Follower of Pietro Perugino, Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, c. 1490/1500, tempera on panel (National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection)
We continue to investigate how two purposes x and y can have a relation symbolized by y → x. In the previous chapter, the relation was that x was useful for y; now the relation will be that x is right for y, meaning x “conforms with the rule y” (16. 3). Continue reading
George Inness (American, 1825–1894), The Lackawanna Valley, c. 1856, oil on canvas (National Gallery of Art, Washington; gift of Mrs. Huttleston Rogers). See footnote
In the previous chapter, “Reason,” we have seen that an intention x may have another intention y as a ground or reason; and we may symbolize this relation by y → x. In Collingwood’s example now, x is giving a sum of money to a tobacconist, and y is receiving a pound of tobacco (15. 17). Continue reading
Summary added January 29, 2019, revised May 8, 2019. Practical reason is the support of one intention by another; theoretical, one proposition by another. Reasoning is thus always “motivated reasoning”: we engage in it to relieve the distress of uncertainty. Reason is primarily practical, only secondarily theoretical; and the reason for saying this is the persistence of anthropomorphism in theoretical reasoning: by the Law of Primitive Survivals in Chapter IX, we tend to think even of inanimate objects as forming intentions the way we do.
Reasons for adding this summary of Chapter XIV of Collingwood’s New Leviathan include
Says Burkeman, whose “problem” is apparently motivated reasoning itself,
One of the sneakier forms of the problem, highlighted in a recent essay by the American ethicist Jennifer Zamzow, is “solution aversion”: people judge the seriousness of a social problem, it’s been found, partly based on how appetising or displeasing they find the proposed solution. Obviously, that’s illogical …
On the contrary, how we reason cannot be “illogical,” any more than how we speak can be “ungrammatical.” Logic is an account, or an analysis, of how we do actually reason; grammar, of how we speak. Of course we may make errors, by our own standards.
Rogier van der Weyden (Netherlandish, 1399/1400–1464),
Portrait of a Lady, c. 1460, oil on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington; Andrew W. Mellon Collection
There was a rumor that Collingwood had become a communist. According to David Boucher, editor of the revised (1992) edition of The New Leviathan, the rumor was one of the “many reasons why [that book] failed to attract the acclaim which had been afforded Collingwood’s other major works.” Continue reading
Adolph Gottlieb, “Centrifugal,” 1961 (National Gallery of Art, Washington; gift of the Woodward Foundation)
The key idea of Chapter XIII of New Leviathan is the correct statement of the “problem of free will”:
Judith Leyster (Dutch, 1609–1660)
Self-Portrait, c. 1630, oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss
I gave ad hoc consideration to Chapter XII of Collingwood’s New Leviathan on November 3 of last year (2016), just before the American Presidential election. This was in an article sharing the title of the chapter: “Happiness.” The idea was that in dreadful times, unhappiness is “parasitic” on happiness.
Allowing himself “a certain freedom of interpretation” (12. 15), Collingwood agrees with Aristotle that “happiness” is the general term for what we desire (12. 11).
The four parts of Collingwood’s New Leviathan (1942) are Man, Society, Civilization, and Barbarism. From the first part, we are considering Chapter XI, “Desire.”
Pablo Picasso, “The Lovers,” 1923
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Passion is literally the correlate of action, as suffering is the correlate of doing. In the ordinary, vulgar sense, passion is our response to what we suffer. This is how we shall understand it.
Sagrada Familia, Passion Façade, November, 2008
“All I want to know about mind,” says Collingwood,
is what it has done on certain definite occasions; not everything it has done, but enough for my purely practical purpose, deciding how to deal with the present attack on civilization.
This is from ¶9. 2 of New Leviathan. Three years ago, I set out here to read and write about this book, chapter by chapter. Continue reading
Note added February 10, 2019: I return to this rambling essay, two years later in the Math Village. The main points are as follows.
Here are some meditations on some books read during a stay in the Nesin Mathematics Village, January, 2017. I originally posted this article from the Village; now, back in Istanbul, a few days into February, recovering from the flu that I started coming down with in the Village, I am correcting some errors and trying to clarify some obscurities.
Nesin Mathematics Village from the east
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Having enjoyed spending a January week at the Nesin Mathematics Village in 2016, this year I came back for two weeks. My spouse will join me for the second week. Meanwhile, here are some photographs from this amazing place. Continue reading
Polytropy 