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PhiloMadrid - Pub Philosophy Meetings in Madrid
24 December 2019
From Lawrence, PhiloMadrid meeting 12th January 2020: Why Religions?
19 December 2019
From Lawrence, SUNDAY PhiloMadrid meeting at 6:30pm: Why Religions?
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12 December 2019
From Lawrence, SUNDAY PhiloMadrid meeting at 6:30pm: Obsession vs Highly Emotional
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Obsession vs Highly Emotional: The difference between obsession and being highly emotional
Although the
matter of our topic might give us the impression that we are dealing with
emotions, unfortunately the topic is more about language rather than emotions.
Having said that there is ample scope to discuss feeling and emotions one the
language issues are clarified.
Natural
languages can sometimes include features in words and expressions that go
beyond the meaning of a word. Even if we accept that a word is just one form of
carrying meaning in a speech act, there are many words that convey a type of
meaning rather than just meaning. This is true of our words “obsession” and
“highly emotional”: in effect natural languages do not deal with words but with
concepts. As with other natural languages many concepts are made up of a group
of words (the structure) rather than just a single word. Proverbs, sayings and
phrasal verbs are such examples.
Unfortunately,
it is not my intention nor is it the time to go into excursions in the
philosophy of language or even linguistics. My intention is to argue for two
positions: (1) although we can translate a speech act (text/spoken) from one
natural language to another for basic ideas and factual things, in reality as
philosophers we ought to be sceptical about the real value of translation. And
this scepticism does not only apply to philosophical, scientific or literary works
but also to ordinary circumstance in real life. A translation app on our mobile
might give us the syntax on how to order a beer in Spanish but that is all it
will do: there would be a semantic difference if one is (1) an English speaker
and (2) a British English speaker. So
unless you are at a make believe British/Irish pub in Spain, your translator
will not tell you that beer in Spain is ordered by different sizes of glass
which are much smaller than the familiar pint glass in the UK, and to make
things more complex that beer is cold unlike the UK.
My second
argument is that Wittgenstein’s idea that ordinary language takes its meaning
from the accepted use is in effect too generous to the powers of a natural
language. My argument is that at the very best the established meaning is very
specific in time and the prevailing culture of the speakers. My intention is
not to criticise or discuss Wittgenstein but to alert readers to issues that
might confuse a philosophical discussion rather than help the discussion. I am
in no doubt that I’m not the first to point these things out but I don’t have
the time to research the issue.
So going
back to our topic the words “obsession” and “highly emotional” have the implied
type of having a negative meaning. “Highly emotional” does not mean being “very
sensitive” or “having strong emotions (about something/someone)” but rather someone
who is highly emotional is someone who gets very agitated and maybe even
aggressive about the subject. Someone who is highly emotional might even be
described as unreasonable, but highly emotional in British English does imply a
negative feeling; see for example the use in this article in the Guardian: Life
after redundancy — episode 2 https://www.theguardian.com/careers/careers-blog/life-after-redundency-episode-2-mark-palmer-edgecumbe).
Seeing the meaning of this word in US word definition sites they do include the
idea of strong emotions (positive and negative) for something. But this does
not negate the type of word we are discussing but highlights the deviation of
the type/meaning of words over cultures.
Fortunately,
obsession is less problematic; in ordinary language obsession has clear negative
overtones. To speak of someone being obsessed with something is to imply that whatever
they are doing it is not good for them or not a healthy activity. Of course,
the person themselves might think that this is nonsense and they might be
right. For example we can describe a friend of being obsessed with football but
that’s maybe because we don’t like football but their football friends might
think they are amazing. In a medical (psychological) context obsession is more
serious and the ideas and feelings might lead to other negative effects, maybe even
have a direct negative health effect. In effect we are departing from the idea
that meaning is how we use language to the idea that meaning is very much
context driven: ordinary use, banter, professional, medical legal and so on.
But this was
one of the issues Wittgenstein warned us against: we as philosophers should not
try to give special meanings to ordinary words that we use in everyday life.
Philosophers should not compound language by inventing new meaning for words
which no one else knows about. This is good advice although it seems scientists
forgot their Wittgenstein.
We have
two other philosophical issues we need to contend with. The first is the
scientific method of the falsification of hypotheses. The scientific method is
dependent on understanding empirical events through mathematical analysis: thus
the first issue for science is how to translate mathematical uses into
understandable ordinary language. And to complicate matters in ordinary language
we do not usually have access to empirical events or objects which scientists
concern themselves with: in our daily life we usually do not come across cells
and molecules although we are made of such things or quantum effects although
we are surrounded by these effects.
So the
language of scientists cannot be the syntax and ordinary meaning of words everyone
uses never mind that some phenomena are not represented in ordinary day life
and ordinary day language: some non scientific people might discuss cells and
molecules over a pint but not the general population. Thus obsession like many
other words might have a meaning in ordinary language and a different one in a
scientific and other technical professions (compare “reasonable” in ordinary
language use and “reasonable” in a legal context).
The second
philosophical issue we have to contend with is Thomas Khun’s paradigm shift
principle. If we accept the principle of scientific paradigm shift, I would
argue that what changes when there is a paradigm shift is not only our
hypotheses, but also our science: what we accept physics to be today is
different from what 18th century natural philosophers thought
physics was. Indeed, if we reflect on this principle for a second when we have
a paradigm shift in a scientific discipline we also change the language (and
mathematics) of that discipline.
I would go
further and suggest when we have a paradigm shift in society we also have a
paradigm shift in the language employed in that society. Of course, the syntax
might remain, but what matters is the meaning we give to such syntax. This
would explain why it is difficult for parents to understand the language their
children use and for the grandparents to be flummoxed and if not belligerent to
the language employed by their grand children. But a more striking example is
the shift between British English and American English (or any other English
and other natural languages): the irony is that many American words and pronunciation
reflect the original British English of a few centuries ago. (This is a
fascinating subject but one needs to put in some serious time to really acquire
a reasonable idea of this subject!!)
Coming back
to our topic, one of the differences between obsession and highly emotional, is
that an obsession might have medical or psychological implications whereas
someone who is highly emotional might be a pain and annoying to other people
but that’s their character and not a matter of something that is disturbing
them. Highly emotional people might need to develop some good manners while
obsessive people might need help and to learn how to deal with their issues.
In effect, if
we want to describe positive emotions we would use “passionate”, and in matters
of love we can use besotted or infatuated, instead of obsessed and for “highly
emotional” we might use for example “someone with strong opinions” or “someone
who feel passionate about something”.
To conclude
we might want to complicate the matter even further. We might want to use the
word “opinionated” except I have already argued that even the same language
does not travel well in time and distance is space. In US English the meaning
of opinionated is someone who might have an opinion maybe even strong opinions,
whereas in British English opinionated means someone who is obstinate or unreasonable
about their own opinion. The morale of the subject matter is that given how
slippery and unsettled our language about emotions can be, how slippery and
unsettled can a discussion on emotions be?
Best
Lawrence
tel:
606081813
philomadrid@gmail.com
Blog:
http://philomadrid.blogspot.com.es/
OR PhiloMadrid.com
MeetUp
https://www.meetup.com/PhiloMadrid-philosophy-group/
Gran Clavel (Café-Bar): Gran vía 11, esquina C/ Clavel,
28013—Madrid
05 December 2019
From Lawrence, SUNDAY PhiloMadrid meeting at 6:30pm: Love is Dead
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Love is dead
Love is dead
We first have to define our scope
and parameters of what to include as love. From a language perspective the word
'love' covers all sorts of ideas. We have the kind of altruistic love such as a
mother’s love towards her children, and one step remove the father of the
children then moving on to the grandparents. We might even accept the argument
that relatives have a genetic interest in supporting and acting altruistically
towards members of the family group. This is not an issue except that it might
also be argued that we also have no choice as to who we love in this scenario. But
one necessary condition for there to be love is that this feeling is an
intentional and a free act. We cannot be told who to love even though for
example in arranged marriages some couples might eventually end up loving each
other.
This leaves us with another
important type of love, romantic love. The kind of love we all wish for if not
long for, and certainly we feel we are in control of the whole process. We also
feel that we are free when seeking love and free when accepting advances of
love by others. Whilst I don’t want to discuss the mechanics of what is
romantic love I do want to discuss: why we would want to consider that romantic
love is dead? Of course, romantic love is not dead but it does not mean that
romantic love can be achieved very easily and where and when we want to seek
romantic love.
Again romantic love gives us the
idea and feeling of fulfilment and autonomy so we might be justified in thinking
that maybe this is a spiritual metaphysical experience and nothing to do with
the physical and even biological existence of life. But we underestimate at our
peril the biological importance in human existence in such matters as romantic
love. In a reciprocal relationship of romantic love we have four distinct acts
going on. An intentional act to do something about our feeling towards someone,
an intentional act of communication with that person, an intentional act by the
recipient to be interested in the person in love and the fourth act to reciprocate
that love. Hence, it is quite easy for this causal chain to breakdown and come
to naught.
Except in some cases romantic love
might itself be the product of a much stronger force of reproductive forces
which, of course, are physical/biological forces. Indeed these biological
forces can be so strong that we might act on their compulsion without any
feeling of romantic love.
But love still happens, whether it
is romantic, filial or parental or altruistic, the only problem is that love
does not happen on demand. Even biological attraction does not happen on
demand. We are not attracted to everyone and certainly do not consent to
biological reproduction with everyone. This immediately suggests that matters
of love, especially romantic love, are not automatic or based on some law of
nature but more a psychological-emotional game we engage in with others. The
fact that we also have a whole body of language to help us engage into the
delicate game of romantic love makes romantic love more of a rational process
than a force of nature.
The idea that love is dead must therefore
be the product of unreciprocated love; maybe it is much harder today to find
the partner we want to love and to love us back. It is, therefore, quite a
legitimate inductive conclusion to arrive at when we seek love and don’t find
any that love does not exist. Of course, there is also the little matter that
we are more likely to hear about successful romantic love affairs rather than
the millions of failed attempts. Whilst it might be true that there are lots of
fish in the sea, it is also true that the fish we are interested in might not
exist in the patch of sea we live in.
So maybe we ought to dilute the
claim, Love is dead, to a more manageable idea that love is difficult to
encounter, and in extremis, never to encounter love. I would like to put
forward a number of factors why love is difficult to encounter and maybe why it
might seem for some that love is dead.
I want to argue that one of the key
reasons why we might fail to encounter love is because of the paradox of
choice: the paradox of choice was established by the American psychologist, Barry
Schwartz, and is well documented on the internet, however, you can hear him on
the The Psychology Podcast 25th May 2015 Maximizing, satisficing and
the paradox of choice ( https://tinyurl.com/Barry-Choice
).
Basically the paradox of choice is
that the more we have options to choose from the less we are like to make a
choice never mind a good choice (this is my interpretation). What is important is
that more choice is not necessarily better. Schwartz suggests that in our age we
are obsessed at maximising our desires and wants: we are maximisers. We don’t
just want a jar of jam we want the best jar of jam. This attitude means that we
are prepared to put off buying any jam if we don’t believe that the jam we can
buy is the best jam.
The paradox of choice is relevant
for our discussion because we might be tempted putting off communicating with a
prospective partner who might reciprocate our love because we believe that
there is someone better out there. In
economics this would be covered by the theory opportunity costs: giving up an
economic satisfaction today believing that we will do better in a future choice.
This is beautifully illustrated during a property boom market: people will put
off selling their house thinking that in a boom market there is a good chance
they can increase their price by 50% or 100%. When the boom turns into bust
they end up with negative equity if they have a mortgage.
The paradox also attracts the law
of diminishing returns and information overload. Diminishing returns because the
more jars of jam we have to chose from the less value an extra jar of jam will
have for us: thus when we eat strawberries the more fruit we eat the less value
we derive from an extra strawberry until we become sick. Thus from an exercise
we start off looking forward to, we end up exhausted and dejected. Looking for
prospective partners the more partners we meet the less attractive the next
person will be. This is obvious by definition since if we are looking at an
additional person we have not found the best partner yet. We might even end up
with a gambler’s fallacy: all things being equal (see law of diminishing
returns) we might believe that given we have not found someone by now we are
bound to find someone soon. Unless something changes there is no reason to
assume that we’ll win next time.
I would argue that information
overload is also relevant for us: whilst it is true that the better informed we
are the better placed we are at making an informed choice. But as we know from
authors like Nassim Taleb of The Black Swan fame and Hume on induction, the
quality of relevant data is more important than just accumulated data. If Bernard
Russell’s chicken knew that on day 65 Russell would come to chop its head, the
chicken wouldn’t have gone out for lunch. In effect what I am arguing is that
the strategy and methodology we employ in our search for love determines both
the chances of finding love and the quality of love.
Schwartz argues that we have lost
the idea of “enough is good enough” and have entered into a mind set where we
have unreasonable expectations in effect we are maximisers. Today we know that
what we expect and what we can get are not in any way linked to each other. In
other words, a degree of realism can take us a long way.
Another way of solving the paradox
of choice is to know exactly what we want and in addition, I would say, know what
we can get. In effect, before we can know more about our prospective love, we ought
to start by getting to know more about what we want, who we are and what we can
get. And most important of all, how realistic are our desires? In other words,
are our necessary and sufficient conditions for a romantic love relationship
close to reality? Enough is good enough when enough can be achieved.
The Delphic maxim “Know thyself” is
more than just a sound bite. And in the journey of romantic love, knowing
thyself is a good place to start from.
Best Lawrence
tel: 606081813
philomadrid@gmail.com
Blog:
http://philomadrid.blogspot.com.es/
OR PhiloMadrid.com
MeetUp
https://www.meetup.com/PhiloMadrid-philosophy-group/
Gran Clavel (Café-Bar): Gran vía 11, esquina C/ Clavel, 28013—Madrid
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