Comments by "harvey young" (@harveyyoung3423) on "Civil War is Coming: Britain u0026 America's Violent Future. Prof David Betz, King’s College London" video.

  1. Note: Yesterday I wrote a huge amount on just the initial framing of this discussion by Prof. David Betz. That is I took the interpretation of the metaphor "over reach" seriously and historically. So my interpretation turns on the hermeneutic context of this term as it is a central aspect of Hellenistic Stoicism, particularly as regards what we would now categorise as Stoic "epistemology" Stoic "virtues", and Stoic theory of "Judgement", this of course has metaphysical and logical presuppositions and implications. I then followed this with an account of Gotha's Faust "to over reach ones grasp". Then of course to my account of Kant's reworking of the enlightenment and Ancient philosophical traditions that places this "over reach" of knowledge view, at the centre of his Critical interpretation of those traditions. I have attempted to elucidate more the logical background to this "over reach" Critique, that the "over reach" can be viewed as the natural and appropriate use of the logic of sub-sumption: objects with concepts (apprehension) brought under higher more general and wider scope concepts, to an inappropriate use of seeking an ultimate absolute unconditional concept. "unconditional" here means a kind of imagined detachment of use from material and context limits: place, time, Categories, and so on. The idea of such a "final" and "complete" use concept would have to mean a free or universal logic, that would be what Hegelians call Speculative Reason, Right as absolute freedom from, it is that logic would have to imply ideas or myths of Castles in the air, autonomous legal institutions detached from their origins and from any particular place or context. Its the idea that rather than a fusion of horizons project, we can have a stand point with no horizon like a view from Space or a Gods eye view. What i have developed from Kant's logic is that really there are two logics in play; traditional General Logic and a functional logic. Kant says General logic cannot be a logic of truth, its is the formal shadow of the knowledge over reach enterprise. To jump many steps Politically it would be beyond consent. in this sense rather than fulfilling a Social Contract it is Critical of such a Contract. Functional logic is time dependent inference and so is diachronic as opposed to synchronic eternity. As Kant's work moves beyond the first Critique the idea of de jure judgement and justification is developed into the idea of judgment as agreement and legitimacy. Just that summery of the frame for my work yesterday, has a lot of moving parts, and really that work places virtue and notion of freedom and duty more centrally into the Kantian picture. This is a very modern approach drawing on recent Virtue ethics and the laws of freedom and Right. The aim is to show how all these features are in play, even if a framing disciplinary field must provisionally exclude these features, the task of Critique is to show both the virtues of such a closed field, while pointing out its external conditionality by showing that any Speculative extension of terms that leads to totalities universalities, is an illusion of the framing due to the very exclusion of the apparent externalities. So far i have shown how Virtue is implicitly in play always, as are sophisticated views about freedom and human nature. Mere epistemological and logical framings forget this and so massive errors and distortions follow. For example in the field of law and Right, Virtue is apparently expelled but really split and reduced to an referential ontology of subjects: eg self interest and pride and hubris, and institutions of law and freedom as its regulation though duty. The trick is to see the split allows the law of Right to engage in higher wider scope degrees of freedom to make law, with the claim of legitimacy from any horizon deflated and the instituional agents with their logic can now engage in Speculative law and Right. In this they claim to be making subject freedom possible but this is rather the agents engaging in the abstract vice of excess and over reach detached from place time and subjects consent. no wonder then that higher more general institutions at once have less and less conditions of consent. the expansion of the scope of right and freedom is at once the illusion of detachment from any need for local consent. In a way I have placed Virtue and duty more central to transcendental philosophy. Sophie Shell has already done much work on this in Kant. For me it means making these conditions explicit say in debates that happen only within a legal context and frame and or economic context and frame. Yesterdays work was also accompanied by similar work from the NCF post the day before. I want to watch more talks by David Betz and try and make yesterdays work clearer if I can. My main concluding point is that space place and territory are understood via General Logic , but policy and projects are understood through inferential logic. its is that these two are incongruent, the later will overstep the former always. Such over step can be regarded as a vice of excess, but by an inferential logic using a General logic used in inferential logic. Thus the two logics cannot really be separated either. Note if you closely read Derrida Foucault and Deleuze it is clear that they are coming out of these ideas but its implicit and cover. For them a inferential functional logic is a tactical site for a left process of revolution. see especially Deleuze "Difference and Repetition" and the equivocation of mathematical "transitivity" in these logics. Interestingly the same axioms and set theory structure much utility theory now. Jumping to conclusion: I agree with a Civil War interpretation and i know about these movements in the 20 th century, but for me, my judgement the parallel is the Brexit as the disconnect from the Holy Roman Empire and English Civil War, followed by the long devastating Civil War in Western Europe called the 30 Years War. these are classed as Wars of Religion and absolutist Kings from the Reformation, particularly by American historians. but this is too simple. In the 30 Years War there was as much vertical conflict and horizontal conflict the two going on at the same time in many different ways in many different times and places. Marked by a detachment of armies and functions for any centre and any external limit. I had this 30 Years War view of the future risk of a long European Civil War in 2010. I just said it would be 30 years hence not 15 years in the offing.
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  2. Reference: Not Sophie Shell (oops) but Susan Meld Shell for example "The Embodiment of Reason" (1996). Themes there about Kant's drawing on the supernatural tradition eg Swedenborg have recently been further researched in books on German Romanticism, and Kant's use of metaphors from early theatre technology of producing phantom images on stage by the sue of glass plates and candles off stage for the point of view of the audience.
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  3. 5:00 mins "Civil War Comes to the West" David Betz Military Strategy Magazine Volume 9, Issue 1. It looks like the whole paper is available free on line on MSM web site.
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  4. Note: 14:00 mins: the idea of "Potentiality" is a closed determination originally framed by Aristotle as closed under an ultimate Good or Right even. But while a General logic as subsumption takes the highest unconditional unlimited concept as destiny, inferential logic can only involve transitivity as necessity and possibility. while empiricist then conflate modal "possibility" to potentiality", they then fail to see that "possibility" in a situation and event is radically open. Interestingly when sued with respect to a person the stats of that persons inclusion in some identity will equivocate a group statistical "probability" as a closed "potentiality". but then they miss that possibility is not so closed. cf Heidegger on the Event in "Contributions to Philosophy". This all began in Paris May1968. Enthusiasm for the French Revolution, Russian Revolution made them forget about the early English Civil war and the related but mostly separate and devastating conflict of the 30 Years War. It took what became Germany about 200 years to recover and then later unify following this conflict. I should point out that functional projects in this will not be seen as universally impartial and universally recognised as such. As Betz says groups will switch between recognitions of functions, driven by perceived local affordances. This is not chaos or analysable as individual or even group self interest. Hobbes account of the English civil war in Behemouth is not a conflict of individual but organs of the State splitting up and becoming autonomous and or making there own arbitrary relations. the result is multi level ever changing internecine (but organised) war fare. John McDowell has interpreted subsumption from Aquinas and Wilfred Sellars as Potentiality and placing objects under ever higher concepts.
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  5. 28 mins any insurgency is from the top though institutions not from the bottom. Think of Mental Heath work as a tool of insurgency the Hospital as a medieval Castle come Church assemblage of the Holy Roman Empire and so on. Mau is not appropriate here. City/country is not appropriate, though Khaldun may well be wrt Virtue belonging inclusion. and so on. . Hobbes Schelling Schegal Schiller ect much better.
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