Of Belief

 

Godwin on Free Will and Necessity

From William Godwin' Thoughts on Man (XII):

There is an old axiom of philosophy, which counsels us to "think with the learned, and talk with the vulgar," and the practical application of this axiom runs thorugh the whole scene of human affairs. Thus the most learned astronomer talks of the rising and setting of the sun, and forgets in his ordinary discourse that the earth is not for ever at rest, and does not constitute the centre of the universe. Thus, however we reason respecting the attributes of inanimate matter and the nature of sensation, it never occurs to us, when occupied with the affairs of actual life, that there is no heat in fire, and no colour in the rainbow.

In like manner, when we contemplate the acts of ourselves and our neighbours, we can never divest ourselves of the delusive sense of the liberty of human actions, of the sentiment of conscience, of the feelings of love and hatred, the impulses of praise and blame, and the notions of virtue, duty, obligation, right, claim, guilt, merit and desert. And it has sufficiently appeared in the course of this Essay, that it is not desirable that we should do so. They are these ideas to which the world we live in is indebted for its crowning glory and greatest lustre. They form the highest distinction between men and other animals, and are the genuine basis of self-reverence, and the conceptions of true nobility and greatness, and the reverse of those attributes, in the men with whom we live, and the men whose deeds are recorded in the never-dying page of history.

But, though the doctine of the necessity of human actions can never form the rule of our intercourse with others, it will still have its use. It will moderate our excesses, and point out to us that middle path of judgment which the soundest philosophy inculcates. We shall learn, according to the apostolic precept, to "be angry, and sin not, neither let the sun go down upon our wrath." We shall make of our fellow-men neither idols to worship, nor demons to be regarded with horror and execration. We shall think of them, as of players, "that strut and fret their hour upon the stage, and then are heard no more." We shall "weep, as though we wept not, and rejoice, as though we rejoiced not, seeing that the fashion of this world passeth away." And, most of all, we shall view with pity, even with sympathy, the men whose frailties we behold, or by whom crimes are perpetuated, satisfied that they are parts of one great machine, and, like ourselves, are driven forward by impulses over which they have no real control.

Feeling for Our Friend

 (from William Godwin's Thoughts on Man, Essay XI, 'Of Self-Love and Benevolence')

 

It is then indeed a proof of selfishness, that we are in a greater or less degree relieved from the anguish we endured for our friend, when other objects occupy us, and we are no longer the witnesses of his sufferings? If this were true, the same argument would irresistibly prove, that we are the most generous of imaginable beings, the most disregardful of whatever relates to ourselves. Is it not the first ejaculation of the miserable, "Oh, that I could fly from myself? Oh, for a thick, substantial sleep!" What the desperate man hates is his own identity. But he knows that, if for a few moments he loses himself in forgetfulness, he will presently awake to all that distracted him. He knows that he must act his part to the end, and drink the bitter cup to the dregs. He can do none of these things by proxy. It is the consciousness of the indubitable future, from which we can never be divorced, that gives to our present calamity its most fearful empire. Were it not for this great line of distinction, there are many that would feel not less for their friend than for themselves. But they are aware, that his ruin will not make them beggars, his mortal disease will not bring them to the tomb, and that, when he is dead, they may yet be reserved for many years of health, of consciousness and vigour.

—oOo—

Of Self-Love and Benevolence

 

 

Un pasaje de los Thoughts on Man de William Godwin que no deja de recordar lo que es la tesis central del What Is Man?  de Mark Twain— sobre la subterránea conexión entre altruismo y egoísmo. 

 

In the time of the ancient republics the impulse of the citizens was to merge their own individuality in the interests of the state. They held it their duty to live but for their country. In this spirit they were eeducated; and the lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.

In a more recent period we have learned to model our characters by a different standard. We seldom recollect the socieety of which we are politically members, as a whole, but are broken into detached parties, thinking only for the most part of ourselves and our immedate connections and attachments.

This change in the sentiments and manners of modern times has among its other consequences given birth to a new species of philosophy. We have been taught to affirm, that we can have no express and pure regard for our fellow-creatures, but that all our benevolence and affection come to us through the strainers of a gross or a refined self-love. The coarser adherents of this doctrine maintain, that mankind are in all cases guided by views of the narrowest self-interest, and that those who advance the highest claims to philanthropy, patriotism, generosity and self-sacrifice, are all the time deceiving others, or deceiving themselves, and use a plausible and high-sounding language merely, that serves no other purpose than to veil from observation "that hideous sight, a naked human heart."

 

(William Godwin, Thoughts on Man, Essay XI: Of Self-Love and Benevolence)

 

 

Eficacia adaptativa del autoengaño en el altruismo

 

 

—oOo—

The Crowded Masquerade

 

Godwin, Derrida, la citacionalidad, los roles y el individuo como efecto estructural

Godwin, Derrida, la citacionalidad, los roles y el individuo como efecto estructural:

https://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2020/07/godwin-derrida-la-citacionalidad-los.html

—oOo—

No More than Puppets: Godwin on Roles and Scripts

(from William Godwin's 'Thoughts on Man', Essay X, 'Of imitation and Invention'). 

Godwin reflects on the importance of both repetitive imitation AND invention in human nature and society. This brings to mind my father's reflections on what he called 'the praise of Rote', and is an interesting contribution to dramatistic sociology, to discourse analysis, and to the theory of roles, scripts and frames:

"Yet what is human speech for the most part but mere imitation? In the most obvious sense this stands out on the surface. We are like players, who come out as if they were real persons, but only utter what is set down for them. We represent the same drama every day; and, however stale is the eternal repetition, pass it off upon others, and even upon ourselves, as if it were the suggestion of the moment. In reality, in rural or vulgar life, the invention of a new phrase ought to be marked down among the memorable things in the calendar. We afford too much honour to ordinary conversation, when we compare it to the exhibition of the recognised theatres, since men ought for the most part to be considered as no more than puppets. They perform the gesticulations, but the words come from some one else, who is hid from the sight of the general observer. And not only the words, but the cadence: they have not even so much honour as players have, to choose the manner they may deem fittest by which to convey the sense and the passion of what they speak. The pronunciation, the dialect, all, are supplied to them, and are but a servile repetition. Our tempers are merely the work of the transcriber. We are angry, where we saw that others were angry; and we are pleased, because it is the tone to be pleased. We pretend to have each of us a judgment of our own; but in truth we wait with the most patient docility, till he whom we regard as the leader of the chorus gives us the signal, Here you are to appplaud, and Here you are to condemn." (189)

And he goes straight on to comment on cultures, social roles, national styles, professions, mores and manners, as so many dramas scripted for human puppets who act as they think spontaneously. The analyst or deep observer thinks otherwise, and focuses instead on the generative system under the epiphnomena of individual behaviour:

"What is it that constitutes the manners of nations, by which the people of one country are so eminently distinguished from the people of another, as that you cannot cross the channel from Dover to Calais, twenty-one miles, without finding yourself in a new world? Nay, I need not go among the subjects of another government to find examples of this; if I pass into Ireland, Scotland or Wales, I see myself surrounded with a new people, all of whose characters are in a manner cast in one mould, and all different from the citizens of the principal state and from one another. We may go further than this. Not only nations, but classes of men, are contrasted with each other. What can be more different than the gentry of the west end of this metropolis, and the money-making dwellers in the east? From them I will pass to Billingsgate and Wapping. What more unlike than a soldier and a sailor? the children of fashion that stroll in St. James's and Hyde Park, and the care-worn hirelings, that recreate themselves, with their wives and their brats, with a little fresh air on a Sunday near Islington? The houses of lords and commons have each their characteristic manners. Each profession has its own, the lawyer, the divine, and the man of medicine. We are all apes, fixing our eyes upon a model, and copying him, gesture by gesture. We are sheep, rushing headlong through the gap, when the bell-wether shews us the way. We are choristers, mechanically singing in a certain key, and giving breath to a certain tone. 

"Our religion, our civil practices, our political creed, are all imitation. How many men are there, that have examined the evidences of their religious belief, and can give a sound 'reason of the faith that is in them'?  When I was a child, I was taught that there were four religions in the world, the Popish, the Protestant, the Mahometan, the Pagan. It is a phenomenon to find the man, who has held the balance steady, and rendered full and exact justice to the pretensions of each of these. No: tell me the longitude and latitud in which a man is born, and I wil ltell you his religion.

By education most have been misled;

So they believe, because so they were bred:

The priest continues what the nurse began,

And thus the child imposes on the man.

"And, if this happens, where we are told our everlasting salvation is at issue,, we may easily judge of the rest."

Sobre la idea de creencia

—oOo—