Lost&Found

I want to list Friedell's and Auerbach's books here since I really forgot the names of the authors. Shame on me. These books are unforgettable. Egon Friedell: A Cultural History of the Modern Age, Erich Auerbach: Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature.

Sociology

Some time ago I read a couple of sociology books including Giddens' Sociology: a Brief but Critical Introduction and a book in Finnish but I forgot the author (prob Sulkunen but could be Saaristo or Jokivuori, too).

The idea of social roles seems to have been popular for some time. A couple of interesting references: (1) the Stanford prison experiment (2) the flexibility of opinions according to a social group.

(1) has been well documented: people are randomly assigned roles of either a prisoner or a warden in a mock prison. However, though people know it is only an experiment, they start strongly enforcing their roles.

(2) is reportedly much more common than I realised. A person can appear to be sexually very conservative and monogamous in one social group and yet behave completely differently in another. This inconsistency does not lead to psychological difficulties as I would have expected.

The evidence of (1) and (2) seems to indicate strongly that people tend to be lead by their reference social group, both in opinions and in action. I quite cannot decide if this is positive or negative. However, it explains a lot of "getting indoctrinated" examples I have witnessed. On the less scary side: if we really change our opinions according to the group, could this make us take any ideology less seriously -- we'd just think it as a temporary obsession. On the other hand, if we really have a strong tendency for conformism rather than thinking what is just or rational, we can be an easy catch for the likes of Stalin and Hitler.

Computer Science Books

A revelation: in addition to philosophy, I studied computer science. There are a couple of entertaining introductions to some of the more theoretical aspects of computer science. (1) Douglas Hofstadter: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. A bit high-flying in parts but the discussion of incompleteness (including someone who can tell if X is a melody or just a sequence of notes, and a record player that can play "any" record) is very instructive and funny. (2) Roger Penrose: The Emperor's New Mind. This is a bit more technical and spans from physics (Maxell equations) to computing. Contains a great description of Turing machines. Penrose presents an unoptimized but correct version of the Universal Turing Machine is this book and it has become a well-known text book example for scholars who want to write more optimized versions. (3) J. Haugeland, Artificial Intelligence - the very idea. A typographically appealing text book: a technically oriented reader can read all the grey boxes whereas someone who'd like a more general idea can skip them and read the whole thing in one day. Haugeland might have introduced the acronym GOFAI (good old-fashioned artificial intelligence) in this book. The book contains nice introductions to representation hyphothesis, syntax/semantics etc. (4) J. F. Sowa: Conceptual Structures. A bit more technical but equally interesting. The bulk of the book is about lattice like representations of concept hierarchies and a language (a system of Conceptual Graphs) that utilises the hierarchies but actually works like predicate logic.


Many colleagues that have read Sowa's book have asked what's the real benefit of using the Conceptual Graph notation instead of more standard predicate logic. I became a bit obsessed with the question -- especially since Sowa uses game theoretical semantics (instead of the more standard model theory) as the semantic background of his graphs. My idea was to map (slightly limited) Conceptual Graphs into (again slightly limited) predicate logic with standard model theoretical semantics. After that one could see what happens if one increases the expressive power of the Conceptual Graphs languages as Sowa does in his book. This was a bit of a boring exercise, but it can be found in Chapter 3 of Conceptual Modelling Languages.

What did we actually learn? Based on that limited analysis, there is no real benefit in using conceptual as such. In many cases, however, a Conceptual Graph form of a statement is more illustrative and compact than the corresponding logic formula, just as Sowa says.

Foucault's discourse, Virilio and TV

Previously I would have been shy to admid that I only have a vague idea of what Michel Foucault really wanted to say. Foucault's archeology and genealogy of knowledge were the topic of my M.A. thesis a long time ago. Once again, the Wikipedia article about
Foucault contains the essential stuff of Foucault's writings. The article (at its current form) wisely leaves aside the question of autonomous discourse, that I fruitlessly pondered for some years. The question is something like this: In the Archeology of Knowledge, Foucault defines discourse as a collection of énoncé (uttered statements). Foucault strongly proposes that discourse matters more than individual thinkersm or actually any individual and his/her thoughs since they are shaped by discourse. There are "ruptures", quick changes, in the discourse, as Foucault documented in his famous case studies of madness, clinic, and prison. But where does this re-organisation of discourse come about? Is discourse really autonomous or is the something like the individuals' "will to power" behind it?

Nowadays I'm inclined to be lazy and say there is no answer to this question. If we define discourse in a manner that individuals do not matter at all, then it is autonomous. If we define that political pursuits or any human driven "desire to know" is there before the discourse, then it is not autonomous. As far I know, both interpretations are possible based on Foucault's writings.

Foucault was a "public intellectual" and presented some of his ideas informally through interviews, like Paul Virilio and Jean Baudrillard. My French is not fluent enough to read everything by them in French, but luckily English translations are available. Virilio's La Vitesse de libération was even translated into Finnish by Mika Määttänen.

Much of the discourse of public intellectuals is difficult to follow partially because they invent and use words quite liberally. La Vitesse de libération (escape velocity) is a good example: Virilio applies the idea of a rocket escaping the gravity of planet Earth to cultural contexts. There, gravity could mean our daily attachments such as food, shelter, sexuality and money. Virilio explains (and I have to agree) that using these basics as explanations of cultural phenomena is not satisfactory. Once something (say, Japanese Otaku-culture, computers, or ballet) has developed enough speed, it gets "liberated" from the basics and starts following its own trajectory.

Here's a very vulgar interpretation: a recurring theme in post-war philosophy, anthropology, sociology etc, is that symbols and symbol systems have their own mode of being. In Claude Levi-Strauss's structural anthropology they were still attached to system of exchange and food. We can see Foucault's study of discourse as an explation of how the symbol systems appear (thus he spoke about archeology of discourse and genealogy of discourse). After Foucault, philosophers might not be even interested where symbol systems come from. They just "are there" and seem to affect us as nuch as we affect them.

A simple example: In his book "Myth: A Very Short Introduction" Robert A. Segal discusses several views of myths. The current view of a myth is not "a popular misconception" but simply a "popular conception". Myths indeed guide our behaviour in many situations -- especially social ones since we assume that the other involved parties know and accept the same myth.

I once had an idea that reality TV is turning everyone into ultimate bores. The "reality" that the participants in reality TV shows live in is a myth. However, they seem to accept it so uncritically that even the spectators will probably start calling it reality.

Globalization and Its Discontents

There are a couple of economics related books I've read recently. Joseph E. Stiglitz's Globalization and Its Discontents is a good critical survey of the practices of the IMF and the World Bank during the 80's. Stiglitz points out that the inflexible policies of these institutions contributed a lot to the Asian Economic Crisis. Moreover, the Russian transformation to capitalist economy was managed quite badly -- continuing corruption and oligarghy were some of the results.

Naomi Klein's No Logo is a bit different, more popular and features quite a bit of the people who are the discontents of globalization; fair trade activists, anti-commercial graffitti artists etc. Sometimes a bit unfocused, but the discussion about sweat shops in the Philippines is especially good (and quite famous).

Simone Weil

Jukka Hankamaki: Rakkauden välittäjä (Simone Weil - The Mediator of Love). One can buy this softcover at the airport in Helsinki for 10 Euros. I hope more low cost paperback philosophy books will soon be available. This book, actually Hankamaki's doctoral thesis with minor edits, covers almost everything about Weil. Maybe a bit more could have been mentioned about her brother in the biography section, just suddenly mentioning that Andre Weil is a famous mathematician was a bit odd.

Weil of course is a captivating figure, famous for her uncompromising ethos. Hankamaki's narration is quite good, too.

Anti-Ahmavaara

There are surprising connections between philosophy of science, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, and a mathematician/physicist/social scientist called Ahmavaara (alias Arvid Aulin). These are explained Heikki Maki-Kulmala's inspiring but critical account Anti-Ahmavaara (currectly availbale only in Finnish). Dr. Ahmavaara first studied statistical methods for "exact sciences" and then wanted to apply his ideas to social sciences using information and control theory (cybernetics) as a proxy. His ideas became espaceially popular during the leftist era in Finnish broadcasting. The basic idea of social information theory is of course the same as in Karl Popper's philosophy of science: if you utter something unexpected, it has greater value as information than something trivial. This, combined with "education for the masses" ideal of the broadcasting company, lead to rather surprising radio programs.

Later Prof. Ahmavaara abandoned the leftist ideals and became incresingly critical towards non-statistical methods in science in general. He seems to think science and scientific thinking is either pure and mathematical, or impure and ideological. Most of social sciences seem to fall in the latter category. It must have been controversial that Prof. Ahmavaara was the head of the Research Center of Social Sciences at the University of Tampere. The Center housed for instance Gender Studies.

Heresies

Heresies by John Gray (not the same one who writes about gender relations) makes interesting reading. It was written just at the time when the U.S. lead coalition decided to go to war with Iraq. Gray predicts insurgency and a civil war. His arguments are convincing. Didn't anyone in the U.S. administration read the book?

The main point of Heresies is naturally that we should not be naive about "progress": technological and scientific progress does not entail values of humanity/enlightenment etc. That's very true of course, but I think Gray ignores (at least in this book) a rather simple connection between values and technological progress: this far, mobile communications and the Internet have been extremely effective in speading western style popular culture. Now, does this automatically mean that western style thinking is promoted among pop affinados in, say, Islamic countries? I actually think so. There are lots of role models in TV series, films and among pop stars.

Maybe for his next book Gray would like to debunk the idea of western values altogether. I do not anyone who actually behaves according to Weber's protestant ethics, though that sort of morality certainly contributed a lot to popular opinions in industrialised societies.

The Great Game, Russo-Japanese war and Russian Revolution

Meanwhile in Central Asia: Peter Hopkirk: The Great Game. The Russian and British empires struggle for power. Diplomacy, trade blocks and straighforward warfare. Someone should write a computer game about the era.

The Crimean war of 1853-1856 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 were naturally related to the struggle. Both of them are somewhat known in Finland. The Baltic theatre was a minor site of the Crimean war and the British navy half-heartedly tried to capture the Aland islands (immortalized by a folk song "Oolannin sota"), at that era the outpost of the Russian Empire in the west. Since Finland was still a Russian province (an autonomous grand duchy) during the Russo-Turkish war, a Finnish regiment fought in Pleven (Bulgaria). Pleven, known as Plevna in Finland, became a surprisingly popular name to designate the era or to honour the regiment. There are still buildings called Plevna, maybe the most famous of them is now a popular restaurant in Tampere.

I truly do not know much about history, but the Russo-Japanese war (1905), the 1st world war and the Russian revolution (1917) set the stage for later development of the Great Game. Mr. Mannerheim writes about the events in his memoirs, available in English, and naturally in Finnish and Swedish. They can be inaccurate but really read like best spy novels.

John Reed's account of the Russian revolution (Ten Days that Shook the World) is famous, of course. The Penguin edition's preface by A.J.P Taylor is almost as interesting as the book itself.

So, what happened in the revolution? Chaos, lack of information, conflicting political programmes etc. However, as we know, the bolshevists managed to gain control and keep it. The Congress of Soviets had some great declarations including a land reform (turned later violent collectivisation) and a "democratic peace" to end the First World War. It is most interesting to note that at meeting where these declarations were made, the participants believed that everything is going to change in world politics - even secrecy and diplomatic deals were to be replaced by openness since the worker's democracy did not need secret deals.
I wonder if the Bolshevist leaders knew all along that these were just ideals to appeal the masses or if they really believed in them. Anyway, the reality shortly after was quite different from the ideals..

.. as the main characters in Thomas Keneally's Peoples Train (2009) find out, too. This semi-fictional book has a slow start, but once the main characters get to Russia, things really start happening. In fact Keneally's account is a bit different from the preface to Reed's book. In Keneally's story, the bolshevists are quite cunning and manage their politics and finances (even by bank robberies) well.

The Selfish Gene

Before I forget, let's mention Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. Very well written and has some interesting ideas about how in tribal societies people want to favour some relatives that "are most likely to carry" genes similar to theirs. Contains a good explanation of the Prisoner's Dilemma, too. I read the second edition and Dawking mentions in the foreword that based on the feedback of the first, he thinks many people did not get the meaning of "selfish" right. Unfortunately I find Dawkins himself is not too clear about it. On the other hand he uses it like a technical term but in a passage quite late in the book laments that the humankind has not gotten rid of this imposed selfishness. Actually, Dawkins in not too clear about the definition of "gene" either.

A Brief History of the Human Race etc

Michael Cook promotes some ideas similar to Guns, Germs and Steel (see below) in his book A Brief History of the Human Race. The fact that Eurasians developed arms and ships by which they conquered much of the rest of the world is due to good grain (enables farming), horses (enable efficient warfare) and iron (enables tools and weapons). One could, of course, ponder what could have happened if the Mongolians conquered Europe in the 14th century.

Well, here we go again. I tried to trace a book about ethics I borrowed from CERN library some years ago and cannot find it. The author discussed for instance a tribe called !Kung (Jared Diamond mentions them, too) and concludes that their code of behaviour does not emphasise honesty. Thus, their trade is not likely to thrive. Thus, other societies that value honesty are likely to develop faster. This might be a good, old fashioned idea but somehow I'm not convinced. After all, !Kung are hunter gatherers and their society is controlled by a different kind of ethos than agricultural societies.

Guns, Germs and Steel

Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel. Diamond has some interesting ideas and supports them with lots of evidence. Some examples: (1) You'd think that since people often consider their family more important than their country, it is easier for tribes to get their members fight fanatically than it is for kingdoms/countries. Wrong. Only a centralised goverment can create propaganda strong enough to make people sacrifice themselves for something. (2) So, big units with centralised govenments are terrible war machines and life is peaceful in small tribes and chiefdoms? Wrong again. Diamond mentions that violence is quite common in tribal societies and intra-tribal relations. Bigger units can impose codes of law and reinforce them and that seems to drastically cut down fights.

An interesting issue about Spaniards and South American civilisations: the Spaniards indeed had ocean-going ships, guns, horses and writing. In the case of a conflict between the civilisations, the Spaniards would have won even though Spain was far away. However, suppose the first would-be conquistator were not Pizarro. Maybe he would have settled for less and the Aztec civilisation would have been spared.