Can we bridge Society-Scholarship disconnect?

If the Vocation Lectures were only a fragment of Weber’s thought, than Weber thought of tons of things. The lectures not only covered the vocations themselves, but offered insights into both professions, and what the two professions do for society. Ultimately, Weber concludes both professions are meaningless unless the professional gives them proper context.
The lecture that fascinated me the most was the lecture on “science”, which I prefer to call scholarship. Scholarship, as Weber notes, is an inefficient process. No one truly knows when information is truly needed, but only that it will be used one day. Here, there is a disconnect between knowledge and the real world, leaving most people confused about how knowledge applies. Far from the Platonic idea of science as blessed sunlight, Weber says knowledge confuses, and just leads to more questions.
So what is the use of scholarship? Is it worthwhile to fund such an inefficient enterprise? Scholarship cannot survive without government funding or philanthropy (or students’ very generous contributions). As scholarship increases, it will seem more mystical to society, as it will have only a few direct applications. Why?

Nietszche=Whoa!

Philosophy is pretty dry. Educated men (fewer women) write down funny ideas that may or may not bear any relation to reality. Sometimes, philosophy has a prescriptive element, such as Thomas Hobbes’s call for a strong sovereign. Often, though, philosophy describes the world as is. Immanuel Kant had a largely descriptive philosophy, and one that does not have immediate interest.
Friedrich Nietszche’s philosophy is not dry at all. In fact, it is jarring, deeply symbolic, and made me a tad uncomfortable. One could read it as the ramblings of a crazy anti-Christian, and would be right. But if one looks even deeper, he sees a philosopher prepared to question everything that came before him. He not only questions our Judeo-Christian values, but how we construct our values in the first place. What do our values help us avoid? How did we come to those values?
To explain Nietszche’s philosophy is a waste of time, for I can do him no justice. What I can do is note the stylistic differences between Nietszche and all other philosophers. Unlike most philosophical texts, Nietszche’s book is deeply personal, and uses metaphors and literary devices freely. Nietszche makes huge empirical claims, such as his version of community formation in the middle of his second essay.
One other thing to note is that Nietszche’s three essays attack the same question from three different angles. Each is a criticism of traditional morality on three different fronts, leaving me confused where one distinction ends and the other begins. One thing for certain, though, is that Nietszche’s thought is so rich and consistent that it deserves time for contemplation.

Nature in Hegel and Kant

Hegel would classify Kant's view of nature driven history as a type of universal history. It would be accurate that Kant's history reveals just as much, if not more, about his own philosophical framework than what may have actually happened. In fact Hegel's idea of the Rational Spirit is related to Kant's idea of Nature. Except is more representative and explained, and does not reference as much back to being the unknowable space (i.e. an effective god figure), but rather something more a renewing and renewable (but knowable) part of the world. Hegel's nature in fact is in opposition to overall progress through a cyclic history and is opposed by the Rational Spirit . Hence Kant's nature is more comparable to Hegel's Rational Spirit than Hegel's nature through its control.

Hegel and His View on Living History

Like Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel sees human history as a story of progression, moving towards a final goal of ultimate freedom. Unlike Kant, Hegel examines the political sphere in far greater detail than Kant does. In fact, Hegel uses the political as the starting point, using macrosocial forces (zeitgeist) to explain the progression of society.

Hegel’s view of zeitgeist explains his philosophical outlook to history, and why he sees it as fundamental to human development. Several of the philosophers we have seen use history to their own ends, mostly in the form of “states of nature.” Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau each form a state of nature, formulated on little more than their own ideas. Hegel uses an actual narrative to reflect on history, and what he sees as the larger, social developments.

What are those developments, you may ask? The answer is one I am not entirely sure of. What I can say, with certainty, is that Hegel feels history tracks the progress of a society, and that a society remains in stasis without it. The most vivid example to me is Hegel’s view on India, a culturally rich society that maintains no codified history. As Hegel explains on pages 65 and 66, the Indians have a self-conception, but have not narrowed it down because they do not have a proper view of themselves.

What I do find disturbing is that he views Protestant Germanic society as the pinnacle of human progress. While I (a staunch Catholic) do feel the Protestant ethos has helped Western society flesh its views of individualism, I nonetheless find Hegel’s attitudes towards other societies as dangerous, bordering on racist. I just feel that Hegel’s views may lay the framework for a German superiority complex, which can help justify all sorts of nastiness over the next century (German imperialism and Naziism come to mind).

The Progression of Society

Kant's view of nature and its role is very different than what comes before, in my understanding of it. In the idea that nature is inherent in us as a species and is a driving force in how the human race is shaped throughout time. This deterministic, and almost predestined view of human history/future (we may not get to a state of peace or concord between nations on the first try, but eventually it will happen) seems strongly rooted in a Calvinistic or at least Protestant view of predestination.
Interestingly, he does not seem optimistic about the fact that eventually nations will learn to work together despite his reasoning that it must occur. I thought that there may be two reasons for this: (1) He believes that it will be so far in the future that there is no use for him to think about it as he won't be around anymore, nor would he have expected it to occur in a few hundred years; (2) Staying at a position of formal relations between nations and cooperation between them may be difficult and the moral aspects may not be easily maintained either.

One thing that struck me as being, as far as I am aware, relativity new thinking was the idea that the even the politics of one state should not be interfered with by others. Although this likely has its roots in ideas coming out of the Peace of Westphalia and ideas for sovereignty, the way it was stated and laid out also made it clear that Gene Roddenberry must have been in some ways a Kantian.

Questioning Kant's Good, and the Means to this Good

I managed to get an interview with Immanuel Kant this week. Kant telephoned me from his bunk bed in heaven. Many thanks to the angels who contributed countless hours to translate Kant’s dialogue from his own private language.

Thomas Hamed: So can you sum up your political philosophy in three sentences?
Immanuel Kant: No

TH: Can I?
IK: Probably not without making false assumptions of my statements.

TH: Well, based on my reading of Perpetual Peace and Theory and Practice, I have come up with three statements:

1. Man uses morality to transcend his animalistic nature, and gains greater moral insight as time goes on.
2. A good government is one where the people’s morality aligns with the rulers’, and all understand and execute their duties.
3. Nations should federate to foster peace and understanding between each other, especially when those nations meet conditions in #2.

Am I right?

IK: You are (woefully) incomplete, inbreeding my philosophy with your own views by removing key qualifications I make throughout my work. Have you read my Critique of Pure Reason, Critique on Practical Reason, and the other thousands of pages I have penned? They give you a much fuller account of how I expect man to transcend his brutish nature, and how he must achieve it.

TH: I am sure they are enlightening. I want to ask you a few questions about the premises of your first statement.
IK: If you wish.

TH: From what I have read, you describe well how man can transcend, and why he may wish to transcend himself. Yet the very word “transcend” implies he is going somewhere he knows little about, possibly even this state’s existence. Comment on that.
IK: Man may not know consciously, but does know through his limited perception of time.

TH: Let’s accept that notion of time [it will take a semester to discuss this]. What’s the good man is moving towards?
IK: Harmony, for one thing. Moral harmony, to be precise. Peace is also a goal, as the more peace one has, the happier he is.

TH: And so you regard peace as a good in itself?
IK: Yes.

TH: Is peace “good” enough that it requires moral concord within a state?
IK: Undoubtedly.

Here, the translators quit work. I am a skeptic of Kant’s philosophy, as it assumes there is an objective “good”, and that the methods towards this good are just. I feel that Kant’s philosophy paints humanity with a broad brush stroke, and may loose the very diversity he defends in Perpetual Peace. Furthermore, I find disturbing his defense of individual duty towards a state. While duty is necessary for the orderly workings of a state, I remain unconvinced that it fosters a state’s moral advancement.

Society and the Indivdual justice

One argument of his that I find interesting is that in justice, even if a few cases do not seem to be the most fair thing (do to extenuating circumstances, etc.), that in no way implies that it is not the right to follow the same lines of justice. While he does still often hold he individual as a basic unit, this is particularly society oriented, as Hume believes that without the maintenance of the same rules of justice even in cases where they don't seem to fit is essential to the maintenance of order and society. And although Hume's belief in a "state of nature" is purely as a theoretical background, he believes that any society would be better than none. He thus brings the individual priority back in in the English tradition.

Civilization: Run Away?

Is civilization at the root of inequality? That’s what Jean-Jacque Rousseau would have us believe. To Rousseau, a state of nature was not just a society without a government, but a time when humans were true animals. Rousseau acknowledges that physical differences exist, but not differences based on anything else. As he says on page 38, that can only come with civilization, or as he says, when, “...nature was subjected to the law.” Notice the use of passive voice in this statement, emphasizing nature over mankind.
So why does civilization breed indifference? The answer is simple: it’s the belief in property. In Rousseau’s mind, man was once simply a beast, prancing around the forest while foraging for food. A bear or a wolf may eat one for lunch one day, but a quick runner could avoid this. All of this changed when man obtained property, and forced himself to settle down.
In my mind, Rousseau’s philosophy of civilization and sedation the relates somewhat to the movie Up in the Air. In the movie, the protagonist travels 320 days a year for his job, and has no real home nor family. While on the road, he gives motivational speeches that tell people to sever their family connections and material possessions. Toward the end of the movie, the protagonist’s sister asks him what kind of f----- up philosophy he’s preaching. The two philosophers attack two different things (Rousseau attacks society, Clooney’s character attacks human interaction), but I feel their methodologies are the same: push civilization away and run from your problems.

State of Nature and further Reflections

In my reading, his description of the state of nature and the possible transition therefrom was very informative of his ideas on government and society. Although the entire idea of society as a social construct itself struck me as interesting as this becomes a similar chicken and egg problem to what he points out as his conception of how language and society grew. As an answer to that question of his, I answer with the following: likely the two grew together. A basic means of communication, even if it did not originally rise to the level of a language, existed for chance encounters, and even presuming the family unit stayed practically non-existent, mothers would pass on what language they had discovered growing up to their children (in addition to any technical innovations, which Rousseau also claims must originally must disappear each generation). Since unlike in the chicken and egg question, community and language can form simultaneously, that is what likely occurred, each allowing (and demanding) more complexities than the other. In the totality, while I do not agree with the extreme solitariness of humans before society (he gives no reason why humans wouldn't be in groups like many animals), nor of there complete incomprehension of the future (storing food for winter would require some level of forethought), his conception of people seems more realistic than Hobbs'.

However, combining the two pieces, I still see that the ideal place for man to be is in small societies of towns that can expect no interference from other groups. He acknowledges that true happiness can also be found when around family, which although he does not directly say so, he implies can be greater than the not quite idyllic peace and freedom from obligations found by man alone.


Going through the texts again also gave me further thought into who he would truly consider a citizen and part of the general will. While he does not address the role of children as part of this either way, he does make several implications throughout as to the role of women. Their role is clearly stated to be less than that of men in other spheres, and he clearly thinks that there value is less, and makes only a slight mention of the Roman's non-inclusion of women in there system, which is much less than he talks about the non-inclusion of slaves and non-citizens. Therefore there is an inconsistency in his reasoning in regard to women. They can either be a full part of the general will and an equal part of the sovereign, or they can be hold a lesser place in society. To try to place them in both categories seems paradoxical to me. I also cannot recall any point in which he describes if any portion of the population should not be accounted for in the general will, accept those who are traitors. And yet he did not seem deeply troubled that some of the governments of the past that he held in higher esteem were highly exclusive.

No Civil Society?

One thing that struck me was the end of Chapter III in Book II when Rousseau asserts that there "should be no partial society in the state and that each citizen make up his own mind" (156). While this would be a good thing, and may to some extent have been more possible at his time, the lack of civil society now would hinder peoples abilities to have the information to make up his own mind. Since most issues and topics in general are very involved and without groups who care specifically about the information gathering it and distributing it, it would become difficult to know enough about an issue to make up your own mind. While he would likely be more against societies such as unions and fixed political parties, civil society would also fall under his assertions against partitions in society since it is methods of bringing people interested in specific issues to work on and discuss issues which relate to their community, and often spread information and opinions about those topics.
Now, civil society is considered an important part of building a society into a democracy and involve people actively in having a voice and being able to analyze for themselves what their opinions should be on government. So why does Rousseau think that this segment is more harmful? For other issues he carefully weighs the positives and negatives, but not here. Is the objection based mainly on that subgroups within the society will inherently weaken the greater whole? If so, how does he feel that everyone should have the knowledge to evaluate their stances?