Skills of Hand & Brain & Eye
22/12/10 22:26 Filed in: Human Nature
“The essential failure of capitalism is that the kind of society which capitalism creates is one that can never fully employ the skills of hand and brain and eye, the exercise of which is part of man’s true being” (Alasdair MacIntyre’s Engagement with Marxism, p. 6)
A recent report on NPR discussed the frustration parents have with their children playing violent video games. A recent study showed, they reported, that children who play video games have increased spatial recognition and other cognitive abilities over those who do. Supposedly, someone who plays a video game uses a different part of the brain to perceive space than do people who do not play video games. Thus, it takes those who do not play video games more time to process spatial reasoning abilities. This effect lasts for two years after someone has stopped playing the video game.
I think this finding is interesting on a number of levels.
On one level, it asks us what is the cost of improving our brains in this manner viz., playing violent video games? Also, it raises the question about whether the video games that are played must be violent?
On another level, it brings in the notion of skills versus virtues and those things “the exercise of which is part of [humanity’s] true being.” Those familiar with MacIntyre know that he later writes of skills within the context of practices. Practices are defined with respect to the internal goods that define the good and the way that a practice, as opposed to other human activities, human powers and the human conception of the good. This emphasis on practice over skills marks a qualitative change from MacIntyre’s position in the quote above: the issue is not just skills. But it remains those things which constitute part of humanity’s true being.
Which brings us to the third level: what is humanity’s true being?
This question constitutes the fundamental question of philosophy and religion. It also should be one we ask at certain times through the year: Christmas and Easter being one of those times, but also at our birthdays and anniversaries.
It comprises a question that every one ask or risk leading a worthless life.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” -- Socrates
A recent report on NPR discussed the frustration parents have with their children playing violent video games. A recent study showed, they reported, that children who play video games have increased spatial recognition and other cognitive abilities over those who do. Supposedly, someone who plays a video game uses a different part of the brain to perceive space than do people who do not play video games. Thus, it takes those who do not play video games more time to process spatial reasoning abilities. This effect lasts for two years after someone has stopped playing the video game.
I think this finding is interesting on a number of levels.
On one level, it asks us what is the cost of improving our brains in this manner viz., playing violent video games? Also, it raises the question about whether the video games that are played must be violent?
On another level, it brings in the notion of skills versus virtues and those things “the exercise of which is part of [humanity’s] true being.” Those familiar with MacIntyre know that he later writes of skills within the context of practices. Practices are defined with respect to the internal goods that define the good and the way that a practice, as opposed to other human activities, human powers and the human conception of the good. This emphasis on practice over skills marks a qualitative change from MacIntyre’s position in the quote above: the issue is not just skills. But it remains those things which constitute part of humanity’s true being.
Which brings us to the third level: what is humanity’s true being?
This question constitutes the fundamental question of philosophy and religion. It also should be one we ask at certain times through the year: Christmas and Easter being one of those times, but also at our birthdays and anniversaries.
It comprises a question that every one ask or risk leading a worthless life.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” -- Socrates
Comments
Anti-Dawkins by Dover
17/12/10 22:18 Filed in: Human Nature
I just read an article by Gabrielle Dover called “Anti-Dawkins” which both points out the fallacies of Dawkins’ selfish-gene theory and proposes an alternative to the selfish-gene theory. The argument and the new proposal rest on something biologists have known for some time: genes interact with each other. The fact that they interact with each other tells against the idea that a gene acts selfishly only to reproduce itself. It cannot do this when interacting with other genes, and genes never act in isolation. Second, we can see, so Dover argues, that through modularity, the ways genes interact gene within individual genotypes -- within individual organisms. These changes can be neutral with respect to reproductivity. Yet, if passed on through a population they might later on become important in responding to new environmental stimuli. So a once-neutral trait might be become an exaptation in a new environment. Ian Tattersall suggests that language is such an exaptation.
Part of our problem as a culture, as Dover nicely points out, and as has been pointed out before by the likes of Mary Midgley and Stephen Jay Gould, among others, is that we believe that each gene selects for one particular trait. We would do well to rid ourselves of this false belief which acts, in the case of Dawkins’ selfish gene, on which evolutionary psychology rests, as an ideology.
Part of our problem as a culture, as Dover nicely points out, and as has been pointed out before by the likes of Mary Midgley and Stephen Jay Gould, among others, is that we believe that each gene selects for one particular trait. We would do well to rid ourselves of this false belief which acts, in the case of Dawkins’ selfish gene, on which evolutionary psychology rests, as an ideology.
Jencks on Genes, Cultures, Freedom
16/12/10 21:06 Filed in: Human Nature
Jencks, in his article, EP, Phone Home, takes on the nature versus nurture, or gene versus culture, debate and, in particular, the claims of evolutionary psychology. In particular, for Jencks, evolutionary psychology claims that human behavior can be explained by reference to “epigenetic rules” programmed in our genes some half a million years ago, when hominids first walked the steppes of Africa. Jencks main complaint against evolutionary psychology is that EP is unable to account for human freedom.
We can look at, for instance, sneezing, sex, and art. Sneezing is more biological determined than is sex, but each allow a modicum of freedom. For example, how someone sneezes or what they say when they sneeze, or, with sex, the various positions or approaches to sex that vary from culture to culture. Art, however, seems to comprise an arena in which human beings actualize maximum freedom, because good art defies rules. Jencks attacks, in particular, E. O. Wilson’s account of beauty as an expression of epigenetic rules that map out how human beings respond to certain levels of complexity and repetition in a piece of art work or in nature.
While I think that Jencks article lacks a detailed argument, surely he is on the right track here. In particular, Jencks emphasizes what other theorists have said before, especially Mary Midgley and Alasdair MacIntyre, both of whom have, in my opinion, a fairly Aristotelian approach. We cannot reduce discussions of human nature to the either/or dichotomies that have framed the debate about human nature in the West for millennia. In fact, a frank look at culture and biology show that nature and nurture cannot be the only answer to human behavior, though they provide the foundation for human freedom. Or, I should say, that nature and nurture -- genes and culture -- provide the conditions within which human beings, and other pre-linguistic rational animals -- exercise what Thomas Aquinas calls free choice.
Understanding this relationship proves essential for addressing the claims of determinists, on the one side, social constructivists, on the other, and existentialist on the third.
We can look at, for instance, sneezing, sex, and art. Sneezing is more biological determined than is sex, but each allow a modicum of freedom. For example, how someone sneezes or what they say when they sneeze, or, with sex, the various positions or approaches to sex that vary from culture to culture. Art, however, seems to comprise an arena in which human beings actualize maximum freedom, because good art defies rules. Jencks attacks, in particular, E. O. Wilson’s account of beauty as an expression of epigenetic rules that map out how human beings respond to certain levels of complexity and repetition in a piece of art work or in nature.
While I think that Jencks article lacks a detailed argument, surely he is on the right track here. In particular, Jencks emphasizes what other theorists have said before, especially Mary Midgley and Alasdair MacIntyre, both of whom have, in my opinion, a fairly Aristotelian approach. We cannot reduce discussions of human nature to the either/or dichotomies that have framed the debate about human nature in the West for millennia. In fact, a frank look at culture and biology show that nature and nurture cannot be the only answer to human behavior, though they provide the foundation for human freedom. Or, I should say, that nature and nurture -- genes and culture -- provide the conditions within which human beings, and other pre-linguistic rational animals -- exercise what Thomas Aquinas calls free choice.
Understanding this relationship proves essential for addressing the claims of determinists, on the one side, social constructivists, on the other, and existentialist on the third.