Fooloso4 wrote: ↑October 26th, 2018, 10:29 pm
Greta:
Many naturalists would disagree with the statement "at first he is nothing".
I have not read enough Sartre to give a confident answer. I think that what he is getting as is that our identity is not something we are given. We cannot determine at birth what someone will make of themself by a sophisticated physical examination. In addition, there is no god given plan or purpose that plays itself out for any of us or all of us.
Heh, I probably best not go too much into disagreement unless neither of us are fully confident as to his meaning.
Really, this is just my major beef with the little I've read from some philosophers, seemingly starting with what they perceive to be a blank slate without considering how human cultural tendencies stem from non human ancestors. I appreciate that we shouldn't logically be "fundamentalist" about it, reducing emergent entities like humanity to only that from which they emerged; civilisations and space programs are tangible evidence of humanity's novel qualities. However, without starting an analysis at the non human base and working towards greater sophisticated from there, we risk constructing ideas on a foundation of sand.
The problem is that when philosophy was in its formative years it was breaking the shackles of religious thought and there's a whole raft of missing and lost human experience and knowledge that bridges yesterday and today in the indigenous people invaded and displaced by Christians.
Fooloso4 wrote: ↑October 26th, 2018, 10:29 pmWhen he is born he has not yet made anything of himself hence he is nothing, that is, not this or that. What he becomes, both in the sense of the individual and as a species, is determined by what he does, by his actions.
While this is a reasonable enough statement, putting on my black hat, this is an example of what I meant above, where a person's totality and value is gauged in terms of human achievement and opinion.
It's fair to imagine that "nothing" was elegant shorthand to put across the fact that most of who are we is shaped rather.
Still, many do think in a way that would agree with the (almost certainly wrong, in context) literal interpretation and, if I can beg your indulgence, I'd like to rant a little about this :)
"Nothing" in that literal context (not Nietzsche's or yours) ignores the fact that we are all extraordinary, complex, deeply systematised and exceedingly rare entities (ditto all life and geology). Yet "nothing" says that we lack value in ourselves, and are only valuable in what can bring to human society. "Nothing" is what those in power like underlings to think of themselves unless they are achieving so that they try harder, are more productive and diligent.
Leaders have always devised deceits, misconceptions and other manipulative devices to get others work harder, and with spectacular results. Yet "nothing" says we have no intrinsic value, yet it seems too often that people have to be near death before starting to realise the extraordinariness they were convinced to ignore for the sake of achievement.
IMO anyone whose mind is not regularly blown away by nature, the cosmos, technology and mentality is clearly too busy to pay attention to actual reality. It seems to have always been a bind for humanity just how impractical noticing underlying realities tend to be, and how unhelpful that paying attention to actual reality is in terms of survival and success. All one needs to get by at life is to be skilled with work, relationships and manipulating the legal machinery of society. If you have those boxes ticked it doesn't matter if you can believe the Earth is flat, or 6,000 years old, or that the Moon landing was staged, that a misogynist and homophobic spirit man rules the cosmos or that Xenu is coming to Earth to enslave humanity.
I'm not even sure it matters whether a person is even a bit in touch with physical reality or if they completely buy into human meta-realities like Huxley's creations.
// end rant