Notes Chapter I: Descriptions of Maximally Comprehensive Perspectives 1. “We use the term world pictures to refer to that which for human beings has object characte r, that which confronts the mind and is conceived of as expres- sions of the power of the mind. World pictur es are capable of being descr ibed as something objective in the same way as rooms or houses; spiritual kinds ofviews have such pictures as their ess ential form of expression and their neces- sary condition, but the nature of the forces creating wor ldviews is such that it does not always express them as object-directed, they are also expressed as value hierarchies” ( Jaspers , 1919: 161). 2. This quotation from Koestler (1949: 68) is used by Polanyi in a similar con- text (1952: 218). 3. A Cre tan say s: “All Cretans always lie.” Is this senten ce true? 4. Russell’ s antinomy concerns the class of all clas ses that are not me mbers ofthems elves . Is this clas s a member of itse lf ? If it is, th en it is n ot, an d if it is not, then it is. Hence it both is and is not a member of itself: a contradiction. 5. For a criticism of the doctr ine that different logics can be described in the way attempted by some social scientists, see Naess, et al. ( 1956: 203 ff.). 6. See chapters 1– 4 ofOutlines of Pyrrhonism in Sextus Empiricus (1933–44). Most authors connect the word scepticism with Academic scepticism, or more pertinently, negativism. The Pyrrhonic sceptic, however, can subject all ofhis own arguments and their presuppositions to examination. But he may participate in the presupposition-research that thereby results without pre- tens ion of (tru e) knowl edge of what the pr esup posit ions ar e —indee d with- out beforehand denying(with claim to truth for the denial) that a philosopher who says that not everythinghas presuppositions may be right. The one who does research seeks. The one who seeks can stop and ask himself, Exac tly what am I looking for? If it is a thumbtac k, the answer is rathe r simple . But if it is the “pres uppos ition s of all quest ionin g,” it is not simple. If he stops long enough, he ge ts at least one new task of research. For the external spectator , it may often seem as if the questioner , by us- 151
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8/15/2019 bbm%3A978-1-4020-4519-6%2F3%2F1 Arne Naess
ing certain distinctions in the question-formulation itself, presupposes that
certain answers are definitively decided, but the questioner does not need to
have a definite answer, he may have a questioning (not-definitively-deciding)
basic attitude, an attitude characterized by the fact that any answer with him
seems to acquire a nondefinitive status. For example:
Sceptic: Is perleungetunge a kind of cactus?
Dogmatist: Aha, you presuppose the existence of perleungetunge !
Sceptic: I read about them. I have neither time nor capacity to take
a definitive standpoint to the truth of everything that I read. But
I have much trust ; that much I grant you willingly.
7. See Jaspers (1919); the fourth edition (1954) has an interesting foreword con-
cerning the evolution of Jaspers’s ideas.
8. For an example of such a debate, see the discussion between Naess and Sir Al-
fred Ayer on Empiricist vs. total views in “The Glass Is on the Table,” which
originally appeared in Reflexive Water: The Basic Concerns of Mankind , edited by
Fons Elders (1974 [in SWAN VIII]).
9. A method for successively more adequate— and therefore complicated—
presentation of an ethical system is described in chapter 3 of my Gandhi and Group Conflict (1974 [SWAN V]).
10. Page references to the work of Nordenstam refer to his unpublished doctoral
dissertation, “An Analysis of the Traditional Sudanese Virtues” (1968b).
11. Translation of “Erscheinungen für uns.” The formulation of Hegel’s system
follows in the main Ueberweg (1898–1903, vol. 4).
12. Formulated in all essentials in accordance with the formulations in Ueber-
weg (1898–1903, vol. 4).
Chapter II: Comparison of Different Total Views
1. Generally, this cannot be claimed entirely, since the near-total systems per-
ceive the other within the system (in the widest sense), and therefore do not
reach “all the way” out to the outsider.
2. It is essential to believe that when one looks at the first page of the Ethics andreads the first sentence, one is confronted with “Spinoza’s doctrine itself.” It is
merely required that one understands Latin.
3. On the different substance concepts of Descartes and Spinoza and their rela-
tionship to the things they derive, see an interesting but somewhat unclear
note by J. Bennett (1965: 379–80).
4. Leibniz employs two of the Aristotelian substance criteria— substance as the
place of change and substance as logical subject— but adds a concept of non-
composedness. In the first paragraph of the Monadology he defines monad as
NOTES TO PAGES 25–79
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Books or articles appearing in the Selected Works of Arne Naess are identified by(SWAN XX) at the end of the entry, where XX refers to the pertinent volumenumber.
Ayer, Sir Alfred and Arne Naess. 1974. “The glass is on the table.” In Reflexive Wa-ter: The Basic Concerns of Mankind , edited by Fons Elders. London: SouvenirPress. (in SWAN VIII)
Barth, Fredrik. 1975. Ritual and Knowledge Among the Baktaman of New Guinea.Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
———. 1977. “Et samfunn må Forstås ut fra egne fortutsetninger (A society must beunderstood on the basis of its own assumptions).” In Sosialantropologi, A mimeo-graphed collection of articles for students. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, pp. 5–9.
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind . San Francisco: Chandler Pub-lishing Company.
Bennett, Jonathan. 1965. “A note on Descartes and Spinoza.” Philosophical Review74: 379–80.
Bruemmer, Fred. 1981. “Eskimos are warm people.” Natural Histor y 90: 42–49.
Cassirer, Ernst. 1906–07. Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit (The problem of knowledge), 2 vols. Berlin: B. Cassirer.
———. 1963. Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance (The individ-ual and the cosmos in Renaissance philosophy), translated and with an intro-duction by Mario Domandi. New York: Harper and Row.
Castberg, Frede. 1966. Retten og staten (Justice and the state). Oslo: Universitetsfor-laget.
Christie, Nils. 1978. Hvor tett et samfunn? (How tight a community?) Oslo: Univer-sitetsforlaget.
155
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Cohen, Felix S. 1939. “The relativity of philosophical systems and the method of systemic relativism.” Journal of Philosophy 36: 57–72.
Collingwood, Robin G. 1940. An Essay on Metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dahl, Ottar. 1956. Om årsaksproblemer i historisk forskning; forsøk på en vitenskaps-teoritisk analyse (Problems of causation in historical research). Oslo: Univer-sitetsforlaget.
Dammann, Erik. 1981. Talofa Samoa!: gjensyn med sydhavsøya som forandret vår tilværelse (Hello Samoa!). Oslo: Gyldendal.
Descartes, René. 1649. Les passiones de l’âme (The passions of the soul). Amsterdam:chez Louys Elzevier.
———. 1931. The Philosophical Works of Descartes, translated by Elizabeth S. Hal-dane and G.R.T. Ross, 2 vols., 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
Donagan, Alan. 1962. The Later Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood . Oxford: ClarendonPress.
Durant, Will. 1938. The Story of Philosophy. Garden City, NY: Garden City Pub-lishing.
Elders, Fons, ed. 1974. Reflexive Water: The Basic Concerns of Mankind . London: Sou-venir Press.
Evans-Pritchard, Edward E. 1937. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande.Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Fink, Eugen, 1934. Die phänomenologische Philosophie Edmund Husserls in der gegenwär-tigen Kritik, with foreword by Edmund Husserl. Berlin-Charlottenburg: Pan-verlagsgesellschaft.
Fløystad, Guttorm. 1967. “Problemet om personlig identitet.” Norsk FilosofiskTidsskrift 4.
Galtung, Johan, and Arne Naess. 1955. Gandhis politiske etikk (Gandhi’s politicalethics), 2d ed. Oslo: Johan Grundt Tanum (1968).
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. London: Hutchinson.
Hall, Everett W. 1960. Philosophical Systems: A Categorical Analysis. Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press.
Hallett, Harold Foster. 1957. Benedict de Spinoza: The Elements of His Philosophy. Lon-don: University of London, Athlone Press.
Hegge, Hjalmar 1967. “Noen vitenskapsteoretiske spørsmål belyst ved Goethesnaturvitenskapp.” Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 2.
Heidegger, Martin. 1927. Sein und Zeit (Being and time). Halle: M. Niemeyer.
REFERENCES
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———. 1949. Über den Humanismus (Letter on humanism). Frankfurt: Kloster-mann.
Høffding, Harald. 1926. Etik: en fremstilling af de etiske principer og deres anvendelse og deres anvendelse paa de vigtigste livsforhold . Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghan-del Nordisk Forlag.
Horton, Robin. 1970. “African traditional thought and western science.” In Ratio-nality, edited by Bryan R. Wilson. Evanston and New York: Harper and Row,pp. 131–71.
Huizer, Gerrit, and Bruce Mannheim, eds. 1979. The Politics of Anthropology: FromColonialism and Sexism Toward a View from Below. The Hague: Mouton.
Husserl, Edmund. 1959. Recueil commémoratif publié à l’occasion du centenaire de la nais- sance du philosophe, edited by the Committee of Phaenomenologica, H. L. vanBreda, president. The Hague: M. Nijhoff.
Jarvie, I. C., and Joseph Agassi. 1970. “The problem of the rationality of magic.” In Rationality, edited by Bryan R. Wilson. Evanston and New York: Harper andRow, pp. 172–93.
Jaspers, Karl. 1919. Psychologie der Weltanschauungen (Psychology of worldviews).Berlin: Springer.
Kant, Immanuel. 1781. Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of pure reason). Leipzig:
P. Reclam (1878).Keesing, Roger M. 1974. “Theories of Culture.” Annual Review of Anthropology 3:
73–97.
———. 1976. Cultural Anthropology: A Contemporary Perspective. New York: Holt,Rinehart, and Winston.
Kierkegaard, Søren. 1941. Concluding Unscientific Postscript , translated by D. F.Swenson and W. Lowerie. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kneale, W. M. and Martha Kneal. 1962. The Development of Logic . Oxford: Claren-don Press.
Koestler, Arthur. 1949. Untitled essay in The God That Failed , edited by RichardH. S. Crossman. New York: Harper, pp. 15–75.
Lange, Friedrich. 1925. History of Materialism and Critique of Its Present Importance.New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Ledang, Ola Kai. 1981. “Afrikansk musikk idag: eit globalt kraftsentrum”(“Afrikan music today: A global hub) Forskningsnytt 26: 18– 23.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1908. “Refutation of Spinoza, c. 1708.” In The Philo- sophical Works of Leibnitz, edited by George Martin Duncan. New Haven, CT:Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor, pp. 264–73.
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———. 1925. Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings, translated by RobertLatta. London: Oxford University Press.
Lukes, Steven. 1970. “Some problems about rationality.” In Rationality, edited byBryan R. Wilson. Evanston and New York: Harper and Row, pp. 194–213.
Mannheim, Karl. 1936. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowl-edge, translated by Louis Wirth and Edward Shils. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Marx, Karl, 1938. Die Deutsche Ideologie (The German ideology). London: Lawrenceand Wishart.
Mates, Benson. 1968. “Philosophical scepticism and the logical antinomies.” In Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Philosophy, Vienna. Vienna:Herder.
Naess, Arne. 1936. Erkenntnis und wissenschaftliches verhalten (Science as behavior),Ph.D. diss. Oslo: Norwegian Academy of Sciences.
———. 1953. Interpretation and Preciseness: A Contribution to the Theory of Communi-cation. Oslo: Jacob Dybwad. (SWAN I)
———. 1962. “We still do not know that norms cannot be true or false: A reply toDag Österburg.” Theoria 28: 205–09. (in SWAN VIII)
———. 1964. “Reflections about total views.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Re- search 25: 16–29. (in SWAN X)
———. 1974. Gandhi and Group Conflict . Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. (SWAN V)
———. 1980. History of Philosophy, 2 vols. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Naess, Arne, Jens Christophersen, and Kjell Kvalø. 1956. Democracy, Ideology, and Objectivity: Studies in the Semantics and Cognitive Analysis of Ideological Contro-versy. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Natorp, Paul. 1893. Die Ethika des Demokritos. Marburg: N. G. Elwert.
Nordenstam, Tore. 1968a. Sudanese Ethics. Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.
———. 1968b. “An Analysis of the Traditional Sudanese Virtues,” Ph.D. diss.Universities of Bergen and Khartoum.
———. 1972. Empiricism and the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction. Oslo: Universitets-forlaget.
Pepper, Stephen C. 1942. World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence. Berkeley: Universityof California Press (1961).
Polanyi, Michael. 1952. “The stability of beliefs.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 3: 217–32.
Quine, W. V. O. 1953. From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress.
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Rescher, Nicolas, and Robert Brandom. 1980. The Logic of Inconsistency. Oxford:Blackwell.
Roberts, John M. 1964. “The self-management of cultures.” In Explorations in Cul-tural Anthropology, edited by Ward H. Goodenough. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 433–54.
Russell, Bertrand. 1937. A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. London:G. Allen & Unwin.
Russell, Bertrand, and Frederick Copleston. 1957. En samtale om Guds eksistens (A
conversation on the existence of God). Oslo: Cappelen.Rynin, David. 1964. “Donagan on Collingwood: Absolute presuppositions, truth,
and metaphysics.” Review of Metaphysics 18: 301–33.
Schutz, Alfred, 1962–66. Collected Papers, 3 vols, edited and introduced by MauriceNatanson, with a preface by H. L. van Breda. The Hague: M. Nijhoff.
Sextus Empiricus. 1933–44. Sextus Empiricus, 4 vols., translated by R. G. Bury.Cambridge, MA and London: Loeb Classical Library.
Spinoza, Benedictus de. 1914. Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata. The Hague:M. Nijhoff.
Stalin, Joseph. 1940. O dialekticheskom i istoricheskom materializme (Dialectical andhistorical materialism ). New York: International Publishers.
Ueberweg, Friedrich. 1898–1903 (9th edition). Grundriss der geschichte der philoso- phie (A history of philosophy from Thales to the present time), 4 vols. Berlin:E. S. Mittler and Son.
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van Breda, H. L. and J. Taminiaux, eds. 1959. Husserl et la pensée moderne. Husserl und das Denken der Neuzeit. Actes du deuxième Colloque international de phénoménologie,
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Walsby, Harold. 1947. The Domain of Ideologies. Glasgow: W. MacLellan.
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Wyller, Egil A. 1960. Platon. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
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on method in anthropology, 124, 136, 137Bateson, Gregory, 131Beethoven, Ludwig van, 111beholding type of world picture, 32, 35being, 33, 77, 97–98
See also existence; ontologybelief, 22Bennett, Jonathan, 152n3Berkeley, George, 8, 73Brandom, Robert, 98Breda, H. L. van, 74Brandt, Richard, 43, 44Bruemmer, Fred, 135
Bruno, Giordano, 26Buddha, 33Buytendijk, 73
Carnap, Rudolf, 22, 49Cassirer, Ernst
on Cusanus, 41– 42on Hume, 66– 68
Castberg, Frede, 23
161
Index
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Ayer vs. Naess on, 152n8naive, of Donagan, 153n1synoptic formulation of, 49
vs. rationalism, 52–53 See also experience
Epicurus’s system, 41, 50, 52epistemology
cultural differences and, 126in synoptic systems, 45, 49, 50, 53system differences and, 131in total systems, 54 See also knowledge; scepticism
epoché (suspension of judgment), 61Eskimos, 135ethics
cultural differences and, 125, 126descriptive vs. deductive, 43– 44stepwise system construction in, 152n9in synoptic systems, 45, 49, 50, 53in total systems, 54
See also valuesEvans-Pritchard, Edward E., 123, 135, 141everyday speech, 24–25, 71–74, 81–82, 95existence
different concepts of, 77Spinoza on, 63–64 See also being; ontology
Fechner, Gustav, 28Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 33Fink, Eugen, 73Floystad, Guttorm, 48formal world pictures, 32, 35
frames of reference, 14– 15, 16, 17for comparison of systems, 53–54, 61–62, 80in ideology research, 18of social scientist, 20supersystematic, 33–34 See also metasystems
synoptic formulations, 49, 50, 53real world and, 140 See also semantics
meaning of life, 109mechanical world pictures, 28, 29, 30, 33metaphysical presuppositions, 83– 90, 153n1metaphysical world pictures, 32–36metasystems, 42
for comparing cultures, 135– 36
for comparing systems, 42, 79, 80, 81, 82, 96of Goethe and Newton, 29
semantic, 24superficiality of, 33–34traditional presentations of systems and, 55 See also frames of reference
methodologiescomparison of systems and, 52, 53–54, 80, 90–
91, 131in synoptic systems, 52, 53in total systems, 16, 54 See also logic
modelsrelativity of, 30of the world, 100
Moore, G. E., 22Mounier, Emmanuel, 48Munch, Edvard, 13mythical world pictures, 12, 28, 29, 32, 33, 35
Naess, Arneon descriptive ethics, 43on different logics, 151n5Erkenntnis und wissenschaftliches verhalten
(Science as behavior), 30Interpretation and Preciseness, 68on relativity of models, 30on total views, 152n8, 153n2on truth of norms, 153n2
Natanson, Maurice, 102Natorp, Paul, 59naturalism, 28, 33nature-historical world pictures, 28, 29nature-mechanical world pictures, 28, 29, 30, 33nature-mythical world pictures, 28, 29negative theologies, 32, 34– 35negativism. See Academic scepticismNewton, Isaac, 5, 21, 29, 68Nietzsche, Friedrich, 49, 57nonstandard worlds, 98
of cultures, 111, 115, 117, 122, 132conflicting, 144reality and, 148
of philosophical systems, 90– 91, 131– 32, 148truth or falsity of, 153n2
Nuer culture, 122–23
objects, represented by system, 20– 21, 22
Objectual, the, 12, 13, 31, 46, 151n1Ockham, William of, 88ontology
of Aristotle, 96– 98of cultures, 110, 125–27, 132of Democritus, 59in synoptic systems, 45, 49, 50, 52in total systems, 54, 131 See also being; existence
Opler, Morris, 108orientations, 21, 22
pan-logistic world pictures, 32, 33Parmenides, 33Pepper, Stephen C., 54–55
personal identity, 48phenomena, in Schopenhauer’s system, 56phenomenology, 27, 73
of philosophy, 95philosophical systems. See systemsphilosophical world pictures, 14, 28– 36Plato
on examined life, 11ontology of, 97system expresses personality, 6theory of forms, 21on ultimate reality, 33world hypothesis of, 54
pleasure, Democritus on, 59pluralism
about cultural anthropologies, 141of James, 11of Leibniz, 94about logics, 138–39about truth-concepts, 91, 139about worlds, 99–103
in comparing logics, 139in comparing systems, 39, 60– 61, 82, 95, 132of conceptual framework, 12of culture concept, 115of everyday speech, 71– 72, 73, 74, 81–82, 95of general statements about systems, 148of presuppositions, 24of system concept, 143 See also definiteness (or depth) of intention
presuppositionsabsolute, 83, 85–86, 89, 153n1of any assertion at all, 153n2Collingwood on, 83– 90, 153n1of commonsense world, 102common to all systems, 89conflicting, 23–24of a culture, 85, 89, 137experience and, 84, 153n1frames of reference and, 14– 15identification of, 46inside or outside of system, 84, 86–88vs. principles within system, 88–90Pyrrhonian scepticism and, 151n6in science, 2, 84–85
real worldabstractions from, 27–28all-inclusiveness of, 140ambiguity of, 143criteria for, 148cultures and, 109vs. possible worlds, 148, 149 See also worlds
relativism, 81, 144–45 See also world pictures, relationality of
Rescher, Nicolas, 98Rickert, Heinrich, 45Roberts, John M., 107, 108, 113, 115Roman civilization, presuppositions of, 85Russell, Bertrand, 22, 37
systems; total systems or total views;world pictures
Taminiaux, J., 74Thales, 52
third system. See metasystemstotal systems or total views
absolutization of world pictures and, 29–30“artificial” combinations as, 57–61cannot describe everything, 46– 47, 55comparison of, 53–57, 68, 76, 81comprehensibility to outsider, 146consistency of presuppositions in, 24cultures as, 110, 143, 144defined, 20, 21, 24, 54–55vs. Empiricist views, 152n8
improvement of, 146include the outsider, 152n1logical problems of, 13, 16, 24personal identity and, 48possibility of, 16, 17– 18, 143–44, 145presupposed by any assertion, 153n2reality and, 146– 47scepticism toward, 2scientific research and, 1, 147social scientists and, 20striving for totality, 22system vs. view, 21traditional examples, 55–57as world hypotheses, 54–55 See also systems
translatability, 122– 25truth
Aristotle on, 97, 98in Baktaman culture, 133combinatorics of systems and, 61comparison of systems and, 40, 79–82, 90–91,