appliquer, et c'est le règne de la dé-solidarité.
Primo Levi attribue les principales raisons de sa survie à la chance et au hasard, et même si au fond je sais à quel point le hasard joue dans nos vies, je ne peux me résoudre à l'accepter. Je crois bien trop fort que nous sommes maîtres de nos destins, et que le cas échéant, une providence doit veiller sur nous. Le fait que la vie ou la mort dépende du hasard me révolte.
Mis à part le fait qu'en tant que femme, j'aurais eu bien peu de chances de finir dans un camp de travail, je ne peux m'empêcher de me demander si donné les circonstances, j'aurais fait partie des élus ou des damnés. Et bien pire, je ne puis décider ce qui eût été préférable...
Primo Levi: Si c'est un homme
Child Sexual Abuse in India
26 August 01 *
I've finished reading another disturbing book. After the concentration camps of World War II and Partition, here comes Bitter Chocolate by Pinki Virani - a study on Child Sexual Abuse in India.
One out of four boys. Four out of ten girls. In all social classes, from lower to upper. By aggressors of same or different sex. The rare comlaints filed take years to reach court. More often than not, they are dismissed for lack of conclusive evidence.
My new "punchline" for India is The Country of Red Tape. Related, this example of Indian logic, excerped from Pinki Virani's book.
A young boy is abused in his school by a summer meditation class teacher. The parents refuse to report the case to the police. Another parent, a lawyer, alarmed by the fact that this same teacher has been invited to give classes in his son's own school, decides to write to the police commissioner, detailing the whole incident.
On 25 October 1999, Raju Zunzarrao Moray gets a visitor from the police station near his residence.
The police officer tells him, 'Your complaint to the police commissioner has come to us. We were well aware of the incident but no one came forward to register it as a case. This is the first written complaint on the matter, so you are our First Informant. Therefore, we will have to start our investigations with you first.'
All right, is Raju Moray's reaction, but then what.
'After investigating you, we will investigate everyone else.'
'Okay,' says Raju Moray, 'but just remember that I was not an eyewitness to even the boy who came home hurt. You need to speak with the boy's family.'
'We will.'
A doubt flickers in Raju Moray's mind. 'By now the boy has gone back to Pune. Suppose his family here says nothing of the sort happened.'
'Then it will be assumed that you have made a false complaint.'
'What absolute nonsense!'
'Not nonsense; it is a serious matter to make a false complaint.'
'But it is not a false complaint.'
'If you cannot prove it, it is; also, then you have no business to unnecessarily clutter up our files and cause us unnecessary hardship.'
Raju Moray re-starts the conversation, 'Listen, let us assume—correctly, since I know what they have decided—that the boy's grandfather says that there was no incident. Then what?'
'Then we will call you to the police station to question you on why you filed a false complaint.'
'But it is not... oh all right, then what happens?'
'Then we will call you, and we will call you again for questioning, as and when the need arises.'
'I have to go to court you know, I have to be available for my clients and my practice. You should at least tell me when you would call me, I cannot come in the mornings, I can after court during the evenings. And, obvioulsy, I see no reason to come every day to simply sit in the police station.'
'Then it is better you write a letter saying you are withdrawing your complaint so that we can close the file.'
'But you have not even opened a case till now because no case has been filed. Where is the question of closing an un-opened file?'
'These are technical matters; better you just say in a letter you are withdrawing your complaint.'
Please do read this very sensible book. Awareness is what is needed first - and your awareness could make the difference for someone. Whether or not you are in India or Indian.
Pinki Virani: Bitter Chocolate
Things Read...
Friday, September 07, 2001 *
I'm running out of books to read. During the last couple of weeks, I have been devouring them like the bookworm I once was - and it is a very satisfying feeling.
After Pinki Virani's book, I swallowed up Jhoompa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies - a very nice collection of short stories.
I followed with Naipaul - India: A Wounded Civilization. An astounding but somewhat depressing essay on Indian culture. A book that I will put at the top of my list of recommended reading for anyone who wants to try and understand India - from inside or out. I have a good mind to read it again and summarize its main lines of thought for you; but you're going to read it all the same, aren't you?
The next in line is called Ladies Coupé. Through the train journey of a woman who has never married because she has worked all her life to support her family, we are allowed into the lives of these six women who find themselves together in the ladies coupe. Six different lives, six different stories.
After quickly going through a small collection of science fiction stories my roommate had brought with her, I went begging around for something to read. I was handed the first of the Harry Potter books, which I read from cover to cover in the space of an evening and a morning. I'm not one to fall for crazes and cults, but I'll definitely read the other ones.
I hope there is a good bookstore in Haridwar.
More Bitter Chocolate
13 September 01 *
Here are some more extracts from Bitter Chocolate.
*
'What can it be called,' she [Vidya Apte of Terre des Hommes] asks, 'when they marry off young girls, except Child Sexual Abuse?' A socially sanctioned environment which crushes the girl-child as she grows: that mother hood can be her only mission, that she therefore has to be 'married off' at the soonest possible legal age even if she is not mentally or emotionally ready for it. What kind of mother can such a child herself make? Most research clearly states that men do not have an in-built 'father touch', they have to actively work on it if they genuinely want to be decent fathers. Young men—nor older ones, for that matter—are not expected to be fathers in the complete sense anyway. But young mothers are expected to 'mother' from the time they are born. Most research also proves that 'natural motherhood' is a myth, there is no such thing as 'mother pangs', except for social pressure. A woman feels 'motherly' only from the third or fourth month of her pregnancy and this is a primal feel which continues for the infant's food and physical protection. There is no other in-built manual on child-rearing in a young mother who is otherwise bewildered, exhausted and very alone. What kind of 'complete' mother can she make to another child?
*
'From childhood women are geing primed to expect too much from marriage and motherhood and too little from anything else,' says Prasanne Invally of Susamvaad which is developing 'marriage workshops' in Marathi. 'Boy children are primed to expect everything from their wives in the marriage, and not give too much if anything at all.' The workshops Susamvaad has conducted till now reveal young couples—about to get married—coming in with 'they lived happily ever after' dreams because the partner is being expected to heavily 'adjust'.
*
Explains Dr Shalini Bharat of the Family Studies unit of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, 'We have a sacrosanct view of the family in our country, even if it teems with strains within. In such a structure human rights are not regarded as rights in the individual sense. There is a "we", but if you hear an "I" the reaction is knee-jerk even if there is only negativity in this "we-ness". Everyone is supposed to subsume their own individuality in a family, specially the women and definitely the children. Those who want to be an "I", as is the wont of the young males, have to do it outside their family structure and home. This leads to our famous Indian characteristic: the duality-and-denial syndrome. Ghar mein kuch, bahar kuch; like being "vegetarian at home". In such an environment it would be well-nigh impossible to get a family to admit that there is a horror like Child Sexual Abuse happening within the four walls of any house no matter how educated or rich or perhaps more so because the social image of the family has to be guarded. If we acknowledge Child Sexual Abuse in our middle and upper-class homes, we would have to look for reasons for this abuse within. We would then have to admit that these reasons are not as terribly complex as we would like to think. And we cannot have our families being seen as anything less than part of a great and ancient culture, can we now?'
*
[...]First there will have to be acceptance of the very existance of Child Sexual Abuse in all classes of Indian homes. And this acceptance is likely to take a very long time to come because if there is such an acceptance, it would affirm that there are a lot of adults abusing children. And then this would start to say something about Indian society. And its false facade of happy families. And the men in these families. And the kind of women who live with these men.
*
The world over fathers who have been sexually abused when they were little boys tend to sexually abuse children, their own and others, as adults.
Mothers subconsciously try very hard not to sexually abuse children, their own or others, even if they have been sexually abused when they were little girls. Instead women, specially mothers, take it out on themselves. They also physically abuse the child with slaps and other forms of beatings. They emotionally neglect them by mentally 'blanking out' their children from time-to-time; this space which the mother puts between her and her offspring is seen by psychiatrists as a desire on the part of the mother not to hurt her children the way she was hurt by her elders.
*
Well, has there ever been a time when fathers, along with their wives, have not impressed upon their sons, almost conditioned them into thinking, that they—the male—possess that magnificent trump card: the power of choice? Mothers tell their daughters only this: the male will come and choose from a sea of simpering young girls like you; on a white charger he will come and whisk you off your feet, please perfect the art of simpering till he arrives.
The male and his magnificent trump card: that power of choice. So now, before he 'settles down', and even during and after, he also chooses little boys. But will this be enough proof for the parents of young males that they need to explain to their sons that they need to behave with other mothers' daughters, and other people's sons too? If those parents had done this before, maybe the statistics would not be as bad as they are today? And now that the world is turning on its head, or so it may seem to the parents of only sons, with older—and much elder—men actively seeking little boys, what should the mothers and daughters feel?
*
Prema is now a child-prostitute in Calcutta's Sonagaachi. She is not plump anymore, she has several sexual diseases including Aids. She says she never complained against her inspector-father at the police station because she knew they would suspend him and then what would her stepbrother, stepsister and stepmother eat?
Pinki Virani: Bitter Chocolate
Pottermania
Monday, January 14, 2002 *
My stepmother complains that she got the Harry Potter virus from me: I gave her the first book for Christmas, and she has now ploughed through the whole series - twice.
Unfortunately, it seems that she is not the only victim of the teenage wizard. I highly suspect they curse the books in the shops to force you to swallow them down straight in one go.
[link courtesy of the Incomparably Leaky Cauldron]
Langage: polysémie
Dimanche 20 janvier 2002 *
Lorsque je parle, je réalise seulement une partie du potentiel signifié; le reste est oblitéré par la signification totale de la phrase, qui opère comme unité de parole. Mais le reste des virtualités sémantiques n'est pas annulé, il flotte autour des mots, comme une possibilité non complètement abolie; le contexte joue donc le rôle de filtre; lorsqu'une seule dimension du sens passe par un jeu d'affinités et de renforcements entre toutes les dimensions analogues des autres termes lexicaux, un effet de sens est créé, qui peut atteindre à l'univocité parfaite, comme dans les langues techniques; c'est ainsi que nous faisons des phrases univoques avec des mots multivoques grâce à cette action de tri ou de crible du contexte; mais il arrive que la phrase soit ainsi faite qu'elle ne réussisse pas à réduire à un usage monosémique le potentiel de sens, mais qu'elle maintienne ou même crée la concurrence entre plusieurs lieux de signification; par divers procédés, le discours peut réaliser l'ambiguïté qui apparaît ainsi comme la combinaison d'un fait de lexique: la polysémie, et d'un fait de contexte: la permission laissée à plusieurs valeurs distinctes ou même opposées du même nom de se réaliser dans la même séquence.
Paul Ricœur, Le problème du double-sens (in Le conflit des interprétations)
Voilà ce que j'aime dans la langue: la polysémie. Cela fait longtemps que je frôle Ricœur à l'université, surtout dans mes cours de linguistique française. J'ai la chance de l'approcher d'un peu plus près pour mes derniers examens de philo - alors je vous en fais un peu profiter.
Langage: interprétation
Dimanche 20 janvier 2002 *
Je continue de vous faire profiter de ma lecture de Ricœur: explication du texte par sa dynamique interne, interprétation en le replaçant dans son contexte de production.
Repartons de notre analyse du texte et du statut autonome que nous lui avons reconnu par rapport à la parole et à l'échange de paroles. Ce que nous avons appelé l'occultation du monde ambiant par le quasi-monde des textes engendre deux possibilités. Nous pouvons, en tant que lecteur, rester dans le suspens du texte, le traiter comme texte sans monde et sans auteur; alors nous l'expliquons par ses rapports internes, par sa structure. Ou bien nous pouvons lever le suspens du texte, achever le texte en paroles, le restituant à la communication vivante; alors nous l'interprétons. Ces deux possibilités appartiennent toutes les deux à la lecture et la lecture est la dialectique de ces deux attitudes.
Paul Ricœur, Du texte à l'action (Qu'est-ce qu'un texte?)
Langage: explication et compréhension
Dimanche 20 janvier 2002 *
Ne vous en faites pas si c'est un peu obscur, toute cette linguistique. La crise passera, n'ayez crainte.
Une position purement dichotomique du problème consisterait à dire qu'il n'y a pas de rapport entre une analyse structurale du texte et une compréhension qui resterait fidèle à la tradition herméneutique romantique. Pour les analystes, partisans d'une explication sans compréhension, le texte serait une machine au fonctionnement purement interne auquel il ne faudrait poser aucune question — réputée psychologisante —, ni en amont du côté de l'intention de l'auteur, ni en aval du côté de la réception par un auditoire, ni même dans l'épaisseur du texte du côté d'un sens, ou d'un message distinct de la forme même, c'est-à-dire de l'entrecroisement des codes mis en œuvre par le texte. Pour les herméneutes romantiques, en revanche, l'analyse structurale procéderait d'une objectivation étrangère au message du texte inséparable lui-même de l'intention de son auteur: comprendre serait établir entre l'âme du lecteur et celle de l'auteur une communication, voire une communion, semblable à celle qui s'établit dans un dialogue face à face.
Ainsi, d'une part, au nom de l'objectivité du texte, tout rapport subjectif et intersubjectif serait éliminé par l'explication; d'autre part, au nom de la subjectivité de l'appropriation du message toute analyse objectivante serait déclarée étrangère à la compréhension.
Paul Ricœur, Du texte à l'action (Expliquer et comprendre)
Hellenistic Philosophers
Tuesday, January 22, 2002 *
As my English-speaking readers probably want challenging intellectual posts too, here is a brief little introduction to Hellenistic philosophy. More to follow, if you're lucky (and if I have the patience - the fact this is part of my exam subject might give me some, though).
Hellenistic philosophers mainly include the Sceptics (Pyrrho in particular), the Epicureans (Epicurus), and the Stoics (Zeno, Chrysippus). The Hellenistic period spans approximately 231-29 BC, which means these guys come after Plato and Aristotle - but before Christianity.
During this period, the inhabited world seems unified under Greek culture. For the citizen of Athens, the world has become large, unstable, and abrupt changes like wars and social revolution are a looming threat. Life has changed a lot: the City's rule is not in the hands of the citizens anymore (who only occupy administrative positions) - they feel more like the victims of political life.
One could say the common concern of philosophers during this period is the question of man's happiness. Let's have a closer look to some common streaks of these different philosophies:
- diagnosis: they are living in a world of trouble and anguish
- the aim of philosophy is to be a practical therapy
- happiness is defined as the absence of trouble (a negative term in greek: apatheia, ataraxia)
- the only remedy for the troubled man is philosophy (reason and rational thought)
- help man on the path to autonomy (excluding the outside world as a possible source of happiness)
- trust in human reason
Philosophy as a therapy for the soul.
Epicureanism
Wednesday, January 23, 2002 *
Here is a brief summary of the Epicurean philosophical system (adapted from Long & Sedley, The Hellenistic philosophers).
Epicureanism is divided into physics, epistemology (ie, theory of knowledge) and ethics.
As far as physics are concerned, everything which has independent existence is composed of atoms and void. Our world (and the others out there) is the accidental product of atomic collisions - there is no purpose to it, no creator or controlling deity. The soul is also an atomic conglomerate and perishes with the body.
Cognitive certainty is attainable through a combination of the senses and a set of natural conceptions and intuitions, from which we can infer the hidden nature of things (with varying degree of certainty).
We are capable of structuring our lives autonomously in acordance with the one natural good, pleasure. The pleasantness of life is maximized by eliminating fears of the unknown, recognizing the utility of mutual benefits and non-aggression, as well as mapping out the natural limits of pleasure, any attempt to exceed which is counterproductive (note here the contrast to the meaning we tend to give to "epicurean" nowadays).
The tranquillity of Epicurean enlightenment, complemented by a few simple enjoyments and underpinned by friendship with others of the same persuasion, can emulate even the paradigmatic bliss of the divinities we worship.
Langage: fiction, histoire, temps
Samedi 26 janvier 2002 *
Avant que vous vous lanciez avec courage dans le paragraphe ci-dessous, quelques mots de commentaire.
Ricœur fait remarquer la division entre œuvres ayant prétention à la vérité et œuvres de fiction. Je crois que c'est une distinction très importante. On peut flirter avec les limites, certes, mais lorsqu'un genre tente de se faire passer pour l'autre (c'est en général dans le sens fiction -> histoire), il y a malhonnêteté. C'est entre autres ceci qui m'a fait réagir comme je l'ai fait à l'affaire Kaycee Nicole.
Sous cette fracture entre histoire et fiction, il y a cependant une unité sous-jacente: le caractère temporel de l'expérience humaine que l'on peut raconter. Cela semblerait bien confirmer une remarque que je faisais cet été en Inde, concernant le fait que l'on raconte facilement ses mésaventures, mais plus difficilement ses moments de bonheur - justement parce que les premières s'inscrivent dans le temps et font une bonne matière à récit.
[...]Au cours du développement des cultures dont nous sommes héritiers, l'acte de raconter n'a cessé de se ramifier dans des genres littéraires de plus en plus spécifiés. Cette fragmentation pose aux philosophes un problème majeur, en raison de la dichotomie majeure qui partage le champ narratif et qui oppose massivement, d'une part, les récits qui ont une prétention à la vérité comparable à celle des discours descriptifs à l'œuvre dans les sciences — disons l'histoire et les genres littéraires connexes de la biographie et de l'autobiographie — et, d'autre part, les récits de fiction, tels que l'épopée, le drame, la nouvelle, le roman, pour ne rien dire des modes narratifs qui emploient un autre médium que le langage: le film par exemple, éventuellement la peinture et d'autres arts plastiques. A l'encontre de ce morcellement sans fin, je fais l'hypothèse qu'il existe une unité fonctionnelle entre les multiples modes et genres narratifs. Mon hypothèse de base est à cet égard la suivante: le caractère commun de l'expérience humaine, qui est marqué, articulé, clarifié par l'acte de raconter sous toutes ses formes, c'est son caractère temporel. Tout ce qu'on raconte arrive dans le temps, prend du temps, se déroule temporellement; et ce qui se déroule dans le temps peut être raconté. Peut-être même tout processus temporel n'est-il reconnu comme tel que dans la mesure où il est racontable d'une manière ou d'une autre. [...] En traitant la qualité temporelle de l'expérience comme référent commun de l'histoire et de la fiction, je constitue en problème unique fiction, histoire et temps.
Paul Ricœur, Du texte à l'action (De l'interprétation)
[je souligne]
Langage: analyse et synthèse
Sunday, February 03, 2002 *
[...] Le changement d'échelle [herméneutique -> sémantique lexicale -> sémantique structurale] du problème [le double-sens] fait apparaître une constitution fine qui seule permet un traitement scientifique du problème: la voie de l'analyse, de la décomposition en unités plus petites, c'est la voie même de la science, comme on le voit dans l'usage de cette analyse en traduction automatique. Mais je voudrais montrer en retour que la réduction au simple consacre l'élimination d'une fonction fondamentale du symbolisme qui ne peut apparaître qu'au niveau supérieur de manifestation, et qui met le symbolisme en relation avec la réalité, avec l'expérience, avec le monde, avec l'existence (je laisse à dessein le choix libre entre ces termes). Bref, je voudrais établir que la voie de l'analyse et la voie de la synthèse ne coïncident pas, ne sont pas équivalentes: sur la voie de l'analyse se découvrent les éléments de la signification, qui n'ont plus aucun rapport avec les choses dites; sur la voie de la synthèse, se révèle la fonction de la signification qui est de dire, et finalement de "montrer".
Paul Ricœur, Le problème du double-sens (in Le conflit des interprétations)
Incompetent? Never!
Sunday, February 10, 2002 *
Abstract: People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.
Unskilled and Unaware of It
The article is pretty long: read the beginning, hop over the study reports and go directly to the analysis at the end.
A very interesting article which studies the fact that unskilled individuals tend to overestimate their skills. There seems to be a correlation between lack of expertise and lack of metacognitive ability.
[via Glenn]
Procrastinator? Yes!
Sunday, February 10, 2002 *
At many points in my procrastinator's life, I've had an inkling this was the way to go.
All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. [...] The procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.
John Perry, Structured Procrastination.
Look at what I'm doing now: I have exams to prepare, laundry to do, piles of books to read, a website to update. And I'm writing for my weblog. Writing for my weblog is definitely not a high-priority task. But on the other hand, over the past year or so, I've started to gain a reputation for being an active weblogger, worth reading by some.
Now, this doesn't mean that I'm going to stop fighting my procrastination. Actually, one of the reasons I've been "going the wrong way" lately (ie. refusing commitments) is very precisely because I'm trying to get to the root of my procrastination. I'm inching nearer each day, actually. But on the other hand, when I'm deep in it, I might as well do something useful, mightn't I?
[link from Glenn, again!]
Agnosticism
Tuesday, April 16, 2002 *
Right, I'll post this post before I dive back into google, amazon and library sites. Bibliography research on the net for one's dissertation can be quite as addictive as chatting, you know?
Agnosticism: I often hear people say they are "agnostic", and on digging a bit, they come around to saying that they "vaguely believe in something, not quite sure what, but don't belong to any religion". That is not agnosticism. Some sort of deism, maybe, but definitely not agnosticism.
Here are a few paragraphs written by Stephen Batchelor, in his book Buddhism Without Beliefs. They aren't the final word on what agnosticism is, but I what he says makes a lot of sense to me.
The force of the term "agnosticism" has been lost. It has come to mean: not to hold an opinion about the questions of life and death; to say "I don't know" when you really mean "I don't want to know." When allied (and confused) with atheism, it has become part of the attitude that legitimizes an indulgent consumerism and the unreflective conformism dictated by mass media.
For T. H. Huxley, who coined the term in 1869, agnosticism was as demanding as any moral, philosophical, or religious creed. Rather than a creed, though, he saw it as a method realized through "the rigourous application of a single principle." He expressed this principle positively as: "Follow your reason as far as it will take you," and negatively as: "Do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable." This principle runs through the Western tradition: from Socrates, via the Reformation and the Enlightenment, to the axioms of modern science. Huxley called it the "agnostic faith."
[...]
An agnostic Buddhist eschews atheism as much as theism, and is as reluctant to regard the universe as devoid of meaning as endowed with meaning. For to deny either God or meaning is simply the antithesis of affirming them. Yet such an agnostic stance is not based on disinterest. It is founded on a passionate recognition that I do not know. It confronts the enormity of having been born instead of reaching for the consolation of belief. It strips away, layer by layer, the views that conceal the mystery of being here—either by affirming it as something or denying it as nothing.
Such deep agnosticism is an attitude toward life refined through ongoing mindful awareness. It may lead to the realization that ultimately there is neither something nor nothing at the core of ourselves that we can put a finger on. Or it may be focused in an intense perplexity that vibrates through the body and leaves the mind that seeks certainty nowhere to rest.
Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs, pp. 17-19
I'm reading his book following a class I went to last semester on "American Buddhism". I'm not a Buddhist, nor do I think that Buddhist teachings have specially more value than any other. I'm hoping to write a bit more on Buddhism in the west shortly, though - as it is definitely related to my dissertation topic.
Emergence: Labeled Autistic
Mercredi 17 avril 2002 *
Hier matin j'ai trouvé dans ma boîte à lait la deuxième partie de ma première commande chez amazon.de: Emergence: Labeled Autistic, de Temple Grandin. Je l'ai promené avec moi toute la journée à l'uni, et je l'ai terminé le soir.
Temple Grandin raconte dans cette autobiographie ses souvenirs d'enfant autiste, ses victoires, et son chemin vers une vie d'adulte indépendante et un grand succès professionnel. Quelques moments de son récit m'ont particulièrement frappée:
- Elle explique très clairement que ses "fixations" (ou obsessions, ou idées fixes, ou que sais-je) servent à la stabiliser, et également que bien exploitées, elles ont servi de force moteur à son développement et ses succès.
Je crois qu'on peut transposer ce raisonnement en-dehors de l'autisme: les fixations que l'on peut avoir (je pense surtout aux fixations émotionnelles, par exemple celles qui nous poussent à vouloir "réparer" quelque chose qui nous a fait souffrir petits) sont ce qui, bien exploitées, vont pouvoir servir de moteur à nos vies et lui donner son sens.
- Temple ne supporte pas le contact physique. Mais en même temps, elle en aurait terriblement envie. Lorsque sa mère lui dit au revoir en la laissant au pensionnat, elle nous dit combien elle aurait voulu qu'elle la serre dans ses bras, tout en sachant qu'elle ne le supporterait pas. Je crois que je la comprends tout à fait. C'est comme vouloir être aimé, mais ne pas supporter la force de cet amour lorsqu'il est là.
- Durant une période de crise durant son adolescence, elle découvre que l'émotion forte d'un carrousel au parc d'attractions la calme et la relaxe. Sans faire de parallèles sauvages, car il ne s'agit pas du même autisme, j'ai plusieurs fois remarqué à quel point des sensations physiques fortes pouvaient contribuer à calmer Akirno lorsqu'il est mal (comme le lancer en l'air, courir-sauter-danser en le tenant, le faire tourner...)
Un livre à lire, que vous vous sentiez concernés par l'autisme ou non. Car ce que Temple partage sur elle-même fait écho en nous: comme si ses maux étaient une forme exagérée, une caricature de ceux dont nous pouvons souffrir.
Histoire que ce soit clair, je ne veux pas réduire l'autisme à une simple intensification des problèmes "que tout le monde a". Mais on peut se reconnaître dans ce que vit Temple, sans être autiste. C'est ça que je veux dire.
Meditation and Death (Batchelor)
Sunday, April 21, 2002 *
I'm still reading Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor; more quoting for your enlightenment (hopefully):
It might be that all I can trust in the end is my integrity to keep asking such questions as: Since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should I do? And then to act on them.
[...]
A reflection like this does not tell you anything you do not already know: that death is certain and its time uncertain. The point is to consider these facts regularly and slowly, allowing them to percolate through you, until a felt-sense of their meaning and implication is awakened. Even when you do this reflection daily, sometimes you may feel nothing at all; the thoughts may strike you as repetitive, shallow, and pointless. But at other times you may feel gripped by an urgent bodily awareness of imminent mortality. At such moments try to let the thoughts fade, and focus the entirety of your attention in this feeling.
This meditation counters the deep psychosomatic feeling that there is something permanent at the core of ourself that is going to be around for a while yet. Intellectually, we may suspect such intuitions, but that is not how we feel most of the time. This feeling is not something that additional information or philosophy alone can affect. It needs to be challenged in its own terms.
Reflective meditation is a way of translating thoughts into the language of feeling. It explores the relation between the way we thing about and perceive things and the way we feel about them. We find that even the strongest, seemingly self-evident intuitions about ourselves are based on equally deep-seated assumptions. Gradually learning to see our life in another way through reflective meditation leads to feeling different about it as well.
Stephen Batchelor, in Buddhism Without Beliefs, pp. 31-32
[emphasis mine]
