Hi all,

A quick comment regarding the relationship between Sartre and Freud (as it
may shed further light on the problem of freedom).

Alexander writes that Sartre "never understood the Freudian revolution to
begin with."

Sartre agrees:

   - "I have to say that I was incapable of understanding him because I was
   a Frenchman with a good Cartesian tradition behind me, imbued with a
   certain rationalism, and I was therefore deeply shocked by the idea of the
   unconscious."

Still, the mature Sartre's resistance to Freud is considerably more nuanced
than much of the secondary literature might lead us to believe:

   - "I would reproach psychoanalytic theory with being a *syncretic *and
   not a* dialectical* thought.  The word 'complex', indeed, indicates this
   very evidently: interpenetration without contradiction."
      - "The results of *syncretism*...can be seen in the Oedipus complex,
      for instance:"
         - "[The] fact is that analysis manage to find everything in it,
         equally well the fixation on the mother, love of the mother,
or hatred of
         the mother, as Melanie Klein argues....The consequence is
that an analyst
         can say one thing and then the contrary immediately
afterwards, without in
         anyway worrying about lack of logic, since after all 'opposites
         interpenetrate'...Psychoanalytic theory is thus a 'soft'
thought.  It has
         no dialectical logic to it."
         - Of course, "the fixation of a girl on an older man may will come
         from her father, or the fixation of a young man on a girl may
derive from a
         profusion of original relationships. But what is missing in
conventional
         psychoanalytic accounts is the idea of dialectical irreducibility."
      - "In a truly *dialectical *theory, such as historical materialism,
      phenomena derive from each other dialectically: there are
      difference configurations of dialectical reality, and each of these
      configurations Is rigorously conditioned by the previous one, while
      preserving and superseding it at the same time.  This supersession is,
      however, precisely irreducible.  While one configuration may preserve
      another, it can never simply be reduced to its predecessor."
         - "It is the idea of this *autonomy* that is lacking
         in psychoanalytic theory.  A sentiment or passion between two
persons is
         certainly highly conditioned by their relationship to the
'primal object',
         and one can locate this object within it and explain the new
relationship
         by it; but the relationship itself remains irreducible."

Sartre is clearly over-schematizing here.  There are certainly strands of
psychoanalytic thought (e.g., the Eriksonian tradition) that can be
characterized as authentically "dialectical", as Sartre understands the
term.   For my part, I read the mature Sartre as a psychoanalytic thinker
interested in exploring the "dialectical intelligibility" of human behavior
(in a manner quite compatible with the ToK framework):

   - "The concept of 'lived experience' marks my change since* Being and
   Nothingness*.  My early work was a rationalist philosophy of
   consciousness.  It was all very well for me to dabble
   in apparently non-rational processes in the individual, [but] the fact that
   remains that *Being and Nothingness *is a monument of
   rationality....Today, the notion of 'lived experience' represents an effort
   to preserve that presence to itself which seems to me indispensable for the
   existence of any psychic fact, while at the same time this presence is so
   opaque and blind before itself that it is also an absence from itself....In
   developing this notion, I have tried to suppress the traditional
   psychoanalytic ambiguity of psychic facts which are both teleological and
   mechanical, by showing that every psychic fact involves an intentionality
   which aims at something, while among them a certain number can only exist
   if they are comprehended, *but neither named nor known*.
   The latter include what I call the 'stress' of a neurosis."
      - "A neurosis is in the first instance a specific wound, a defective
      structure which is a certain way of living a childhood.  But this is only
      an initial wound: it is then patched up  and bandaged by a system which
      covers and soothe the wound, and which then, like anti-bodies in certain
      cases, suddenly does something abominable to the organism.  The unity of
      this system is the neurosis."

The above quotations are taken from a 1969 interview published in an
anthology entitled *Between* *Existentalism and Marxism* (Sartre, 1974).

~ Steve Q.


On Wed, May 22, 2019 at 11:19 AM JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear Peter and TOK, thank you for the collegial discussion. I would like
> to address your comment "The cosmos are just a bit of collateral damage
> in also determined so that human determinism can make sense." I beg to
> differ. Based on the Endosymbiogenesis Theory, that life derives from the
> endogenization of physical properties like oxygen, heavy metals, ions and
> bacteria, our physiology is literally founded on the same Laws of Physics
> when facilitated by compartmentalization to integrate these factors in an
> organic context. So the deterministic and probabilistic properties are
> shared by both the animate and inanimate....but that's my perspective. I
> welcome rebuttal. IMHO, John
>
> On Wed, May 22, 2019 at 9:57 AM Peter Lloyd Jones <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Dear Europe, Alexander, and TOK,
>> Between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty I do not know which is winning the
>> popularity contest in the USA, and am amused that Europe doesn’t make much
>> of Sartre these days. I wish I did know because then I maybe wouldn’t have
>> to finish or present this stupid paper that I’m writing.
>>
>> As to free will not being a philosophy proper, I have not taken on the
>> task of mending all of the errors of philosophy. I think that I mentioned
>> somewhere above (below?) that John Locke pointed out in the 17th century
>> that the term “free will” is problematic.
>>
>> Your comment, "The future is open. And that is what scares the shit out
>> of most of us.” is very Sartrean: we aguish in the face of our freedom. As
>> rarely-quoted Sartre wrote, the possibilities of our choices
>> are vertiginous.
>>
>> Thank you for your thought,
>> Best,
>> Peter
>>
>>
>> Peter Lloyd Jones
>> [log in to unmask]
>> 562-209-4080
>>
>> Sent by determined causes that no amount of will is able to thwart.
>>
>>
>>
>> On May 21, 2019, at 6:22 PM, Alexander Bard <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Peter
>>
>> Then here is a little update from Europe: We don't make much out of
>> Sartre these days. Even Merleau-Ponty is far more quoted these days than
>> good old Sartre (who never understood the Freudian revolution to begin
>> with).
>> Rather we have arrived at a struggle between Hegel and Nietzsche today
>> represented by Zizek and Deleuze. Like the new generation of philosophers,
>> like Manuel DeLanda and Aaron Schuster, I'm in both camps in my work. The
>> synthesis of Hegel and Nietzsche is simply where it's at. And there is no
>> determinism in any of these camps. And certainly no talk of any "free will"
>> since that is just Christian theology and not philosophy proper.
>> Determinism requires that all things are determined in a closed loop of
>> cause and effect with no chance involved.
>> All that is required is one single incident during the Universe's
>> existence that can be attributed to chance and determinism is dead.
>> I would argue even that the big bang itself is such a chance. Also if for
>> example biology was not pre-programmed into the big bang, then determinism
>> is dead.
>> Probabilism only looks deterministic when studying a full field. But when
>> fields are broken, that determinism is also broken. That is essentially
>> what "chance" is. Whether our own minds then are determinist or not is
>> beside the point. If our surrounding reality is not determinist then
>> neither are our lives. The future is open. And that is what scares the shit
>> out of most of us. Freud, again.
>>
>> Best intentions
>> Alexander
>>
>> Den tis 21 maj 2019 kl 15:30 skrev Peter Lloyd Jones <
>> [log in to unmask]>:
>>
>>> Alexander, John, et.al
>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__et.al&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=czp9Y7o97w7LCL-W7Vmg0G8SPLqw3mKPGY98LFZb0-U&s=f3hhXp_A_lMTW1PN6V9IWIgcofgvX1yLAobMDBjEysw&e=>
>>> .,
>>>
>>> I was wrong to infer that the determinism debate is between only those
>>> from the field of philosophy, though I am pursuing it as a philosophical
>>> question. Some today are using interpretations of scientific evidence as
>>> their argument.
>>> Maybe John is one who (partially) is a proponent of determinism, as per
>>> his last note?
>>> Sam Harris, famously, though painfully unscholarly he is.
>>> Galen Strawson says he isn’t a determinist but argues that we cannot
>>> escape the causes that have made us who we are, which is basically a type
>>> of determinism since for him it means that human autonomy is an
>>> impossibility because we can never step out from under past causes to be
>>> autonomous.
>>> John Searle, though he seems in the last decade to be hedging on
>>> determinism and starting to embrace quantum indeterminism as justification
>>> for free will
>>> Jerry Coyne,
>>> BF Skinner, who in his philosophy of behaviorism was a determinist.
>>> Dan Barker doesn’t see free will as a scientific truth or philosophical
>>> truth, but as a social truth. But I think he is still dealing with ghosts
>>> of his preacher past.
>>> It could be that I’m am wasting time on popular opponents of free will
>>> that would be best to leave behind.
>>>
>>> Please know that I am addressing this issue from the context of a
>>> 70-year-old tome of existential philosophy, comparing Sartre’s metaphysics
>>> to what some claim today about proofs of physics concerning the concept of
>>> human autonomy. And I have to do it in 3,000 words.
>>>
>>> Also, I use the word consciousness as does Sartre, who did not
>>> acknowledge subconscious states. He refers to behavior as being reflective
>>> or non-reflective, asserting that most of our behavior is non-reflective.
>>> Much of his writing about non-reflective behavior lines up with is being
>>> compatibly the subconscious. Sartre has plenty to say about motives and
>>> passions and desires, and it would be revealing to suss that out against
>>> the background of today’s advances in neuroscience.
>>>
>>> Thank you for your thoughtful questions that bolster my self-doubt. I do
>>> not say that in sarcasm but truly thrive on self-doubt. It makes me work
>>> harder.
>>>
>>> Best to all,
>>> Peter
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter Lloyd Jones
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> 562-209-4080
>>>
>>> Sent by determined causes that no amount of will is able to thwart.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 21, 2019, at 6:45 AM, JOHN TORDAY <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>> Peter, In the name of shameless self promotion, I have proposed that
>>> life is both deterministic and probabilistic based on experimental evidence
>>> for both cell physiology and its relationship to Quantum Mechanics (see
>>> attached). Perhaps you could comment? Best, John
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 20, 2019 at 9:51 PM Peter Lloyd Jones <
>>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> John, Alexander, Gregg, and TOK,
>>>> It seems that we agree also that choice is better than free will
>>>> because the freedom we are taking about when using the rems “free will" is
>>>> a doing, not something to have. It is a verb, as John just said, and as
>>>> Sartre has said. Sartre of course worked this out deeply on the ontological
>>>> level, saying that freedom, choice, consciousness are all one and the same.
>>>> His thought is that the only practical way to look at consciousness is how
>>>> we are discussing looking at choice, that it is an action, not a container
>>>> of things, that we are temporal beings evolving minute by minute.
>>>> Consciousness is the life-long pursuit of being that is a doing and never
>>>> an inert thing to label.
>>>>
>>>> A few years ago I read an article by a doctor of medicine who proposed
>>>> that consciousness is change, a physical change within our brains, and that
>>>> using AI or computing metaphors only drives us away from understanding
>>>> consciousness. I wrote him asking if his paper was based on research he
>>>> might be able to share and he responded that it was just a hypothesis he
>>>> was pondering. Dang it. But another start.
>>>>
>>>> I am, so far, in agreement with Sartre, that we act within “a network
>>>> of determinants.” That though does not mean that our acts are determined
>>>> and unfree. So evolution, like conscious choice, is free to go in novel
>>>> directions in evolving novel environments, within the context of its
>>>> history.
>>>>
>>>> I am pondering whether determinism might not be a problem for
>>>> determinism. What I mean is, there are countless determinants competing to
>>>> influence our every choices, or our evolution, and how can it be
>>>> comprehensibly possible that it is already decided for all time which
>>>> determinant is going to be the alfa determinant in all events? Further,
>>>> this has to be taken on faith as it is unrepeatable and untestable. That
>>>> alone should put it outside the boundaries of science and philosophy.
>>>>
>>>> Alexander, I do think it is a waste of time to be arguing against
>>>> determinism, but, in philosophy, there is a whole movement right now
>>>> promoting determinism. My hope is to shoot it dead.
>>>>
>>>> I do like syndeterminism...
>>>>
>>>> Thank you all for your contributions here,
>>>> Peter
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Peter Lloyd Jones
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>> 562-209-4080
>>>>
>>>> Sent by determined causes that no amount of will is able to thwart.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On May 20, 2019, at 4:55 PM, Alexander Bard <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear Peter
>>>>
>>>> I agree. Strongly. But why even pretend that determinism has a case any
>>>> longer? Why not go straight to the point and cut the chase and ask in what
>>>> way determinism predicted the big bang itself?
>>>> Now, if the big bang is an emergence proper, as the birth of physics
>>>> itself, we can then rethink history as emergences that create their own
>>>> vectors. This means there is fundamentally no difference between parallel
>>>> universes and the development of physics and later chemistry and later
>>>> biology and later mind and later culture. They are all vectors of
>>>> emergences in a fundamentally indeterminist metaverse.
>>>> Actually a human life can then be seen as vector of an emergence called
>>>> birth itself. Now that's what I call an emergence theory worthy of proper
>>>> complexity science.
>>>> The question is rather whether indeterminism is the appropriate term?
>>>> Perhaps syndeterminism is even better? Especially since we do not even need
>>>> chance or dices then either.
>>>>
>>>> Best intentions
>>>> Alexander
>>>>
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-- 
Steven W. Quackenbush, Ph.D., Chair
Division of Psychology & Human Development
University of Maine, Farmington
Farmington, ME 04938
(207) 778-7518
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