Gramsci and idealism

[JustinG]

I would say Gramsci's anthropocentric approach, based on what you have been posting, is not a defect but a feature. It is the only proper philosophical approach to take. There is no reason to deny intersubjective experience to all non-humans, but there is also no reason to pretend we can philosophize about it until we have actually experienced their conscious perspectives. Until then, we must stick with the human modes of experiencing and knowing the world. The anthropocentric empirical-pragmatic approach is more respectful to non-human life, as it does not claim their perspectives to be fully encompassed within our own.

I think it is still possible to speculate and make reasonable inferences about the experience of non-human entities. It happens a bit on this forum in relation to Mind at Large .

[AshvinP]

I would say Gramsci's anthropocentric approach, based on what you have been posting, is not a defect but a feature. It is the only proper philosophical approach to take. There is no reason to deny intersubjective experience to all non-humans, but there is also no reason to pretend we can philosophize about it until we have actually experienced their conscious perspectives. Until then, we must stick with the human modes of experiencing and knowing the world. The anthropocentric empirical-pragmatic approach is more respectful to non-human life, as it does not claim their perspectives to be fully encompassed within our own.

Your argument fails as 1) supposing/demanding either-or situation, b) implying that philosophy is limited to "aboutness" and 3) very limited "we", instead of accepting empirically attested various degrees of perspective sharing. When people live with e.g. cat and dog people as their family members, there is plenty of perspective sharing, and cat and dog people can be great teachers of philosophy. There are also horse whisperers etc. etc. with talent and/or training for communication with non-human people.

That's not my argument.

1) what is the either/or?

b) philosophy is limited to experience - you are usually the one criticizing Western metaphysics for going beyond experience to realms of "absolutes". I am criticizing philosophers who not only posit "absolutes" for humans but then extrapolate them to non-humans as well.

3) I specifically said "until we have actually experienced their conscious perspectives". If an animist shaman in Finland has truly experienced a non-human animal's perspective, then I have no problem with that person philosophizing about what they have experienced.

[AshvinP]

I would say Gramsci's anthropocentric approach, based on what you have been posting, is not a defect but a feature. It is the only proper philosophical approach to take. There is no reason to deny intersubjective experience to all non-humans, but there is also no reason to pretend we can philosophize about it until we have actually experienced their conscious perspectives. Until then, we must stick with the human modes of experiencing and knowing the world. The anthropocentric empirical-pragmatic approach is more respectful to non-human life, as it does not claim their perspectives to be fully encompassed within our own.

I think it is still possible to speculate and make reasonable inferences about the experience of non-human entities. It happens a bit on this forum in relation to Mind at Large .

Does it though? I don't think many people if any here claim we can reasonably speculate on what it feels like to be Mind at Large and experience the world from the perspective of MAL.

[SanteriSatama]

That's not my argument.

1) what is the either/or?

It is/was an interpretation of the text commented. "Until" was interpreted as implying that so far and globally, no sharing of perspectives (ie. communication) happens, and the text seemed to further qualify that communication requires full sharing of perspectives, and should such become possible in future, only then philosophy can move on from the humanist bubble to more general animistic philosophy. But if that is not your view, cool.

b) philosophy is limited to experience - you are usually the one criticizing Western metaphysics for going beyond experience to realms of "absolutes". I am criticizing philosophers who not only posit "absolutes" for humans but then extrapolate them to non-humans as well.

As far thinking is also experiencing, I agree. Perspectives, by definition, are not absolutes. Perspectives are relational.

3) I specifically said "until we have actually experienced their conscious perspectives". If an animist shaman in Finland has truly experienced a non-human animal's perspective, then I have no problem with that person philosophizing about what they have experienced.

If and when you see a non-human animal in trouble and suffering, your empathy is already a sharing of perspective. Mutually shared perspective of ability to feel pain. I assume that even in USA there is some legislation against mistreating non-human animals and causing them unnecessary pain. Some degree of non-humanist animism is philosophically and pragmatically acknowledged also by state jurisdictions.

In idealistic metaphysics, as far as M@L is sentient, with ability to feel, and not only metacognitive, we can define that sentient aspect as Spirit. From that definition follows that all sentient beings in their various costumes are manifestations of Spirit. Thus, we can conclude that empathy is ontological, and in some way or another shared by all sentient beings. With ontologically grounded empathy comes also ability of sentient beings to build various degrees and forms of empathy barriers, as necessitated e.g. by dietary habits etc. metabolism of sentient beings.

So yes, the discussion is only about degrees, not about absolutes. Each perspective on each level of experiencing has some degree of irreducible uniqueness. Various senses are already their own unique perspectives with very complex interrelations and degrees of sharing.

As you mention shamans, in the book The Spell of the Sensuous, the author correctly observes that the main function of shamanhood (whether in individuated, distributed or other social form) is higher degree of sharing of perspectives, grounded in empathy. The function comes from pragmatic coherence theory of justification, grounded in pragmatically oriented participatory theory of evolution. Ability of a population to keep on reproducing depends from dynamical adaptation to an ecological balance. As even post-Cartesian scientism mostly acknowledges, it's poorly communicative humanist bubble is suffering from deep non-adaptive ecological crisis. New animism as an ethically and empirically grounded program to (re)learn better communicative abilities and strategies with other perspectives, both human and non-human peoples, follows directly from pragmatic coherence theory of justification.

[AshvinP]

If and when you see a non-human animal in trouble and suffering, your empathy is already a sharing of perspective. Mutually shared perspective of ability to feel pain. I assume that even in USA there is some legislation against mistreating non-human animals and causing them unnecessary pain. Some degree of non-humanist animism is philosophically and pragmatically acknowledged also by state jurisdictions.

In idealistic metaphysics, as far as M@L is sentient, with ability to feel, and not only metacognitive, we can define that sentient aspect as Spirit. From that definition follows that all sentient beings in their various costumes are manifestations of Spirit. Thus, we can conclude that empathy is ontological, and in some way or another shared by all sentient beings. With ontologically grounded empathy comes also ability of sentient beings to build various degrees and forms of empathy barriers, as necessitated e.g. by dietary habits etc. metabolism of sentient beings.

So yes, the discussion is only about degrees, not about absolutes. Each perspective on each level of experiencing has some degree of irreducible uniqueness. Various senses are already their own unique perspectives with very complex interrelations and degrees of sharing.

As you mention shamans, in the book Spell of the Sensual, the author correctly observes that the main function of shamanhood (whether in individuated, distributed or other social form) is higher degree of sharing of perspectives, grounded in empathy. The function comes from pragmatic coherence theory of justification, grounded in pragmatically oriented participatory theory of evolution. Ability of a population to keep on reproducing depends from dynamical adaptation to an ecological balance. As even post-Cartesian scientism mostly acknowledges, it's poorly communicative humanist bubble is suffering from deep non-adaptive ecological crisis. New animism as an ethically grounded program to (re)learn better communicative abilities and strategies with other perspectives, both human and non-human peoples, follows directly from pragmatic coherence theory of justification.

I think we are on the same page here. The key is to recognize that we are starting with our human experience-perspective and then branching out to encompass non-human phenomenon. That is what I call "anthropocentric". Our empathy for non-human animals is a true sharing of ideal content, but it is still always experienced from the human perspective and therefore in human concepts (unless a person actually taps into the animal conscious perspective somehow). If we forget that and start thinking we are explaining ideal relations from the perspective of non-humans, then we are just fooling ourselves.

[SanteriSatama]

I think we are on the same page here. The key is to recognize that we are starting with our human experience-perspective and then branching out to encompass non-human phenomenon. That is what I call "anthropocentric". Our empathy for non-human animals is a true sharing of ideal content, but it is still always experienced from the human perspective and therefore in human concepts (unless a person actually taps into the animal conscious perspective somehow). If we forget that and start thinking we are explaining ideal relations from the perspective of non-humans, then we are just fooling ourselves.

Miss-interpretation and miss-representation of perspectives is always a possibility. We face the same difficulties daily also in our human-to-human communication. Human perspective A communicates and shares with human perspective B, and then A tries to communicate and share something from B's perspective with perspective C as A and C share and communicate. It's much easier for us to interpret and share perspectives humans who speak same language, with simians, dogs, cats etc. mammals we have close relations with, etc. in gliding scales, which depend from perspectival multinatures of various human populations. A perspective of a human population A can have closer communicative relation with non-human population B than with human population C. Not all human populations share the same perspective of species classification as Western science.

If we see somebody (C) who is out of ignorance and unawareness or some deep trauma kicking a puppy, many or most of us (A) don't hesitate to communicate the perspective of the puppy (B) to the abusive C., and order C to stop hurting the puppy. Just like we would do if C was kicking a human child. I don't think we are fooling ourselves in such a scenario, do you?

[AshvinP]

I think we are on the same page here. The key is to recognize that we are starting with our human experience-perspective and then branching out to encompass non-human phenomenon. That is what I call "anthropocentric". Our empathy for non-human animals is a true sharing of ideal content, but it is still always experienced from the human perspective and therefore in human concepts (unless a person actually taps into the animal conscious perspective somehow). If we forget that and start thinking we are explaining ideal relations from the perspective of non-humans, then we are just fooling ourselves.

Miss-interpretation and miss-representation of perspectives is always a possibility. We face the same difficulties daily also in our human-to-human communication. Human perspective A communicates and shares with human perspective B, and then A tries to communicate and share something from B's perspective with perspective C as A and C share and communicate. It's much easier for us to interpret and share perspectives humans who speak same language, with simians, dogs, cats etc. mammals we have close relations with, etc. in gliding scales, which depend from perspectival multinatures of various human populations. A perspective of a human population A can have closer communicative relation with non-human population B than with human population C. Not all human populations share the same perspective of species classification as Western science.

If we see somebody (C) who is out of ignorance and unawareness or some deep trauma kicking a puppy, many or most of us (A) don't hesitate to communicate the perspective of the puppy (B) to the abusive C., and order C to stop hurting the puppy. Just like we would do if C was kicking a human child. I don't think we are fooling ourselves in such a scenario, do you?

I was only aiming my comment at explicit philosophical systems like that of Gramsci, not any specific interactions with non-humans. Specifically I was generally agreeing with this:

‘The idea of “objective” in metaphysical materialism would appear to mean an objectivity that exists even apart from man; but when one affirms that a reality would exist even if man did not, one is either speaking metaphorically, or one is falling into a form of mysticism. We know reality only in relation to man, and since man is historical becoming, knowledge and reality are also a becoming and so is objectivity..’ (446)

It does not make sense to speak of a metaphysics which starts from anything other than human experience. We may eventually incorporate some aspects of non-human experience as phenomenon which are relevant, but the starting point remains the human experience of the world, including the human experience of animals in the world. If we imagine that we are starting from anything other than human experience, then we are fooling ourselves.

[Lou Gold]

Perhaps we might acknowledge a range of empathy from simple sympathy to projection to empathy to incorporation to possession. All of these generate experiences but shamanhood is much more embedded in mediumistic states of incorporation or possession. This difference makes a difference in what is called experience.

The Jeremy Narby Bioneers video recently posted by Shu speaks to it in a delightfully humorous way. Near the end he suggests that humans as rather new top predators might learn a lot from longer existing top predators such as jaguars. This is where an anthropocentric hierarchical ascent bias can become a serious obstacle.

[SanteriSatama]

I was only aiming my comment at explicit philosophical systems like that of Gramsci, not any specific interactions with non-humans. Specifically I was generally agreeing with this:

‘The idea of “objective” in metaphysical materialism would appear to mean an objectivity that exists even apart from man; but when one affirms that a reality would exist even if man did not, one is either speaking metaphorically, or one is falling into a form of mysticism. We know reality only in relation to man, and since man is historical becoming, knowledge and reality are also a becoming and so is objectivity..’ (446)

And I disagree with Gramsci. Western philosophy starts from 'gnothi seauton', which in the epistemic translation "know thyself" does not assume that "man" is known. Replace "man" with "sentient being", and Gramsci's argument can start to make better sense. Finnish etc. translation of 'gnothi seauton' is not epistemic, gnosis is sentient: feel thyself.

It does not make sense to speak of a metaphysics which starts from anything other than human experience. We may eventually incorporate some aspects of non-human experience as phenomenon which are relevant, but the starting point remains the human experience of the world, including the human experience of animals in the world. If we imagine that we are starting from anything other than human experience, then we are fooling ourselves.

As I tried to say, meaning of "human" is not universal among the sentient beings that Western science biologically categorizes as "human species". Among what I suppose you refer to as "human species" with "human experience", there is no full consensus what those terms refer to and mean and how and where their extend among various costumes of the spirit. In many indigenous languages "human" refers only/mostly/by degree to members of a same tribe, and in various degrees less to sentient beings who are not members of the tribe, and those degrees don't necessarily depend from how Western science categorizes species.

A dog can be a family member and more closely shared perspective than other sentient beings including other biological humans who are not members of the same family, regardless of biological species. Human children also often associate very closely with spirits that are in West commonly called "imaginary friends". And in non-Western perspectives, children are not always lectured by materialistic authority that their "imaginary" friends "are not real".

My point is simply, we have no consensus definition of what is "human experience", so the claimed necessity of starting from something we can't assume is a fully/highly shared perspective, becomes moot.

[Lou Gold]

Substances can assist in the empathic experience. Heroin once showed me the calm pleasure of being a plant nodding in a sunbeam. It also showed me how attractive this state would be if one's life was filled with physical or psychic pain. Fortunately, my life was not and therefore I was not drawn toward an addictive relationship.