Understanding Self and Others in the Postmodern World

© 2013 by Richard E. Bailey Ph. D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   02/25/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8852-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8850-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8851-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012921602

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

PREFACE

1.   Introduction to Philosophic Rhetoric

•   Assumptions, Definitions and Observations

•   Worldviews and Ways of Life

•   Origins, Nature, Characteristics, Structure of a Worldview

•   A Way of Life

•   Questions To Ask

2.   The Homeric Worldview: The Gods and The Greeks

•   The Situation

•   Overview of the Gods

•   Man’s Life in Homer’s World

•   The Homeric Worldview

•   A Personal Reflection

•   Personal Worksheet

3.   The Sophistic Worldview and The Platonic Response

•   The Situation: The Polis

•   History of the Polis

•   Philosophy, Poetry, and Religion

•   The Sophists

•   What Sophists Hold In Common

•   Two Kinds of Sophists

•   Sicilian Rhetoricians in Athens

•   Socratic and Platonic Responses

•   The Person, The Life, The Sophistic World

•   Isocrates’ Rhetoric And The Humanistic Worldview

•   A Personal Reflection

•   Personal Worksheet

4.   Plato’s Worldview

•   The Situation

•   Plato’s View of Reality

•   View of the Good

•   View of Truth

•   View of Man

•   The Person, The World, And The Life One Lives.

•   A Personal Reflection

•   Personal Worksheet

5.   The Christian Worldview

•   The Situation

•   Christian Perspectives of God As Seen in the Old Testament

•   Assumptions Granted

•   The Church and the Churches—One Way to God

•   Individual Revelation—2nd Way to God

•   The Christian View of Man

•   The Christian View of Truth is Grounded in Man’s Experience

•   The Christian Way

•   The Journey of the Soul

•   A Personal Reflection

•   Personal Worksheet

6.   Humanism and The Culture of the West

•   The Situation in the West

•   The Response of the Church

•   Humanism and Science

•   The Humanities In Contemporary Culture

•   A Personal Reflection

•   Personal Worksheet

7.   The Scientific Worldview

•   The Situation

•   Reality: Assumptions Granted

•   What It Means To Be A Human Being.

•   Truth In The Scientific Worldview

•   Disjunction between the Theoretical and Applied Sciences

•   Becoming a Member of the Scientific World

•   Scientific Theory vs. Practice Relative To Man

•   Where is science now?

•   A Personal Reflection.

•   TWO RESPONSES TO THE SCIENTIFIC WORLDVIEW: ROGERS’ HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY AND

THE POSTMODERN WORLD

•   Rogers Humanistic Psychology

•   Personal Worksheet

8.   Postmodernism

•   Difficulty in Understanding Postmodernism

•   Assumptions and Claims: Reality, Man, Truth

•   The Situation

•   The Problem of Change

•   The Language of Change

•   The Goal of Change

•   A Way of Life

•   The Postmodern World

•   Reflections on the Future

•   A Personal Reflection

•   Personal Worksheet

9.   Conclusion

•   Worldviews and Their People

•   Similarities and Differences Among Worldviews

•   Problems Identified

•   Remaining Issues

•   Where We Are Now

•   Discovering One’s Own Worldview and That of Others

•   A Personal Reflection

•   Personal Worksheet

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SELECTED READINGS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I want to give special recognition to Laurel Williams and Joshua Wallace, my daughter and grandson, both of whom have lived in two or more worlds at various times in their lives. This work could not have achieved its present form without their insights, observations and critiques of what it claims and the language used in making them. Not to be forgotten is their patience and endurance through the entire process of conception and publication.

PREFACE

Understanding Self and Others in the Postmodern World is unlike most books directed at giving people insight into themselves in that it is addressed to persons who want to think about their lives, relationships with others, and how Western Culture has arrived at the Postmodern World.

It is based upon the assumption that ordinary people, each in their own ways, are philosophers, rhetoricians, theologians, psychologists, and observers of nature. (1) A second assumption is that self-knowledge is the path to a happy life for the individual, is necessary for understanding others, and for making sense out of the world in which we live. The world at the beginning of the 21st century is not only a global village, but is one in which no political system speaks with one voice for all people. Armed with nuclear weapons, it is a world in which absolutistic religions, philosophies, and political systems cannot be tolerated. Thus, it is an age in which all peoples and nations, without abandoning their own heritages, must honor other people and their cultures.

A new kind of person is required for living in the Postmodern World. That individual is one who is secure enough in his own views on life and existence that he can honor and respect others whose ways of living are quite different from his own. This will occur only if people make sincere efforts to understand those who differ with them from the perspective of the particular worldview of those other persons. Understanding does not automatically mean agreement. It signifies only that a sincere effort has been made to see what life, self, and world are like from within another’s perspective; to engage in that process with an open mind; and not defensively.

The method employed for developing an understanding of self and others is to place the worldviews considered within the framework of a Philosophic Rhetoric. Philosophy and Rhetoric both need what the other offers. Philosophy without rhetoric speaks only to itself and is rendered ineffective in life and culture. Rhetoric without philosophy degenerates into subjectivity. They cannot be divorced without doing serious injury to their own ends. In essence, philosophy has truth as its end. Rhetoric seeks to make that truth understandable and actionable to an audience.

For such reasons, Chapter One is devoted to the task of explaining what Philosophic Rhetoric is; what it does; and how it achieves its ends. It identifies factors that make people persuadable, and notes that not only are people changed by persuasive messages, but that changes are also generated in the real life conditions under which people live. Second, this chapter considers the nature, structure, and characteristics of worldviews. Third, it presents a meta-view as a basis for assessing the characteristics different worldviews share so that their individual strengths and weaknesses may be exposed, and judgments of their merits may be made.

Chapters Two through eight challenge the reader to examine seven different worldviews through the perspective of Philosophic Rhetoric; to consider what living in each would be like; the kind of persons people inhabiting them become; and the kinds of world each creates. Outcomes sought through this process are that readers will come to understand themselves, others, and the world in which they live. An even more important outcome is that readers discover their own worldviews; do their own thinking; and discern what they think about Reality, the Good, the Truth, and what having the status of a Human Being means to them.

In sum, they should learn the meanings of the precepts carved on the wall of the temple dedicated to Apollo: Know Thyself, and Nothing Too Much. The first aphorism speaks to man’s need for wisdom; the second, for moderation. The first addresses man’s ignorance; the second, his arrogance; both of which lead to chaos if humility is not learned.

FOOTNOTES

(1)   I make a similar case for these areas of knowledge as Mortimer Adler makes that we are all philosophers in Aristotle For Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy, (Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1978).

      ********

      The author has drawn extensively upon the works of scholars in the areas of study developed and has attempted to give full credit to those who have informed his thinking.

      The Selected Readings provide the reader with a list of books the reader might consult for better understanding the worldviews considered.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Philosophic Rhetoric

Getting at the truth of matters that affect one’s

well-being and happiness is everybody’s business.

Assumptions, Definitions and Observations

The author does not claim originality in his use of the term Philosophic Rhetoric. He owes the ideas he has on it to Plato, who dismissing rhetoric as cookery in the Gorgias, seemed to link them together in the Phaedrus. Secondly, he is indebted to Lester Thonssen and A. Craig Baird who employed the ethical, truth, artistic, and results standards as a method of criticism that leads to rational judgments concerning the relative merits of speeches. (1) The philosophic part of Philosophic Rhetoric includes the ethical and truth standards. The rhetorical part is concerned with the artistic and results standards which assess how affective a message is in getting its auditors to believe in and act upon the speaker’s proposals. Conceived in this way, Philosophic Rhetoric pre-supposes the existence of an objective reality, and a mind capable of knowing it. The former is concerned with ontology, the latter with epistemology. Thus, there are necessarily objective and subjective dimensions in all truth claims.

The rhetor, as philosopher, employs dialectic and the scientific method (method of hypothesis) in his efforts to apprehend the truth about What Is in the realm of being on the one side; and What Is in the world of matter/nature on the other. The philosopher, as rhetor, employs rhetoric in his efforts to make that which he has apprehended knowable to himself, and believable, and actionable to others. The claim this essay makes is that we are all philosophical rhetoricians because human nature compels us to seek the truth about ourselves, the people we live with, and the world in which we live. The uses of dialectic and the scientific method are well-known to most people. The uses of rhetoric are not well-known, and when used is done often in a negative or derisive manner. So what Rhetoric is, does, and proposes to accomplish must be considered first.

Donald Bryant, a contemporary rhetorician, defines rhetoric as . . . the rationale of informative and suasory discourse. (2) Everett Lee Hunt claims: Rhetoric is the study of men persuading men to make free choices. (3) Aristotle described rhetoric as . . . the art of discovering in the particular case, what are the available means of persuasion. (4) He did not feel a need to define persuasion as he felt everyone knew when they were being persuaded. Fotheringham, a behavioral psychologist, provides a workable definition. He writes: . . .persuasion is conceived as that body of effects… achieved . . . in receivers, relevant and instrumental to source-desired goals, brought about by a process in which messages have been a major determinant of those effects… is interpersonal and involves the perception of choice. (5) He explains, what Aristotle assumed, that persuasion is only one means of influence. Other means he identifies for securing compliance with a source’s message are: force, bribery, authority, and interpersonal roles. Messages may be associated with these means of influence, he observes, but if compliance is achieved due to the perception of injury associated with its rejection, force has been used; if the perception of reward generates compliance, the auditor has been bribed; and if a person complies because it is the law, the behavior has been legislated. Further, when auditors comply because they recognize a source in a situation has the right to direct their behavior; interpersonal roles produces the compliance, as when a student accepts the right of the professor to lecture, give examinations, and assign grades. These means of influence are part of the culture of the Western World. Persuasion is the most desirable means of influence for two reasons: it is available to everyone; and the persuaded person continues in the desired behavior because he subjectively perceives he has freely chosen to do so. The powerful and wealthy seem more likely to utilize force and bribery. As we hold them accountable for the things they say and do; we also hold persuaders responsible for messages they utter and the results they achieve.

From the standpoint of Philosophic Rhetoric responsible speakers and writers must know three things if they are not to inflict injury upon their auditors. First, they must have self-knowledge; second, they must know what is really good for their auditors; and third, they must speak the truth about the issues they address. The two exhortations carved on the walls of the temple dedicated to Apollo at Delphi, cited above, Know Thyself, and Nothing too Much, Walter F. Otto writes, mean know what man is, and how great is the interval which separates him from the greatness of the eternal gods; consider the limitations of humanity." (6)

Weaver asserts: We are all of us preachers in private or public capacities. We have no sooner uttered words than we have given impulse to other people to look at the world, or some small part of it, in our way. (7) When all factors have been considered, he observes, it will be seen that men are born rhetoricians… . (8) This means the speaker must become aware of how his family, education, professional activities, personal history, significant events in his life, and his own system of values have formed a filter through which he views himself, his auditors, and the issues he considers. Lacking this kind of self-knowledge, he will—whether he is an educator, clergyman, therapist, analyst, or friend—impose his worldview and his personal biases upon his auditor, client or friend.

Secondly, since messages are focused . . . upon accomplishing something predetermined and directional with an audience… . the responsible speaker must know what really contributes to the well-being of his auditors, and those things that might injure them. (9) His message must always urge his auditors to embrace the good over the evil; the greater good over the lesser; and the lesser of the evils over the greater. It is not that people cannot be deceived nor urged to foolish action; but that the ethical speaker should not subject his auditors to such deception and manipulation. (10)

The initial focus of Philosophic Rhetoric is upon the speaker/writer/source. The second is upon the audience. Third, Philosophic Rhetoric holds the speaker responsible for discovering and telling the truth about the issues he addresses. Griswold asserts that rhetoric is used broadly by Plato to include all discourse—that which is directed to ourselves as well as that directed to others. (11) Thus, the speaker, as his own auditor must, first, persuade himself of the truth about the issues he presents to his auditors. He must know what he thinks and why he thinks it. (12)

Commenting on self-persuasion in the Phaedrus, Griswold observes that the philosopher, as a fallen soul, cannot distinguish with certainty that his vision of what is has not been falsified by its transformation into what the mind can make of it—by what the mind perceives it to be. Recognizing the possibility that putting his sense of what is into what the mind can apprehend (language or other symbol system) is fraught with error, he will make an effort not to be persuaded by what reveals itself to him as true just because he sees it as true. Thus, he engages in a dialogue with himself so he can hear himself giving reasons for what he believes he has experienced. At this point, Griswold observes, the philosopher is in grave danger of self-persuasion and self deception. This means, he cannot be sure that his conviction stems from the truth of his answer, (i.e. the right correspondence between his words and the subject matter), or from the persuasiveness of the words he has used in formulating what he has perceived. (13) He is, however, not totally lost on the horns of this dilemma. Confronted with this situation, he seeks to explain himself publicly in the company of a community of peers. In sum, Socrates endorses the notion that one gets to know himself through dialogue and his use of rhetoric. (14)

At this point, having thought clearly about the issues; and having explained himself in the company of experts; the philosophical rhetorician is prepared to challenge his auditors to do their own thinking; make their own choices; and take responsibility for their own actions. We recognize this to be the goal of a liberal education. We can conclude that the knowledge which comes from dialoguing with one’s self and others about what is really good for a human being, and the pursuit of truth are essential criteria of a philosophical rhetoric. It is obvious, Griswold writes, that . . . rhetoric is eventually shown… in the Phaedrus  . . . to include dialectic, and once the ends of rhetoric are considered  . . . . it becomes clear that philosophical dialogue is the perfection of rhetoric. (15)

The time, place, and occasion in which persuasion occurs exert important influences upon the issues a speaker brings to the attention of an audience. Considerations of time, of course, refer not only to the day of the week and time of day, but also the length of time one has to address issues. Place refers to the setting in which messages occur. It makes a difference if one is addressing an audience in a public hall, or if it takes place in one’s consulting room with a student, client, or analysand. (16)

The Situation. In addition to the above, a philosophic rhetoric recognizes that both people and issues have histories. Thonssen and Baird explain that reconstructing the social setting that forms the background within which persuasive messages occur is central to all efforts at understanding what brings an auditor, client, analysand, etc. to one’s office. (17) The question to be answered is: What is the problem? Parish explains: Since the purpose of speech is to work persuasion upon an audience, we cannot properly explain or evaluate until we have learned a great deal about the occasion that called it forth, the speakers relation to the occasion, the resources available to him, and the climate of opinion and current events amidst which he operated. (18) This task requires one to be an historian and typically begins with the initial interview. Bitzer reminds us that rhetorical discourse is called into existence by situations, and is limited to those problems that can be partially or fully resolved by discourse. (19)

The question that follows these considerations is: What makes people persuadable? A beginning answer is to recall, first, that the mind recognizes stimuli received as messages are to be referred and compared to what the person has learned and accepted as true about reality. And, second, that people naturally seek what they believe is good for them and avoid that which they believe will injure them. Their experience, however, is that they have been deceived about such things in the past; may be deceived in the present; and might be deceived at some time in the future. They need to come to a knowledge of the truth about what is good for them; and about that which will do them injury. Plato believed that humans were persuadable because the soul has fallen from the realm of Being into the realm of Becoming, remembering little or nothing, and is unable to live its own life. It is primordially deficient, and has forgotten its true origins. (20)

Richard Weaver, sounding much like Plato, says man is by nature a rational and emotional being, possesses a capacity for appreciating the beautiful, yearns for the infinite, and is born with a sense of ought. He is a physical being living in a world in which each person is a unique and particular instance of man striving to become what he ought to be as contrasted with what he finds himself to be in his actual life situation. It is this discrepancy, which exists between what humans ought to be and what they perceive themselves to be, that makes them subject to their own self-persuasions, and the persuasive efforts of others. (21) In ordinary language, people are persuaded when a message makes sense to them, and when they perceive their compliance will enable them to avoid an injury or secure some good. An implication from the above is that there are factors in the external world and in the auditors’ internal world of subjective experience that make them subject to persuasive messages.

External constraints, while not easily demonstrated, may be proved to an audience by citing relevant facts and buttressing them with valid and adequate arguments. Cases may be made about propositions of facts, values, or policies that affect an individual’s or the public’s well-being. These strategies are well known to people in the Western World. Conflicting opinions, deep-seated biases, strongly held group prejudices, and conflicting testimonies from expert witnesses are staples of our culture. Constraints internal to the speaker and the receiver of messages are beliefs, values, attitudes, past learning, subjective prejudices, and the like. (22) Both the issue and the relevant constraints must be addressed by the speaker if his message is going to affect changes in his auditors thinking, feeling, believing, acting, and later effects in the objective world.

Reality. A work of rhetoric… Bitzer writes, . . .comes into existence for the sake of something else… it functions ultimately to produce action or change in the world; it performs some task… and  . . . is a mode of altering reality, not by direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse that changes reality through the mediation of thought and action. (23) Franklin Knower agrees that communication is a response to a reality situation and has the potential of changing the real world. The reality that is changed may be within an individual’s world of subjective perceptions; in his outward behavior; within the collective psyche of an organization; or a change in the political realities of our public life and culture. (24) Rhetoric is, thus, a powerful means of influence which has the potential of re-forming an individual’s inner world of subjective perceptions, and of affecting changes in the reality situation to which it is a response.

Delivery. Perhaps the most commonly held opinion about the field of rhetoric is that it consists in a set of procedures for the composition and delivery of persuasive messages. The early Sophists produced how to manuals giving instructions on the art of making speeches. Aristotle writes with his usual clarity about the roles of the Speaker, the Audience, and the Composition and Delivery of messages. (25) He gives advice on how to construct logical, ethical, and emotional appeals; how to arrange the materials of a speech; as well as advice on the style (language); and delivery of a speech. The rhetorician is concerned here with how affective the message was in getting the auditor(s) to believe in, and act upon its urgings. Thonssen and Baird, as noted above, calls this the Artistic standard in judging messages. (26) Courses in speechmaking, sermonizing, counseling, analysis and the like serve similar functions.

This has been a brief account of the components of what might be included in the concerns of a philosophic rhetoric. We may draw from this sketch that a philosophic rhetoric is:

1.   a means of influence employed by speakers who use messages to achieve their goals with an audience;

2.   a response to an objective or perceived reality situation to which it may affect change;

3.   involves constraints both objective to the situation, and the speaker himself;

4.   is concerned with the truth of the message as well as the happiness of the auditors; and

5.   considers the effectiveness of messages in achieving changes in its auditors assignments of meaning, in their behavior, and later changes it generated in the reality situation to which it was a response.

We now claim that what Philosophic Rhetoric is, what it does, and what it seeks to accomplish is grounded upon a worldview. Thus, it becomes important to consider the origins, structure, and characteristics of worldviews, and how they become ways of life.

Worldviews and Ways of Life

Origins, Nature, Characteristics, Structure of a Worldview

To the case Tarnas makes that different cultures and nation-states have worldviews; we may add that different institutions, academic disciplines, all kinds of organizations, and each individual have worldviews that exert a powerful influence over the way people live their lives and conduct their businesses. Further, cultures, nations, institutions, and all human productions, like individuals, come into being, grow, become dominant and arrogant, which leads them to either humility or chaos—to further development, or to being replaced by an emerging weltanschauung that is also based upon its own unproved and improvable assumptions.

Origins. A phenomenon so universally experienced as a worldview must be grounded in a basic human need. Richard Weaver identifies this need in his claim, cited above, that people yearn for the infinite and are born with a sense of ought. Paul Tillich, from a theological perspective, recognizes this need, and describes the process by which humans subjectively center their lives around a guiding value that involves their whole personality as the subjective side of their Ultimate Concern. The contents produced by this process is the other side of an Ultimate Concern. It will be perceived as having objective existence. He asserts that a true Ultimate Concern is always concerned about that which is really Ultimate; but that finite realities, like nationalism, or success, may be substitutes for what is really Ultimate. (27)

The consequences of believing in and acting upon a worldview that does not correspond with what really is may end in existential disappointment, and result in the loss of the center around which the personality is ordered; cause a disruption of the personality; and end in chaos. (28) It is human nature, then, that requires every person to have an Ultimate Concern around which their lives are centered that imposes form, meaning, and gives purpose to an otherwise chaotic existence. One’s subjectively felt Ultimate Concern, however, should be held conditionally because its contents may not correspond with reality as it is. Since worldviews exert such powerful influences upon how people live their lives, we must now provide descriptions of their nature, characteristics, and structure.

Nature of a Worldview. From the standpoint of Philosophical Rhetoric, a worldview is a set of assumptions that provides every person and organization with a systematic and consistent way of perceiving and accounting for the things that it, itself, identifies, and for which it is a means of coping. It acts as a philosophy of life. It is an internally consistent picture of four inter-related systems: the cognitive, affective, behavioral, and intuitive functions. If changes are introduced into any part, there is the potential of altering the structure of the whole. It possesses the nature of an attitude in that it seeks that which confirms itself; accommodates itself to that which it can successfully incorporate into its preconceived notions, (i.e. its structure of assumptions); and suppresses or avoids that which challenges it. (29) A further assumption is: when a worldview becomes dominant its claims constellate its opposite in the individual’s life, or in an institution, or culture, etc. It, thereby, contains in itself the seeds of that which will/may replace it. A worldview, thus, is a dynamic structure that tends both to incorporate and accommodate new material into its structure; or suppresses dissonant material. But, if its tendency to remain what it is stops growth; it becomes fixated, which provides the ground for that which will replace it. Further, when a culture or individual moves from its existing worldview to another the former is not excised as in surgery. It continues in a diminished way even as some of its elements are incorporated into that which is emerging.

Characteristics, Stages, and Processes. A worldview is very good at doing some things, but is not efficient at doing things in which it has no interest. The mystic, for example, does not find bacteria, and science does not find a soul. In addition, one can comprehend a worldview, yet not have a real knowledge of it. That is, one can have a propositional knowledge of a worldview, but not have a lived experience of it. A lived experience refers to the archetypal path—meaning the Stages and Processes—the soul/person, traverses on his/her journey toward becoming a full-fledged member of a worldview. We recognize the difference when a speaker has only a propositional and expert knowledge because he cites from memory only. A third characteristic of worldviews is they are not falsified by the worldview that replaces them. Once formed, the new worldview lays in the background of one’s perceptual world of subjective experience which now becomes what the individual takes to be the real world. It acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy in that, through its Stages and Processes, it tends to mold people after its own image. Plato calls this the world of beliefs. (30) This subjective world becomes a source of many problems because it deflects the apprehension of new events impinging upon one’s life, and the development of new and more affective coping strategies. It prevents, as well, one’s need to and attempts at coming to an appreciative understanding of those who do not share one’s perspectives.

Worldviews, then, come into being, flourish, and are replaced by those that succeed them. New worldviews come into existence because a current worldview is found to be inadequate in one or more respects. It is important to note that the emerging worldview does not necessarily falsify the assumptions and claims of the former. It simply replaces the former with its own set of assumptions, claims, and way of life. Finally, there is a period during the transition from one worldview to another when alternative worldviews compete for acceptance before one achieves dominance.

Structure and Assumptions of Worldviews. It may seem that there must be as many worldviews as there are people and organizations. Fortunately that is not the case. What is required to bring order and understanding to the situation is an