“Rational Anthropology”: What’s in a Name? –Imagine a New Kind of Philosophy.

’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself. (Shakespeare, 2022: Act 2, scene 2)


You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this conversational essay HERE.


“Rational Anthropology”: What’s in a Name? –Imagine a New Kind of Philosophy

SH: What have you been working on recently?

RH: Well, ever since 2001—in the “Concluding Un-Quinean Postscript” to Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy—I’ve been using the term “rational anthropology” as the label or name for a broadly and radically Kantian alternative to Analytic philosophy that I’ve been working out and strongly recommending (Hanna, 2001: pp. 281-285, 2015, 2017a, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2018d, 2021, 2022a, 2022b; Hanna and Paans, 2020, 2021, 2022), and along the way I’ve also traced a crypto-Kantian Wittgensteinian survival route for rational anthropology through the otherwise explicitly anti-Kantian philosophical “heart of darkness” that’s at the core of the Analytic tradition (Hanna, 2017b, 2021: chs. V-VIII, XI-XV, XVIII, 2022c).

So recently, I decided that it would be a good idea to present a capsulized version of  rational anthropology in a trilogy of short essays (Hanna, 2022d, 2022e, 2022f), the first of which begins like this:

For me, philosophy is the broadly and radically Kantian enterprise I’ve called rational anthropology, by which I mean authentic (i.e., wholehearted, and pursued and practiced as a full-time, lifetime calling), serious (i.e., neither careerist, nor conformist, nor dogmatic, nor esoteric, nor hyperspecialized), critical, synoptic, systematic reflection on the individual and collective rational human condition, and on the thoroughly nonideal natural and social world in which rational human animals and other conscious animals live, move, and have their being. (2022d: p. 2)

But my decision to write this trilogy also had a deeper motivation over and above simply the desire to present a compact version of rational anthropology.

For I’d been also thinking recently, yet again, about how post-classical Analytic philosophy has been able to dominate professional academic philosophy for the last 70 years, both social-institutionally and ideologically, even despite the fact that its original substantive philosophical program—the program of classical Analytic philosophy, consisting of Frege-Russell-style logicism and Vienna Circle-style Logical Empiricist/Positivist logical analysis—was actually dead by 1950 (Hanna, 2021: chs. II-XVI), and about how rational anthropology might be able to bring about a philosophical revolution via a Kuhn-style paradigm shift in philosophical theory and practice, and thereby bring about what I call the philosophy of the future (Hanna, 2022b).

SH: Right, and fabulously fabulous! as to the second point; but as to the first point, how have post-classical Analytic philosophers actually managed to stay in the driver’s seat for so long?

RH: I think it’s principally because post-classical Analytic philosophers have been able very effectively to align themselves with what I call the mechanistic worldview and surf the scientistic and neoliberal Big Kahuna wave of what I’ve called the military-industrial-university-digital complex, while also successfully exporting all their actual and possible philosophical competitors into the Sokal-hoaxified and derisive pseudo-category, “Continental philosophy” (Hanna, 2021: chs. XVII-XVIII).

At the same time, however, there’s also been a generally unnoticed and yet highly significant contribution to post-classical Analytic philosophy that’s best explained in terms of what Otto Paans and I have called the theory of thought-shapers, aka TTS (Hanna and Paans, 2021), which in turn is part of the social-institutional theory of mind-shaping or life-shaping (Maiese and Hanna, 2019; Maiese et al., 2022).

SH: Can you quickly remind me what TTS says?

RH: Absolutely.

Thought-shapers are essentially non-conceptual mental representations, especially including analogies, images, schemata, stereotypes, symbols, and templates, that partially—but not wholly—causally determine, form, and normatively guide (hence “shape”) human thinking processes.

Now, TTS presupposes a categorical distinction between mechanical systems and organic systems, and correspondingly, another categorical distinction between (as I mentioned just a few moments ago) what I call the mechanistic worldview and something else I call the neo-organicist worldview.

Mechanical systems are all Turing-computable, and, if they’re not merely formal systems but also causal-natural systems, then they’re also strictly governed by the strict laws of the Standard Models of cosmology and particle physics for closed, time-reversible, equilibrium thermodynamic models, hence they’re deterministic or indeterministic (i.e., statistical/stochastic), and fully entropic.

Organic systems are not Turing-computable, and more positively they’re processual, purposive, and self-organizing, and governed by the creative laws of complexity for open, time-irreversible,  non-equilibrium thermodynamic models, hence they’re non-deterministic and also non-indeterministic, because internally teleological, and “dissipative” or negentropic.

The mechanistic worldview says that everything in the universe is fundamentally constituted by mechanical systems, and that organic systems are nothing but systematic abstractions from mechanical systems, and supervenient on them; whereas, diametrically on the contrary, the neo-organicist worldview says that everything in the universe is fundamentally constituted by organic systems and that mechanical systems are nothing but systematic abstractions from organic systems, and supervenient on them.

Then, TTS asserts (i) that the neo-organicist worldview is correct, hence the mechanistic worldview is false, and (ii) that all human thinking processes are either, (a) shaped negatively by mechanical, constrictive thought-shapers, or (b) shaped positively by organic, generative thought-shapers.

And there are two basic feature of TTS that I should also mention.

First,  TTS’s cognitive semantics of human thinking is dual-content, and, as specifically linguistic, it’s also relative to two distinct kinds of linguistic use, which means that human thoughts contain not only (i) conceptual content (in language, flowing from descriptive or intensional and logical use), but also (ii) essentially non-conceptual content (in language, flowing from non-descriptive or non-intensional and non-logical use), which in turn is either (iia) directly referential or (iib) imagistic.

And second, TTS’s cognitive semantics is non-ideal, which means that it explicitly allows for a wide range of cognitive and linguistic contexts in which compliance to the basic semantic rules is non-strict, or “loose,” such that every categorematic term (i.e., any independently meaningful term, hence a term that stands for something on its own, especially including names, nominalized predicates, and sentences) will have not only (i) a primary or ideally well-formed and fully-unified conceptual content—let’s call it, following Frege, its Sinn or sense, or connotation, and also (ii) a primary and ideally well-formed and tightly-unified set of essentially non-conceptual contents—let’s call those, again following Frege, either (iia) its Bedeutung or reference, or denotation, or (iib) its constellation of sharply-delineated Vorstellungen or imagistic ideas, which I’ll call its ideology—but also (i*) a secondary, loosely-formed, and less-than-fully-unified associated conceptual content, a constellation of partially overlapping descriptions or intensions, which I’ll call its vague sense or approximate connotation, as well as (ii*) secondary and loosely-formed, and less-than-fully-unified associated essentially non-conceptual contents, which I’ll call either (iia*) its vague reference or approximate denotation, or (iib*) its constellation of more or less unclear and indistinct imagistic ideas, its vague or approximate ideology.

Sense or connotation, and reference or denotation, especially at the level of sentences, comprise what early Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus, called Sagen or saying; and ideology comprises what early Wittgenstein called Zeigen or showing.

And in that connection, here’s one final crucial point: not only the ideology, but also the vague or approximate ideology, of mental representations and linguistic terms, insofar as they’re shown but not said, as of course we know from Marxist and neo-Marxist theory, can be extremely affectively and emotionally powerful, andindeed highly effectively action-guiding—and these effects are often super-charged in the case of vague or approximate ideology—precisely because ideology and especially vague or approximate ideology are normally present to “human, all-too-human” thinkers in a pre-reflective, un-self-conscious, unexamined, and therefore uncritical format.

SH: That’s all very cool!, but how does it specifically apply to post-classical Analytic philosophy?

RH: OK: what I’ve been thinking is that, from the standpoint of TTS, the term “Analytic philosophy,” just as a label or name, has been and continues to be not only an extremely effective conceptual  and referential term via its sense/connotation and reference/denotation, but also and perhaps above all, an extremely effective thought-shaper, via its ideology and also its vague or approximate ideology, even if it’s a mechanical, constrictive thought-shaper.

More precisely, in six steps, here’s what I mean.

1. The term “Analytic,” in its primary conceptual use, via its sense, clearly and distinctly connotes the philosophical method of Analytic philosophy, namely, logical or conceptual analysis.

2. The term “Analytic,” in its primary referential use, via its reference, clearly and distinctly denotes the epistemic and semantic targets of Analytic philosophy, namely, analytic a priori truths.

3. The term “Analytic,” in its primary imagistic use, via its ideology, clearly and distinctly shows images of rigorous thinking—logicians and mathematicians scribbling on blackboards or whiteboards, people in white coats doing experiments in laboratories, etc.

4. The term “Analytic,” in its secondary conceptual use, via its vague sense, vaguely connotes the formal, natural, and more generally “hard” sciences.

5. The term “Analytic,” in its secondary referential use, via its vague reference, vaguely denotes scientific truths of all kinds.

6. The term “Analytic,” in its secondary imagistic use, via its vague or approximate ideology, vaguely but also vividly shows highly competent and technically adept intellectual rigor and hard-nosed no-nonsense thinking.

So, my conclusion is that if rational anthropology really is going to bring about a philosophical revolution via a Kuhn-style paradigm shift in philosophical theory and practice, and if Analytic philosophy really is going down into the ash-heap of history, then, at a bare minimum, “rational anthropology” will also have to be a conceptual/connotative, referential/denotative, and thought-shaping/ideological term that’s at least as effective as “Analytic philosophy” and also an organic, generative thought-shaper.

Hence, my deeper motivation for writing the recent trilogy of little essays was twofold: first, that I should clearly, distinctly, and explicitly say what kinds of philosophy are contained under the conceptual/connotative and referential/denotative term “rational anthropology,” and second, that I should clearly, distinctly, and explicitly show how, via its imagistic ideological content, “rational anthropology” is an organic, generative thought-shaper.

SH: I love your idea!

But here’s a devil’s advocate response, based on the sobering and even scary thought that some terms have been coopted by decades or even centuries of adverse mechanical, constrictive thought-shaping.

It would take someone with a penetrating grasp of the last 250 years of philosophy, especially including Kant’s and Kantian transcendental philosophy, to get the point that the term “anthropology” here is meant to describe and refer to the entirety of philosophy, logic, mathematics, physics, etc., and moral and sociopolitical life, taken inside a transcendental frame.

The problem is how popular culture misunderstands the word “anthropology.”  

When I was an idealistic undergrad, I wanted nothing to do with the “anthros” who ran the police state, ran “[n-word] hunts” in Miami, shot at people who grew pot or had sex, and generally lied and manipulated meanings for their personal gain.  

In the way that Heidegger didn’t want his existentialism to be (just) a “humanism,” I wanted my own researches to transcend as far as possible the human animal that produced all of … this.  

I wanted to go beyond it, into the realm of possibility, or something new, to find an antidote to the anthros who have designed or permitted all this surplus suffering.

I would have rather communed with plants and rocks or (even better) the hidden higher dimension orthogonal to spacetime than study the sphere of the human, where “human” denoted either the jerks in charge or the resigned zombies who carried out their commands.

That just goes to show the powers of an accidental or popular connotation and a vague ideology.  

The rich “anthro-X” of “rational anthropology” is simply not the same as the “anthro-X” of the masses, which has as its connotation and vague ideology all those hateful things I just mentioned.

Otherwise put, the “anthro-X” of the masses connotes and has as its vague ideology anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism, speciesism, populism, white supremacy, and any unpalatable version of humanism, especially including Trumpism.

So, for the purposes of this revolutionary and paradigm-shifting philosophy of the future, shouldn’t we be hunting for terms that aren’t social-institutionally pre-poisoned with really, really bad vague connotations and vague ideology?  

By reading your trilogy of little essays, I totally get it that for you, “rational anthropology” means just what you’ve defined it to mean, and also that it clearly and distinctly describes and refers to Kantian and Wittgensteinian philosophy, neo-organism, the epigenetic model of the mind, life-shaping philosophy, radical enlightenment, and the anarcho- or borderless philosophy of the future.

But can’t we also find another term that—I don’t know how to put it exactly—filters out all the really, really bad vague connotations and vague or approximate ideology?

RH: This is an amazingly good and hard question, to which I have—at the moment, anyhow—only an “on the one hand, but on the other hand” sort of reply.

So, on the one hand, since I‘ve been using “rational anthropology” for 20-plus years, always trying to say exactly what I take it to mean, and always trying to use it as an organic, generative thought-shaper, I think that it’s too late for me to switch terminology.

In its standard usage, “anthropology,” of course, means the science or study of humankind.

In that connection, it’s important to emphasize that “human,” for me, has always meant and still means essentially the same as what Nietzsche meant by human, all-too-human, namely any conscious or sentient animal that’s essentially embodied, finite, and imperfect in every normative sense—and thoroughly so.

Let’s call that humankind in the existential sense.

Now, any rational animal that fits the general description of humankind in the existential sense is at the transcendental core of rational anthropology: there’s nothing special about the biological species homo sapiens in that regard—although of course we do just happen to belong to that biological species.

But on the other hand, for someone else, whose interpretation and use of the term “rational anthropology” is irrevocably poisoned by the really, really bad connotations and vague ideology, we might echo Shakespeare and say, ’tis but thy name that is my enemy, and then replace “rational anthropology” with a better, “unpoisoned” name.

So, for example, would the term rational ethology work better?

Since “ethology” in its standard usage means the science or study of animal activity or behavior, especially in its cognitive and social manifestations, not excluding animals belonging to the biological species homo sapiens, but also by no means restricted to them, then philosophy as rational ethology, as per the definition I cited at the beginning of our conversation, with the new substitutions in boldface and the parenthetical definitions left out, would mean:

authentic, serious, critical, synoptic, systematic reflection on the individual and collective rational animal condition, and on the thoroughly nonideal natural and social world in which rational animals and other conscious animals live, move, and have their being.

What do you think?….

SH: I had two follow-up thoughts.

My first follow-up thought is about what you mean by “human” in explicating the meaning of “rational anthropology”: not only have you been using the term to refer to beautiful, good, and/or true things, you’ve also spent considerable time  excavating or tracing historical sources precisely in order to perform a rehabilitative (re)definition.

There’s more than one concern here: not only are you (1) responding directly to a serious worry about the popular comprehension of and reaction to the terms we choose to communicate our philosophical message—and every word carries networks of largely accidental but also highly affecting vague connotations and vague ideology, i.e., its thought-shaping component—but also you are (2) executing a second, parallel project of rehabilitative (re)definition.

Project (1) is the strategic design and dissemination of thought-shapers in order to maximize their uptake and interventional impact: in this project, images, models, schemata, words-shapes, etc., are carefully created or selected in order either to amplify or enhance an existing positive message, or to convey a new and original positive message.

But project (2) is that of taking up commonplace, pervasive, and highly ambiguous,  contested, pre-poisoned terms—for example, “anthropology,” “human,” “anarchism,” “enlightenment,” “socialism” and so-on—and reforming them by means of rehabilitative definition, by amplifying or enhancing some connotative or ideological contents, suppressing others, fleshing out underused affiliations, or even conveying new and original connotative or ideological content.

My second follow-up thought is about your tentative proposal to use “rational ethology” as a replacement synonym for “rational anthropology.”

I completely agree that using “ethology,” as a somewhat unfamiliar term with a fairly definite dictionary-meaning and scientific use, would avoid the fuzzy connotations and negatively stereotyping ideology surrounding “anthropology.”

But (i) isn’t the term “rational” every bit as highly ambiguous, contested, and pre-poisoned as “anthropology”?, and (ii) even if both “rational” and “anthropology” weren’t both highly ambiguous, contested, and pre-poisoned, the term “rational anthropology,“ has little or no positive aura, by which I mean a positive affective-emotive, poetic, rhetorical, or spiritual impact—and the same goes for “rational ethology.”

Of course, as Walter Benjamin pointed out in his famous essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” the phenomenon of “aura” can be dangerously mind-manacling, negative, and even downright satanically evil, especially in sociopolitical contexts, as in Nazi art and iconography (Benjamin, 1935/1969).

But I also think that there’s such a thing as positive aura, whenever effective thought-shapers are ultimately rooted in content that’s beautiful, good, and/or true; indeed, it’s precisely in the case of positive aura that thought-shapers are organic and generative, as per TTS.

So, what I’m saying is that “rational anthropology,” even if it weren’t composed of terms that are highly ambiguous, contested, and pre-poisoned, still wouldn’t have any thought-shaperly pizzazz.

Then, what needs to be done is to design and disseminate some amazingly amazing and brand new philosophical terminology that does have intense positive aura, aka intense thought-shaperly pizzazz, and also has essentially the same primary sense or connotation and primary reference or denotation, as “rational anthropology” in your usage, over 20-plus years of philosophical work.

RH: Yes, yes, and yes again.

I completely agree that in self-consciously using “rational anthropology,” I’m trying to carry out both of the projects you described.

I also completely agree that even if we were able to perform an effective rehabilitative (re)definition operation on “rational anthropology,” it still wouldn’t have positive aura, far less intense positive aura.

And I also completely agree that the philosophical program of rational anthropology most certainly needs some amazingly amazing and brand new philosophical terminology with intense thought-shaperly pizzazz.

Now, here’s a preliminary thought about that.

What if we were to create and use an acronym or formula, “RA,” inscribed or written in some fairly large and striking font, for example—

            RA

Now, since it’s only an acronym or formula that has the same primary sense or connotation and primary reference or denotation as “rational anthropology,” as it has been used in 20-plus years of philosophical work, there wouldn’t be any ambiguity in what it actually means.

But, just as millions of people really do recognize and repeat, in a wide variety of contexts, Einstein’s hugely famous mass-energy equivalence,

E = mc2

without knowing precisely what it actually means, far less being able to explain its meaning precisely, although it’s ultimately rooted in determinate content that’s scientifically beautiful, good, true, and also fully explicable, so too it could be really possible for people to recognize and repeat, in a wide variety of contexts, the acronym or formula,

without knowing precisely what it actually means, far less being able to explain its meaning precisely, although it’s ultimately rooted in determinate content that’s philosophically beautiful, good, and true, and also fully explicable, especially if it were presented in a way that’s specially designed to be organic and generative.

For example, you told me about a brilliant former teacher of yours who used to begin lectures by saying “Imagine ….” and then present a series of thoughts in terms having intense positive aura, and finally conclude by identifying the topic of all those thoughts by using commonplace or everyday words, thereby miraculously investing the old words with new and intense positive aura.

Relatedly, as John Lennon discovered, “Imagine….” followed by other words, voiced music, and visual imagery that also have intense positive aura, is an ultra-highly-effective organic and generative thought-shaper; so, what if rational anthropology were presented (roughly) as follows, ideally also accompanied by amazingly amazing and brand new voiced music and visual imagery, as in the classic YouTube video of Lennon’s and The Plastic Ono Band’s Imagine (Lennon, 1971/2018)?—

Imagine a new kind of philosophy that’s both an art-form and also a science:

Imagine a new kind of philosophy that’s not only personally life-changing but also shapes other people’s lives, for the better and the best:

Imagine a new kind of philosophy that’s beautiful, good, and true:

Imagine a new kind of philosophy that not only fully rejects authoritarianism and coercion but also fully respects everyone’s dignity:

Imagine a new kind of philosophy that’s equally borderless and eco-cosmic:

Imagine thinking, acting, and feeling for yourself, and not being told what to think, do, or feel by others:

Imagine a new kind of philosophy that’s neither “Analytic” nor “Continental” but instead kantalytic and kantinental:

Imagine a new kind of philosophy that’s at once rooted historically in the best philosophy of  the past and also the philosophy of the future:

Therefore, dare to pursue and practice

Now, I’m not saying that presenting and using the acronym or formula 

in this way would rule out all possible ambiguities, contestations, and pre-poisonings of that name or label, because that’s humanly impossible; for example, as it so happens, my full name is Robert Alan Hanna, so by a random coincidence the English letter-sequence

RA

overlaps with the initials of my first name and middle name; and of course there are many other actual or conceivable ways of interpreting

just as there are many other actual or conceivable ways of interpreting

E = mc2

that deviate from Einstein’s own way of interpreting it, in 1905, in the context of Special Relativity, or from the standard contemporary way of interpreting it in terms of the Standard Models of cosmology and particle physics, that include General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

Moreover, since language is a social institution, and since no one, no matter how clever, rich, or politically powerful they are, can control the spontaneous creative development of human language, then the generation, interpretation, and use of names or labels, whether in philosophy or in any other context, will always be importantly spontaneously creative and uncontrollable.

So, I think that the best we can do, as philosophical proponents of

i.e., of rational anthropology, is simply to continue wholeheartedly to pursue and practice it, to undertake rehabilitative (re)definition of its basic terms, and to devise and disseminate new and original thought-shapers for it.

SH: And rationally hope for the better and best….

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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(Hanna, 2001). Hanna, R. Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford Univ. Press. Available online in preview HERE.

(Hanna, 2015). Hanna, R. Cognition, Content, and the A Priori: A Study in the Philosophy of Mind and Knowledge . THE RATIONAL HUMAN CONDITION, Vol. 5. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. Available online in preview HERE.

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(Hanna, 2022a). Hanna, R. “Six Studies in The Decline and Fall of Professional Academic Philosophy, And a Real and Relevant Alternative.” Unpublished MS. Available online HERE.

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