Delphic Podcast by Michael R D James

Noos is the part of mind which is a first principle of all our mental and psychological powers and which Aristotle believed was a divine part of the human mind which was confined to thinking about something. Divine thinking on the other hand was a form of thinking about thinking which it was impossible for us to comprehend. The Storm of the collision of Indian, Eastern and European Cultures and mythologies is here and is creating chaotic turbulence.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Review based on an Introductory essay at the beginning of the workhttp://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

"Dust in the air suspended marks the place where a story ended"( T S Eliot Four Quartets). The Astronauts walked on the dust of the moon after the moon was  despiritualised  and the dust was not  the dust of lost souls but remnants of physical processes in the long distant past. Frobenius sees the human race to be maturing toward a telos in which the Holy Ghost no longer needs institutional assistance and can speak directly to mens hearts. Campbell neglects to unravel the mystery of the oracles and the muses.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Shakespeare is a Philosophical Poet because his works do not just touch on Philosophical themes but rather embodies the ideas of Aristotelian  and Kantian Aesthetics, Ethics, and Philosophical Psychology. His poetic intuitions are clearly set in a Philosophical frameworkhttp://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Schizophrenia  takes many forms and all forms are designated by psychiatric medicine as psychotic conditions. Paranoid Schizophrenia is concerned with the defence mechanisms of splitting, projection and denial (that one is ill, for example)Campbell refers to shamanic crises in this context and likens their experience unto the hero embarking on a long and dangerous Odyssey  into the unknown. Jungs theory of the collective archetypes of the unconscious is a very different kind of account to that we find in Freud, in spite of the claim by both Psychologists to be influenced by Kant.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

War and Peace Mythologies are related to Philosophy in various complex ways but insofar as Ancient Greece originated with Socratic reflections on the Justice and its relation to the Holy, the Mythologies of Peace are more closely related to Ancient Greek than the Mythologies of War. Zarathurianism and its  light/dark, truth/illusion, life-death oppositions appears Heraclitean.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The Romantic idea of Hell and Satan began with the troubadours  celebration of Amor as the good-in-itself worth the most terrible of consequences. The Kantian Hidden Plan  might be proof of Gods love for us in spite of humanity failing the test of our love for him. William Blake: Hell is not that bad and Amor may be worth paying the price of eternal damnation.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The power of Light  may be constituted of many light bulbs but such a power transcends these material empirical things which of course in a sense explain the origin of the light. Campbells mythological explanations of Consciousness do not necessarily contradict the metaphysical accounts of Aristotle and Kant which leave the possibility of a mythology within the bounds of reason open. The Philosophical accounts of the many powers of aesthetic and cognitive processes which arise as vicissitudes of Consciousness may contain powerful arguments against mythological accounts relying on one power such as the imagination. http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Oriental  Art is differently structured to Western Occidental Art whose condition features a self- sufficient independent object intentionally created for an aesthetic purpose which may have  a moral  message. The Art of Yoga is an instinctively grounded activity in which it is the imagination that plays the leading role in the activity. In contrast to Western Art whose focus is on the external world of self-sufficient independent objects that have an inter-sensory character.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Eastern Religions embrace a time span of millions of years whilst  our Western Bible spans thousands of years and contains a scientifically proven inadequate account of the beginning of our world. Our symbols have lost their "affect value", Campbell claims. Our Western Humanism however would dismiss both irrational elements of our own religion as well as in Oriental religions, claiming that only Religion within the bounds of reason belongs to the examined life http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Eastern Mythologies and Religions extend over enormous spans of time and a human life is but a blink of an eye in such a context. Campbell claims that the Western focus on individual freedom and responsibility is a repugnant idea to the Eastern mind. Hindu women immolating themselves because of rigidly defined roles allocated to them by a closed society for the Western mind is equally repugnant and it was the discipline of Philosophy that provided us with the first systematic arguments against miracle and superstitious behaviourhttp://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The Decline of the West is the theme for this essay and Campbell refers to a loss of form which was present in Athens but not in the larger social entities such as Rome, New York, London, and Paris. Freuds myth of the "Band of Brothers" is part of his conjectural history of the evolution of the civilising process and points to the taboo/law of equality. 1914 is the year Campbell believes the process of decline began but there is evidence that the process of decline began much earlier. Universities and their ceremonial rituals are not considered by Campbell.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The discipline of Psychology is "trans-scientific" which might account for the "conceptual confusion" in the subject that Wittgenstein pointed to. In 1870 research in accordance with the definition "The Science of Consciousness" followed a reductionist program that truncated the broader concerns of Psychology. Sensations, feelings and behaviour replaced wider concerns for the idea of Psuché (forms of life) http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Science has a metaphysical (Philosophical) foundation which Campbell fails to recognise, preferring to focus instead of certain forms of technology not connected to the weapons of mass destruction the scientists have produced to solve essentially political problems. Freuds work and the History of Philosophy and Psychology are also marginalised by Campbells account http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Deciding to forget a traumatic experience involving violence such as the establishment of Athens might be a kind of sublimation of ones own anger at oneself. Such an act may have a cathartic aspect and as such be the last good act of a chain of evil consequences. The Historian, however, has a duty  to remember that violence and be as accurate as they can be about the relevant events and their causes. The Angel of History bears witness to the accumulating faults of man with some trepidation.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Freudian accounts of trauma and the compulsion to repeat until the trauma is "understood" and subjected to a process of catharsis are intimately connected to the themes of memory and forgetting. The Brain is obviously part of the material cause of the phenomena of remembering and forgetting but  it is more the organisational structure of the brain more than particular areas that is the material substrate of even simple mental phenomena such as the perception of colours where, for example it is not distinct colours that disappear if damage occurs but rather the saturation of the entire colour spectrum.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The work of remembering and the work of expectation are civilisation building and culture enhancing aspects of our "Being-in-the-world": the being in the world of the human psuché. The Bible, many philosophers argue including Spinoza, Kant and Wittgenstein, does contain a work of remembering but this might not be as complete as the more eschatological aspect of the work of expectation we encounter in Biblical texts, including the Gnostic Gospels.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Nietzsche and the nihilstic force of the will to power  and Collingwoods thesis that almost anything can be counted as historical evidence for anything sets the relativistic scene for Ricoeurs reflections. The categorical powers of understanding, judgement and reasoning are marginalised and called into question during Ricoeurs sceptical exploration of  the trans-scientiifc discipline of History.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The Work of remembering is not  a work of the imagination but involves memory understanding, judgement and reasoning. Non Historical narratives may use the power of imagination to a greater degree when communicating aesthetic ideas of the artist via their works of art but here too there is a distinct presence of imperatively driven  rational judgements.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The civilising process is discussed in relation to modern relativising ideas and connected to a "rationalising process" rather than categorical rationality of the kind we encounter in the works of Aristotle and Kant. The Aristotelian "actualisation process, whilst not related to "mentalities" as characterised in Ricouers account is however related to the development of powers of mind  such as sensibility, understanding and reason.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Augustine asks the aporetic question "What is Time?", rejects the Aristotelian account that refers to external motion and insists instead upon some sort of "distention" of the soul.  Historical documents are constructed in a context of explanation/justification and occur in a community of critics who are testing the veracity of these documents in accordance with a number of different principles. http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The school of inwardness was created by the thought of St Augustine, Descartes Hoobes, Locke and a number of 20th century Analytical Philosophers seeking to escape the "idealism" of Hegels Phenomenology as well as the Phenomeologists of the 20th century seeking to restore the work of Hegel to a prominent place in the History of Philosophy. The Later work of Wittgenstein, criticising his own earlier logical solipsism created a logical space for the reemergence of Aristotelian and Kantain Ciritical Philosophy. http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Memory has an aspect of something happening to one when one has learned something but it also has a more active aspect which Freud referred to as the "work of remembering" in his work with his patients suffering from various pathological conditions. Lockes attempt to epistemologise memory by making it a psychological part of the identity of a man reduces the wider focus of thinkers like Aristotle, Kant and Freud.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The Angel of History confronts the  growing volume of debris of our modern era in the spirit of T S Eliots "Waste Land". Hannah Arendts voice of discontent is echoed by her lover Benjamin who commits suicide because the Marxist vision has disappointed and the Nazis are closing in on him. Ricoeur argues that it is the duty of human psuché to remember crimes committed against humanity.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The Identity of a human is of course connected to the particular memories that human possesses but memory as such is not a part of the unique essence of being human since some animals aslo have memories. Augustines conception of Time is invoked by the phenomenologists as a competing account to those accounts we find in Aristotelian Hylomorphic and Kantian Critical Philosophy. Narrative and time are linked in Ricoeurs account in ways that neither Aristotle nor kant would find plausible.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Refiguring Time may be what Historical writing is doing to everyday experience but it retains the before-after structure necessary to be subject to the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. The facts of History are not, then, a matter of interpretation but rather amongst the necessary conditions of the knowledge bearing activity of History. The Kingdom of Ends postulated by Kant is an ideal future whose promise is uncertain but it is in some sense part of the conditional structure of ought judgements such as "promises ought to kept"http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Marx turned Hegel on his head with his economic/sociological theory that eschewed all froms of abstraction. Kants Critical Philosophy experienced the same fate at the hands of Hegel in a period of History characterised by extreme "change". Aristotle, we know provided us with a theory of change that did not leave us in a suspended state of ambiguity which it can be argued was the case after the theorising of Hegel and Marx. Kant elaborated on this theory of change but both Philosophies were swept away in this era of radical change.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Wittgensteins account of the use of language rests upon instinct and action rather than on sensory powers. Ricoeurs insistence upon the "suspicious reader" and  "interpretation"  erode the trust placed in the beliefs that form a part of the construction and appreciation of historical texts. Beliefs such as "the earth has existed for a long period of time" are conditions for the understanding of and reasoning about historical texts. http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Kants aesthetics manifests traces of Aristotelian  hylomorphic ideas which assist in the analysis of narrative works of art. The author uses forms, principles and aesthetic ideas in his imitations of reality to manifest the "Form of the Good".  The form of universality of the productive work of art is similar to that of the productive speech of the politician who uses rhetoric to "persuade his audience via enthymemes. The work involved on the part of the creator and the audience, then, is a work of understanding  and reason rather than a work of imagination, appealing to the judgement s of the many and/or the wise.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Bertellis essay on Aristotle and History confirms the view that Aristotles hylomorphic Philosophy would include historiography as an area of knowledge. An area that ought not to be reduced to some inner operation of thought but rather to an chronology of facts regulated by principles. Customs and Traditions are both described and explained in History as part of its moral missionhttp://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Phenomenological "imaginative variations" in the context of action can violate the principle of noncontradiction in the case of problematic actions such as committing suicide but this does not compromise the Aristotelain "before-after structure of time since this kind of contradiction is that of using ones life to take ones life. Narrative structures are imitations which Historical narratives are not, being as they are conceptual transfigurations of experiences.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Historical traces in the form of historical documents are conceptual transfigurations of significant experienced events of magnitude that affect the weals and woes of the polis. Heidegger focuses upon the future and the humanistic quality of Care in Being and Time. Traces must for him relate in some important way to Care. The Historical document is one form of trace and the Greek Temple standing on the hillside is another.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Inner time consciousness as conceived of phenomenologically would not meet the criteria of Aristotelian  or Kantian accounts which would differ depending upon whether the contexts were theoretical or practical. Heideggers account of Care for origins and ends being involved in Daseins adventure in relation to Being is  a more complex account but not without its own difficultieshttp://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Kant is accused of embracing an epistomological ontology when it is clear that he is highly critical of such positions , wishing to insist upon the importance of practical reasoning and the good will in all characterisations of human psuché. Newtons concept of mathematical absolute time is criticized on Kantian grounds. Husserls account is tied to the sensory power of perception and a conception of internal time consciousness which appears solpsistic.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The Time of the Soul and the Time of the Cosmos are interrelated perhaps because of the object relatedness of the experience of human psuché. Aristotles definition of Time and Kants characterisation of the experience of time in the case of a boat sailing downstream are also closely related. Both emphasise the sensible character of our minds.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The modern novel shatters the ordinary experience of time Ricoeur argues citing three literary examples to support his case. We argue that there is indeed an analagous strcture to the time as represented in the novel and our lived time. http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Heideggers concepts of Being -in-the-World, Dasein, the ready-to-hand, and present-at-hand are discussed in relation to Analytic Philosophy. Aristotle is wrongly accused of an "analytic" view of logos. Aletheia is connected by Hedegger with the assertive function of a judgement but not elaborated upon in any detail.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Linguistic Structuralism and Sociology  is evoked by Ricoeur in order to analyse the essence of narrative. This, we argue, fails to recognise the extent to which narratives are imperative-driven activities , trans-scientific in their nature, constituted of two different kinds of sciences---practical and theoretical. A work of Art, too is trans-scientific and an imperative driven enterprise.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Modern Art is subjected to a phenomenological investigation and Ricoeur claims that the narrative form has changed significantly during the modern era, manifesting a loss of the organising characteristic of a "plot". Aristotle saw the plot as a "form" organising the matter of character, thought and action.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Rucoeur seeks to show the differences between narrative and historical phenomena in order to resist the application of rational models such as the nomological deductive model to narrative and historical texts. The Globalisation process has an important ethical component manifested in its telos of Cosmopolitanism which Kant claims is an important ethical characteristic of the kingdom of ends that lies so far away in the future. An event that depends upn man actualising his potential for rationality.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The nomological-deductive model certainly suffices to characterise the judicial legal processes of a court event. Law, evidence and judgement are tied logically together. The difference is that we are encountering here practical reasoning in the ought-system of concepts which is to be contrasted with Laws, evidence and judgemets in the theoretical contexts of natural science.  Analytical Philosophy is phenomenological in that it wishes to restrict itself to a theory of descriptions which can only be a part of the context of exploration/discovery----- only one of the elements of  theoretical intent .http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Historical versus poetic narratives. Contrast between the linear causes for "events" and the more conceptually mediated explanations which occur in the form of "reasons for actions". Hempels positivistic covering law model as applied to historical events and causes is criticised. http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Aesthetic activity is embedded in a matrix of Greek ideas which include arché, areté, epistemé, diké, psuché, logos, and phronesis. Ricoeur refers to the arc of operation spanning over the creator, performer and appreciator of aesthetic objects. Tragic plays rest upon an ontology of actions that are brought about and suffering that happens to one. Fear of terrorism is a possible defining feature of the last days of civilisation, as is narcissistic self-pityhttp://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Muthos and Logos obviously relate in Aristotles Philosophy to the "Many Meanings of Being". Ricoeur, however does not approach mythology in an Aristotelian spirit, preferring dialectical logic to the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Socrates is an example of the new hero  preferring the examined life to the religious life where Gods are capable of monstrous things.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Augustines conception of Time may well be solipsistic whereas Kant's account appears to be in accordance with the Aristotelian definition of time in terms of being a "measurement of motion in terms of before and after." Sensibility is a receptive "power" of the mind whereas understanding and reason are more "active" powers connected to Aristotles "First Philosophy"http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Fear is a local response of the body to objects of fear whereas anxiety is more of a threat to ones whole being, to one's freedom. Wittgenstein distinguishes between the object of ones fear and the cause and characterises the response in terms of an instinctive response which is not the case with  anxiety. Psychoanalytical therapy addresses anxiety in its various forms encouraging the operation of sublimationhttp://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Ricoeur discusses the possibility of a universal culture from a largely Hegelian perspective which denies  the relevance of Aristotelian-Kantian rationality. Scientific/Technological universalisation is regarded as one of the forces of globalisation but Ricoeur fails to appreciate the logical status of what Wittgenstein regarded as the "possibility" of phenomena and their underlying conditionshttp://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Ricoeur argues paradoxically that the greatest evil originates from the illusion of rationality and attempts to defend a phenomenological account of power and responsibility on this relativistic basis. Rousseau, the Romantic Philosopher, is identified with Aristotle the classical Philosopher in spite of their fundamentally different positions on many ethical and political questions.http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

Grammatical moods or modes are connected to the ontological categories of judgement which in turn are connected to categories of existence. The work and the word are characterised phenomenologically by Ricoeur with reference to Marxism and Christianity. Wittgensteinian and Kantian thought would oppose the economic materialism and the spiritual dualism of both these positions. http://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast

The eschatological hope for unity under the idea of God is the only abstract unity Ricoeur believes can be justified. He claims that both Aristotle and Kants rationalism is a search for unity whch is illusory. Marxism, one of the sources of totalitarianism, is  an example of the kind of concrete political Philosophy that s praised in this workhttp://michaelrdjames.orgDelphic Podcast