Editorial: 27th Issue February 1st 2020

Blog: http://michaelrdjames.org/

https://joom.ag/Xwxe

The first lecture is about essay number 1 in Harari’s work “Sapiens”.

Essay Number 1 is entitled “The Cognitive Revolution” and is
intended to argue for a beginning of cognition ca 70,000 BC. The
background to this extraordinary claim however is the following:
This is an enthralling and interesting book taking us on a journey across
enormous spans of time with a minimum of infrastructure of History and
Biology. The timeline given at the beginning of the work sketches both the
enormous scope of this work as well as indicating its enormous limitations.
13.5 billion years ago, Dr Yuval Noah Harari claims, matter and energy
"appeared" together with atoms and molecules. Earth it is claimed formed 4.5
billion years ago with the first organisms appearing 3.8 billion years ago. 2.5
million years ago saw the emergence of the genus "Homo" with "Homo Sapiens
developing around 200,000 years ago in East Africa. All of these are scientific
claims and one presumes that these are facts in spite of philosophical concerns
about the grounds for saying that matter and energy appeared at these dates. Is
this a description of what the scientist imagines must be the case because of a
host of facts or is there some calculation which would tell us the time of the
emergence of matter and energy from some primeval source? If there is a
"proof" that the universe began to exist at some point in time and everything
"exploded into existence then Philosophers would be able to free themselves of
the antonymy of the claims that the universe has always existed versus its
coming into existence ex nihilo without a cause that itself must have had a
cause. It is not as if it is possible to believe the one or the other because even if
there is a scientific proof or calculation it is made on the assumption of a kind of
causality that appears to be contradictory. Imagining this ex nihilo form of
causality is indeed a feat of scientific imagination which the philosopher
believes may not be cognitively possible. Indeed it may be the case that the
Philosopher is more inclined to believe that nothing significant can be said about
the beginning of the universe exactly because it is logically possible that the
universe has always existed in some form or another and the dramatic event
imagined by the scientist is merely a change for which there is a cause. Aristotle
would of course probably have insisted that some kind of unknowable cause or
telos could well be operating along with other kinds of cause(material, efficient,
formal) With events as vast as the size of the infinite universe it is of course
almost impossible to estimate or guess what such a telos might be. It becomes
easier with the emergence of life where one can survey the possible telos of the
end of all life because of the ability of the logical imagination to conceive of a
world without life, and a world where life forms begin to exist. Life, this great
biological concept, according to Aristotle must be conceived partly
teleologically because its essence or formal cause must include the end of the
condition that allowed it to come into being. There are of course also the
material and efficient causes of life which are the concern of the scientist to
chart (without the use of any ex nihilo concept of "cause")

The claim that matter and energy “appeared” suddenly in the Universe
must stretch even the limits of a post modern imagination. The claim
that a cognitive revolution began 70,000 BC is also a feat of the
imagination that flies in the face of the facts and accepted Theory:
Dr. Harari places several "revolutions" on his timeline, the first of which is "The
Cognitive Revolution"( 70,000 years ago) that he associates mysteriously with
the emergence of the language of fiction and which he claims "kick-started"
history. Two of the characteristics of the use of language are its capacity to
claim what is true as well as the capacity to claim things that are false or
fictional. Harari puts a premium, for some reason, on the latter rather than the
former power, in spite of the fact that the former might have been the "original
intention", namely to say something or proclaim something that is the case. Both
powers are dependent upon one another but it does seem somewhat perverse to
emphasize a secondary power at the expense of the primary power. If Julian
Jaynes is right and the original source of language is exclamational, a shout of
warning, there has to be something which the shout is about(a present danger) if
we are to make sense of this otherwise instrumental form of communication.
Jaynes claims in his work "The Origins of Consciousness in the breakdown of
the bicameral mind" that "narratisation arose as a codification of reports of past
events but that it required a number of previous stages of the language. Julian
Jaynes speaks of exclamational shouts and possible modifier functions of
language(40,000 bc) to indicate the nearness or distance of the tiger and the
development of this form of langauge to nouns(25,000-15000 bc)and the
commanding of actions. Names for people, argues Jaynes came late around
10,000-8000 bc. This is probably the key to narratization because it does seem
to be a logical requirement that one has a name for a thing before the thing can
be imagined in its absence. Jaynes points to the Natufians at Eynan and the
burial practices dating from 9000 bc in towns (of about 200 people) in contrast
with their ancestors who were hunters living in caves. This is around the time of
the second revolution, the so called Agricultural revolution in which wild
species of wheat were domesticated and cultivated. But Jaynes insists that no
narratization was as yet possible because that required a more complex cognitive
skill of forming in ones mind an analogue self in which they could "see"
themselves in relation to others. This required, in Jaynes's view, an advanced
form of mental development in which individuals could begin to plan their
futures, a skill involving an analogue I that could do action x or action y. Jaynes
thinks that this is the moment of the advent of consciousness which he dates
very late , certainly after the 1470 bc earthquake and eruption of Santorini. The
guiding influence of this period Jaynes argues, are the hallucinated "voices" of
God operating in the context of a rigid hierarchical structure that often collapsed
when unusual events demanded unusual actions requiring perhaps a more
methodical and reasoned form of consciousness.It is only at this point a long
time after 70,000 years ago that we can indeed begin to think of a cognitive
revolution involving narratization and an intentional historical record. Dating
the Cognitive revolution from 70,000 years ago when it probably occurred well
after the start of the Agricultural revolution is therefore probably misleading. A
command and control form of language with a putative source in the procession
or pantheon of Gods was probably occurring for most of this period when there
was no linguistic condition for the truth or falsity of these utterances.

Harari concludes with reflections upn the businessman and some

strange reasoning that ends with a view of human rights as some kind
of imaginative fiction:
Peugot enters this discussion because, as Harari curiously claims: "Modern
businesspeople and lawyers are in fact powerful sorcerers". The fact that the
average life span of a company is 30 years may support the sorcerer theory but
the inclusion of lawyers in this category is an astounding view of the nature of
the validity of law in the process of holding communities together since the time
of the Code of Hammurabi. Apparently some lawyers have taken to calling joint
stock companies "legal fictions" on the grounds that they are not physical
objects but have legal rights. This is not the controlled use of language that we
expect from legal thinkers and we are not far from asserting that because we
cannot "see, hear touch, measure a human right" it too must be a fiction. If one
is working with a primitive non-philosophical theory of language one should not
be surprised at such paradoxical conclusions. If something is not a fact, it must
be a fiction is the "logic" of this discourse. What other logical alternatives are
there? Well, there are literally thousands and it is extremely puzzling to be
confronted by an either /or theory of bipolar extremes for such a complex area
of discourse. Aristotle would not have made such a logical mess of describing
non physical states of affairs.He would not have thought of Athens as an
imagined entity without reality.

The second lecture is entitled “No Justice in History” and it is an

essay about History and Justice. It opens thus:
Justice and human rights are inextricably linked so it is no surprise to find
Harari in his chapter entitled " There is no Justice in History" claiming that
justice is an imagined order that historically has been neither neutral nor fair.
The problem with this reasoning is that this simplistic infrastructure of history
plus biology does not enable one to make historically and philosophically
established distinctions between social and political structures. Harari points out
that Hammurabi's code was hierarchical, in particular in those parts of the code
where the law specifically refers to the social classes of the superiors, the
commoners, and the slaves. He also points to the American Constitution which
although saying that all men are equal was accompanied by continuing
hierarchical social practices of owning slaves. A modern political analysis
would philosophically establish that the intention of the constitution was clearly
egalitarian and its role was to signal to the social system that discrimination and
oppression ought not to occur on the grounds of colour creed or wealth: a
wealthy white Christian ought to stand before the law and ought to be viewed in
the eyes and principles of the law in exactly the same terms as a poor black
Muslim. This may not always work in practice because judges and juries are
people who allow their prejudices to cloud their understanding of the law. This
fat however, does not permit the degradation of the reasoned body of doctrine
we call the law into a figment of the imagination. The problem here does not lie
with the law or our concept of the law but with the individuals and social
processes enforcing the law. Equating this body of doctrine with myth is
confusing individual and social practices with political ideals. Laws do not work
immediately on individuals and social practices, rather, they work at the pace of
history which is a quicker pace than evolution but at a slower pace than many
critics imagine or wish for. The American civil war was fought over the
Enlightenment idea of the dignity of all men that had been argued for
Philosophically somewhat later (in the 1780's and 1790's by Kant using the idea
of a moral law.) The American civil war did not immediately enforce the
Kantian moral law that was based on the teleological assumption that all men
are ends in themselves and were, therefore, to be valued equally and respected
equally. This moral law amounted to saying that they ought to be valued and
respected which does not actually logically entail that they are. It does not,
either, on the other hand, logically warrant the claim that there is no ground for
engaging in the desired behaviour. The moral law is one of the foundations of
our modern legal systems in Europe where wealthy white Christians and poor
black Muslims stand accused and are expected to be subjected to the same
neutral regard and assumption of innocence. Notice that I am not denying that
social practices involved in the implementation of the law sometimes disobey
the moral law or the intention of the laws of the land. But also notice we do not,
as a consequence of our disappointment, change the law because it, as a matter
of fact, is not universally applied in all cases. We attempt to correct the social
processes causing deviations from its universal application, and we continue to
do so sometimes with social and sometimes with political processes.

The essay concludes with a claim relating to a putstive contradiction

between the values of freedom and equality:
one cannot guarantee each individual the freedom they wish
for without compromising the value of equality.
Kant did not see any contradiction once one recognizes the necessary
distinctions between the absolute values of freedom and equality embodied by a
moral law that respects the absolute value of the dignity of man in contrast with
the relative values of a French aristocracy defending its class related privileges.
Richer than..or poorer than... are obvious relative values and can best use the
quantitative instruments of the mathematician and scientist to measure the
differences. No such instrument can be used to measure the dignity of man
which is a concept that does not behave like a variable looking for a value. The
dignity of man is an ethical idea, an idea that cannot be quantified. Harari is in
the above quote confusing a state of affairs with a conceptualization of a state of
affairs. The concept of liberty is not the concept of every man doing what he
wishes to do. It includes, as Kant pointed out, a limiting condition related to
equality, namely that we can do what we wish to do as long as what we wish to
do does not encroach upon another mans liberty. There is no contradiction in
such a linkage between the concepts. Such a linkage is conceptual and the very
foundation of our very rational ideas of governmental authority and human
rights. That there are states of affairs in which men wish for no governmental
authority to be exercised over their lives is a fact but that does not make the
concept of government authority a myth.

The Third Lecture is entitled: “The Arrow of History and The New
Global Empire”. It begins with an account of the origin of Law:

In a chapter entitled "The

Arrow of history" Harari claims that during the first millennium BC the
universal thought emerged that the entire world could be ruled by a set of laws.
We became aware that the world is a "we" that is no longer divided into an "us
and a them". Three universal orders emerged in this era: the economic, political,
and religious. Merchants, conquerors, and priests saw the world alternately as
potential customers, potential citizens, and potential believers. If this is correct
this is a singularly interesting observation which would prove that this era was
the birth time of globalisation.
Aristotle is reputed to have claimed, in the name of political philosophy, (which
does not aim at military conquest but rather emphasizes the role of knowledge of
truth and the good in the flourishing life), that the Greeks "armed" with their
political philosophy could rule the world. It is not clear whether Alexander the
Great was attempting to instantiate this Aristotelian belief but Jonathan Lear in
his work on Aristotle focuses not on belief but rather on the desire we all
universally possess to understand our world. Lear argues that this is the telos of
rational human activity. If he is correct, it is a short step to propose that this
might be the basis of all human and political activity everywhere. Knowledge
and understanding of the truth and the good are not the primary concern of
merchants or conquerors but they are the concern of prophets even if the
approach of the prophet very often clashes with philosophical ideas of justice.
We are all familiar with the Platonic dialogue "Euthyphro"in which Socrates
contested an action done in the name of the "holy", arguing that it was "unjust".
There is, in the desire to understand, a concern with abstract knowledge that we
will not find in the activities of merchants working in their markets or
conquerors building their Empires. Socrates began a tradition in Philosophical
reasoning that attempts to achieve an understanding of the truth and the good in
all areas of activity. He also emphasized the perception and understanding of
differences between, for example, fact and fiction, myth and religion, the
wealthy life vs the examined life. This spirit was again embraced fully by Kant
in his Enlightenment Philosophy in which knowledge of human nature, ethics,
and political philosophy are central concerns in the formation of the idea of the
Cosmopolitan citizen. The interesting question to ask is why Harari in a work on
mankind chooses to ignore such an important part of the history of mankind. It
might even be the case that the philosophical view of universalism is the most
important mechanism driving the world in its global or cosmopolitan direction.
The kingdom of ends for Kant was neither a market nor an empire nor a purely
religious phenomenon, although we find that in Kant's kingdom there is room
for a belief in God grounded not in mythology but in ethical understanding and
reasoning.

The essay concludes with a discussion of nationalism:

Nationalism exploded in our faces during the last century, a century that
Hannah Arendt described as "this terrible century". She also argued that
nationalism, capital, and military expansionism contributed to the emergence of
a new form of totalitarian government based on class and race that set the world
on fire. There is no mention of this aspect that religious prophets and
philosophers may claim to have foreseen. Arendt quotes the story of Cecil
Rhodes expressing a wish to colonize the planets as an illustration of the
excesses that drives capital searching for investment and men searching for their
fortunes. This aspect of capitalisms insatiable desire for greater and greater
accumulation is not mentioned in Harari's sweeping historical account. The
argument presented for the new global empire is, however, occasionally
philosophical with a biological twist as is instantiated by his claims in a Chapter
entitled "Imperial Visions". Harari argues here that nationalism is losing ground
in the twentieth century and a universal idea of mankind including the
imaginative construction of universal human rights has emerged. The existence
of over 200 nation-states attempting to agree on issues of global warming and
other issues of international concern will eventually result in global consensus, it
is argued.
Philosophers would in this context refer to global understanding and the
importance of knowledge of the truth and the good in naming the underlying
mechanisms of the global transformation we are witnessing. These are the tools
of the progress we are now seeing after the terrible twentieth century and its
economic and political excesses. After excess comes the inevitable return to the
golden mean, Aristotle would argue. Kant specifically claimed that this progress
away from excesses was not toward a world government because such a
government would inevitably be tyrannical and be forced to tyrannize
minorities. We know he prophetically suggested an organization such as the
United Nations where countries would participate voluntarily and cooperate for
the common good. Such an organization is indeed an embodiment of the global
understanding of the importance of peace in the world and vitally important if
Progress is to continue unhindered. But we should also bear in mind that this
march of progress is a slow affair and we should not expect the instantiation of
the ethical and political notion of a perpetual peace in the world in the next one
hundred thousand years. The golden mean is even in historical terms a long way
beyond the historical horizon and unfortunately, in Harari's work, we get no
indication of the time scale for the emergence of the new global empire or the
reasons why states feel obliged to conform to global standards.