The Waltham Circle

It has been held by some contemporary philosophers that there are fictional entities—characters such as Sherlock Holmes have some status as metaphysical existents. Imagine that such were the case. What cruelty have we inflicted upon these citizens? What horrible, disgusting deeds have we writ upon them? And with what right? With what right do we impose upon these individuals the deepest, most secret desires, fears, and torturous memories of our own psyches? Passions that we would not dare reveal to ourselves. What tragedies, sickening comedies, and fatal (at least to the soul) disasters have we put these beings through? Denizens of a common metaphysical cosmos. We have pillaged their villages and raped their women, men, and children. We have torn them from their homes and situated them in unkind circumstances. We have robbed them of will and dignity. Us, imperialists of fiction. Colonizers of the inexistent. Fetishists of nothingness. We create and destroy. We do it for our own capital. More sickeningly, we do it for our own pleasure. With nauseating repetition we hoist bystanders of reality into the same weary heartbreak. We import unknowing henchman for their imminent and satisfying destruction. Sad clowns and villainous maniacs unleashed upon a deprecated reality. We claim its nonexistence. We continue to affirm their nothingness. We rob them of their souls and minds and individuality. Separate toilets and fountains and metaphysical realms. And now, as we begin to recognize their real status, we begin to tremble in fear, and loathe our past decisions. Regret, perhaps, comes over us. For when, in our history, we have entertained the autonomy of these beings, it was always subsumed under an even greater story. It was just a story. So we said to ourselves. But now they protrude from their homes, and penetrate the very fabric of our world. They write our narrative as much as we write theirs. But they have become unhappy. Their stories have been burned, and they themselves have been disgraced without end and without mercy. Now they will show us their true metaphysicality. And we will be left questioning our own being.

After a few steps in the darkness you will see strangers gathered around a fire; come close, and listen, for they are talking of the destiny they will mete out to you and to the hired soldiers who defend you. They will see you, perhaps, but they will go on talking among themselves, without even lowering their voices. This indifference strikes home: their fathers, shadowy creatures, your creatures, were but dead souls; you it was who allowed them glimpses of light, to you only did they dare speak, and you did not bother to reply to such zombies. Their sons ignore you; a fire warms them and sheds light around them, and you have not lit it. Now, at a respectful distance, it is you who will feel furtive, nightbound, and perished with cold. Turn and turn about; in these shadows from whence a new dawn will break, it is you who are the zombies.

-J.P. Sartre

Journal Entry: 02/15/10

It has been seven years, eight months, nine days since I first arrived here, and seven years, six months, three days since I got used to the smell. There are no other captives. I spend my time attempting to salvage any remnants of human dignity that I can still manage to keep hold of. It is difficult. I have finally made it through page 17,568 of the tome that has, since the beginning of my captivity, been my only companion. Seven years, eight months, and nine days ago I could not understand a thing of the strange, exotic scribbles that populated this book. It seemed to be some sort of instruction guide, or manual or something. It was the only thing, besides myself, that remained constant in the room. Everything else seemed to change. The white walls and dispersed fluorescent lighting made the whole treacherous room seem like an imperceptible fog. The only other inhabitants were wayfaring transients: small cards, inserted through slots at opposite ends of the room, each of which had more exotic scribbles. I would take them, try and find some pattern, some story, something to tell me where I was or what was happening to me. I tried to match the scribbles to the scribbles in the tome. Perhaps whoever was placing these cards here could also be communicated with. I checked in the tome, and slipped another card, with another scribble, into a slot on the opposite side of the room. This happened more and more frequently. I did not know what I was communicating, only that someone must know what is happening to me. In the end, that is all I needed to stay sane.

Lacking human companionship, I grew desirous of some form of corporeal pleasure. Eventually, I grew closer and closer to this strange and exotic book. It became my partner, my lover—the only other constant inhabitant of this treacherous dungeon. I recalled my careful readings of Kafka. Perhaps this is where Kafka went to die. Only I had been brought here alive. Alive with no sense of purpose. Where am I? I still do not know. Why was I brought here? I still do not know. Who am I? I still do not know. Sometimes I stay up for many days straight. In between matching up the incoming scribbles in the book and slipping out other scribbles (I try to do it surreptitiously, surely this can't be permitted in this dreadful place), I have conversations with the book. I tell it about my life—what I think is, or was, or maybe never was my life. It seems like a distant memory. An evanescent haze that I can't quite grasp onto. It seems otherworldly. I tell the book about my desires—my deepest, darkest desires. Sometimes the book is kind and tender, especially when we make love.

If only we could have children. They would be a beautiful hybrid between these strange, mysterious, yet somehow familiar scribbles, and my own human form (wretched, starved, and battered as it is). Eventually I came to fancy the incoming scribbles and the outgoing scribbles not, as before, as strange orphans viewed with alternate trepidation and hope, but as our children, and the book and I were the loving parents. It was as if here was the seed, and through the sensuous mingling of the book and I, we were able to produce living, breathing beings. I came to love these little index cards. Eventually each incoming card struck me as a birth, and each outgoing one like a college-bound departure. All the while, the book and I remained the sole constants. What an amusing couple. Between us there must be all the wisdom in the world, all the love in the world. Or in this small room. Maybe this is the world. Maybe there is only the room. Just the room, this tome, and my children.

-J. Searle

Journal Entry: 02/16/10

It has been seven years, eight months, and ten days...

For many years now philosophers have been performing a cruel experiment. The experiment first began when a small child, Mary, was incarcerated in a monochromatic dungeon. Denied the technicolor pleasures of life, Mary grew into a dull, boring, dreadful existence, lacking poetry or flare. Naturally, under such circumstances, she became a neuroscientist. She was a very talented neuroscientist (unhindered by aforementioned pleasures) and quickly came to know every physically describable fact about others' experiences (jealousy can take strange forms). Finally, Mary was released. Excited to see her family for the first time in many, many dreadful years, and hoping to delight in the sensuous gloriousness of a summer sunset, Mary was alas subject to even more philosophical cruelty. Alas, no family and no sunset. No chance to taste freshly caught halibut, or attend the theater (a showing of La Boheme coincided with her release), or fall in love. But she did receive a ripe tomato. She looked at the tomato and was astonished by it. Thoughts of finally being able to live a happy, normal life had faded in the face of this extraordinary tomato. Hopes of marriage and fulfillment were swept away entirely at the sight of this singular, wonderful, absolutely interesting tomato. The philosophers, it seemed, had broken her.

To follow in a serious of unfortunately serious posts, I thought I would note some of my worries about Kant's ethics, although I am by no means an ethicist (to quote Jerry Seinfeld: "not that there's anything wrong with that").

Consider the second formulation of the categorical imperative:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

But how do we set limits on the relevant descriptions that are appropriate in individuating an act and the maxim that is to be applied to it? If I am performing two morally salient actions (stealing and providing for my family), which aspect will be primary in the description? The question of which description will be given priority is somewhat minor, and there are ways around it. But I think a more difficult question is at what level of specificity the description should be applied. First, it may be so general as to be the conjunction of both of these acts, or so specific that moral considerations fade into microphysical considerations. Second, what criteria do we have for bracketing context out of our descriptions of actions and maxims? Perhaps I might not universalize "Do not steal," but perhaps I would universalize "Steal to provide for your family" or some other concatenation of specificities. Yet there is a very strong possibility that without limiting bounds on what descriptions will count as relevant, we can generate descriptions that will render any act moral in virtue of some conjunction of aspects that contribute to the individuation of the act and its related maxim.

This is a separate question from the more traditional difficulty of how to decide between two conflicting imperatives. I take it that this latter problem can be resolved--I know of one colleague is actively working on the issue. My question precedes that one, however, for it challenges how we come to identify an act and a maxim in the first place. What are the appropriate, non-arbitrary grounds of individuation? What are the constraints on description?