Towards a Rational Philosophical Anthropology

413 Pages·1977·10.41 MB·English

by  Joseph Agassi (auth.)

TOWARDS A RATIONAL
PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
THE VAN LEER JERUSALEM FOUNDATION SERIES
INTELLECTUALS AND TRADITION
Editors: S. N. Eisenstadt and S. R. Graubard
SCIENCE AND VALUES: Patterns of Tradition and Change
Editors: A. Thackray and E. Mendelsohn
THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
Editor: Y. Elkana
SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STRUCTURE IN THE ARAB WORLD
Editor: M. Milson
SOCIALISM AND TRADITION
Editors: S. N. Eisenstadt and Yael Azmon
DYNAMICS OF A CONFLICT
A Re-examination of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Editor: G. Sheffer
TOWARDS A RATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
by J. Agassi
FRAGMENTATION AND WHOLENESS
by D. Bohm
VARIETIES OF MARXISM
Editor: S. Avineri
THEORY AND PRACTICE
by N. Rotenstreich
EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE VAN LEER JERUSALEM FOUNDATION
S. N. Eisenstadt, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Y. Elkana, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
G. Holton, Harvard University
R. K. Merton, Columbia University
M. Milson, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
N. Rotenstreich, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Esther Shashar, Executive Editor, The Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation
TOWARDS A RATIONAL
PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGy
by
JOSEPH AGASSI
I I
MARTINUS NIJHOFF / THE HAGUE / 1977
© 1977 by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, The Netherlands
Softcover reprint o/the hardcover 1st edition 1977
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-1097-9 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-1095-5
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-1095-5
SET IN ISRAEL BY ISRATYPESET, JERUSALEM
Preface
The thesis of the present volume is critical and dual. (1) Present day
philosophy of man and sciences of man suffer from the Greek mis
taken polarization of everything human into nature and convention
which is (allegedly) good and evil, which is (allegedly) truth and fal
sity, which is (allegedly) rationality and irrationality, to wit, the polar
ization of all fields of inquiry, the natural and social sciences, as well
as ethics and all technology, whether natural or social, into the totally
positive and the totally negative. (2) Almost all philosophy and sci
ences of man share the erroneous work ethic which is the myth of
man's evil nature - the myth of the beast in man, the doctrine of
original sin. To mediate or to compromise between the first view of
human nature as good with the second view of it as evil, sociologists
have devised a modified utilitarianism with deferred gratification so
called, and the theory of the evil of artificial competition (capitalist
and socialist alike) and of keeping up with the Joneses. Now, the
mediation is not necessary. For, the polarization makes for abstract
errors which are simplistic views of rationality, such as reductionism
and positivism of all sorts, as well as for concrete errors, such as the
disposition to condemn repeatedly those human weaknesses which are
inevitable, namely man's inability to be perfectly rational, avoid all
error, etc., thus setting man against himself as all too wicked. Be it as
it may, I propose that the Greek dichotomy between nature and con
vention was powerful stuff that offered a challenging extremist frame
work for the philosophy and the sciences of man, yet one which has
outlived its usefulness; in the distant past it was challenging but in the
recent past it became increasingly a hindrance: it helped suppress or
vi PREFACE
confuse efforts to develop an alternative to it or challenging scientific
theories that do not fall well within its confines. Strangely, it is now
possible to argue that a more moderate framework than the Greek
polarization of everthing into nature and convention may be by far
the more challenging one. A more moderate framework will enable us
to develop both a better philosophy and a better science of man - to
develop a better image of man. Only if we dispose of the Greek
dichotomy will the road be cleared for a more moderate yet more
rational picture of man as only partly rational, hopefully more at
peace with himself, his partial rationality, and his partial democracy;
as partiy rational, but progressing - both in his education and in his
ability to resolve conflicts. In brief, the chief aim of the present study
is to attack the no longer so very important yet still too prevalent
all-or-nothing attitude in philosophy and to offer some rudiments of
an outline of a substitute to it in the theory that takes certain un
polarized human qualities as central, such as the limited (but) human
dignity, suffering, understanding, and struggle.
The following five chapters evolved out of three lectures delivered
(in Hebrew) at the Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation in May 1971, and
one lecture delivered at the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of
Science, Boston University, in October 1972. The first chapter is an
expansion of the first lecture delivered in Jerusalem; the second chap
ter is an expansion of the Boston lecture and more so of points raised
in the ensuing discussion; the third chapter expands the second J eru
salem lecture; the fourth and fifth chapters, the last Jerusalem lecture.
I do not know why this has happened, or how the neat and orderly
ascent exhibited in the table of contents - much too orderly, to my
taste - has come into being. Perhaps I just repressed the obvious until
it hit me in the face.
My gratitude is, first and foremost, to Dr. Yehuda Elkana of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, director of the Van Leer Jerusalem
Foundation; he invited me to deliver the lectures, took generous care
of all the technicalities involved, and invited me to submit the final
version plus notes (of which more in the introduction) for publication.
I am deeply indebted, also, to admirable Miriam Balaban, editor of the
same Foundation for her help in day to day matters, as well as for her
patience and constant encouragement. And I am indebted to the Van
Leer Jerusalem Foundation and to Esther Shashar, now executive
editor of the Foundation for the technical assistance which went
into the production of this work. Also, my gratitude to Professor
Robert S. Cohen of Boston University, Chairman of the Boston Col
loquium for the Philosophy of Science, who advised me on the final
PREFACE vii
composition of this work. My gratitude, also, to Pr.ofessors Edward
Davenport and John Wettersten who read the penultimate version and
made valuable comments. The indices were prepared by Charles M.
Sawyer, Eva Alkon Katz and myself. I much appreciate their help.
Of all the people from whose conversations and exchange I have
profited, I hope, in the writing of this work, I can only mention the
few with whom I had lengthy exchanges which I feel have left a broad
and deep impression on me. These are Judith Buber Agassi, Robert S.
Cohen, Shmuel Ettinger, Ernest Gellner, Edward Goodman, Daniel
Greenberg, Berek Gross, Ian C. Jarvie, Kurt Klappholz, and J.O. Wis
dom. I cannot adequately acknowledge my debt to them.
Any debt to the giants of our tradition cannot, of course, be ex
pressed except in an intellectual history. I have tried to do some
justice in the present work to our intellectual history, but I am all too
aware of my deficiency in this respect. I hope, however, that the
pervasive influence of Spinoza, Marx, Freud, and Russell will be noted
by the connoisseurs; but the most immediate and direct influence on
me is, of course, that of my teacher, Sir Karl Popper, whose method
ology as well as social philosophy I take as points of departure.
Herzliah, Israel, Summer 1974
Sudsbury, Mass., U.S.A., Winter 1975
PREFACE v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
INTRODUCTION: AGAINST THE ELITISM OF
EXCESSIVE SCHOLARSHIP
Notes 8
CHAPTER ONE: MAN AS MACHINE 21
"Notes 22
I. Positivism is to be rejected out of hand 24
Notes 28
II. Reductionism is an attractive metaphysics 35
Notes 39
III. Explanation is not elimination 46
Notes 52
IV. In praise of methodological pluralism 67
V. In praise of idle speculation 79
Notes 86
CHAPTER TWO: MAN AS ANIMAL 92
Notes 94
VI. Man-as-animal is not the animal-in-man 100
Notes 106
VII. The philosophical weakness of neo-Darwinism 119
Notes 129
VIII. The subtlety of behaviorism is sham 152
Notes 158
IX. Behaviorism as a stern moralizing 166
Notes 170
X. Anti-intellectualism explained 178
Notes 183
CHAPTER THREE: MAN AS RATIONAL 189
Notes 191
XI. Greek metaphysics today 193
Notes 197
XII. Science and pseudo-science are entangled 209
Notes 215
XIII. Science is traditionally based on a myth 222
Notes 225
XIV. The myth that science is utterly rational 232
Notes 236
XV. Social science without the myth of science 243
Notes 247
CHAPTER FOUR: MAN AS SOCIAL 256
Notes 257
XVI. The rationality of science is partial 261
Notes 264
XVII. Assuming too much rationality is silly 265
Notes 268
XVIII. Equality is hard to define 275
Notes 278
XIX. Psychologism and collectivism explain away each other 290
Notes 294
XX. A non-reductionist demarcation between psychology
and sociology 304
Notes 309
CHAPTER FIVE: MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD 318
Notes 319
XXI. Utopias of psychologism and of collectivism
are identical 319
Notes 323
XXII. Skepticism rehabilitated 336
Notes 339
XXIII. Culture is no burden 345
Notes 348
XXIV. An image of the democratic man 357
Notes 359
XXV. Towards a rational philosophical anthropology 363
Notes 367
INDEX OF NAMES 371
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 385
Introduction: Against the Elitism
of Excessive Scholarship
Many studies, especially those of ambitious nature, suffer from exces
sive annotation and documentation. They exhibit too much scholar
ship. The social function of such exhibition is to intimidate and thus
discourage the uninitiate from publishing, especially ambitious
works. 1 Here I wish to discuss this function, explain my displeasure
with it, and help the ambitious reader to beat the system by offering a
quick and easy method of simulating the scholarly stance.
The annotation and documentation of this volume seem to me
quite redundant, and certainly suffering from excess. I have under
taken it at the insistence of Dr. Elkana, who has invited me to give the
lectures on which this work is based and to submit the work for
publication. I therefore feel that, first of all, lowe it to the reader to
explain my conduct, since I do not wish to place the responsibility
for my actions anywhere else than with me.
This is not the first time that I publish a heavily documented and
annotated text, and, as before, I do it with mixed feelings. The pur
pose of documentation and annotation is to aid the specialist reader
who wishes to pursue a point further than the intended reader. For
the latter, parsimony may be essential: a reader flooded with refer
ences will not easily know which to pursue. Sometimes, indeed, a
crucial debt is expressed in a reference hidden in a mass of scholarly
ones. The concealed purpose of heavy documentation and annotation
is not so much, in my opinion, to help or confuse the judicious reader
(specialists do not generally need help and they see through the con
fusions when they want to) as to browbeat the less judicious one. This
observation is a bit unkind, perhaps, since it is the "lay" reader who
usually asks for documentation. That is to say, because readers are less