The Philosophy of Pessimism -- 20 Aug 09 -- Moordown

This report, compiled by Bill Jeffs, is about the talk/discussion on “The Philosophy of Pessimism” led by Garry Taylor .
Garry took Voltaie's novella “Candide”, a French satire written in 1759, as an example of the Optimism/Pessimism divide.

It was written as a satire of Leibnitz’s extreme optimism. In it Candide’s tutor Dr Pangloss (Leibnitz) is an unbridled optimist despite the continuous grave happenings in his life. Another character, Martin is an absolute pessimist (like Schopenhauer below). Voltaire saw himself more like the Candide character – a ‘realist’, not expecting life to be always a bed of roses.
Leibnitz (1646-1716) (the optimist Dr.Pangloss) believed that God has created the best of all possible worlds, (because of His goodness it could not be otherwise) - although all parts are not necessarily the best.

Garry took as a contrast the philosopher Schopenhauer (1788-1860) - an atheist and pessimist.
He said that life and the world is malevolent, cruel and unjust (Tennyson’s “Nature, red in tooth and claw”). Man is governed by his wants, desires, his ‘Will’. (Hume’s “Reason is slave to our feelings and passions”).
The only escape, Schopenhauer said, from life’s woe, suffering, misery and death (into Kant’s Noumenal world?) is briefly thro’ music and the arts – (Garry said ‘moments of spiritual joy’).
Or more long term, by ‘dropping out’ of society and living a life of hard work and chastity (suppressing the passions; which can bring only misery).
This philosophy is reflected at the end of the book when Martin (the absolute pessimist) says “Let us work without theorizing; ‘tis the only way to make life endurable”. Candide agrees, observing that “we must (just get on and) cultivate our garden”.

During class discussion, members generally agreed that being ‘realistic’ was probably the best compromise between pessimism and optimism.

Tinbergen's 4 Questions -- 13 Aug 09 -- Moordown

When thinking about or discussing a problem with someone, we tend to focus on our one part of the problem, so each of us is understanding the whole problem as different . . . until we step back and bring in the other aspects.
. . . . CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT Tinbergen (1907-88) was a Dutch ethologist*[1] at Oxford after the WW2.
He delineated the four questions*[2]—or categories of explanations—of animal behavior (human), similar to Aristotle's*[3] four types of causes. This schema constitutes a basic framework of the overlapping behavioural fields of ethology, behavioural ecology, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and comparative psychology.
. . . CLICK ON DIAGRAM TO ENLARGE IT

This tool helps to us to maintain AWARENESS that it is a particular aspect that we are focussing on when we study any animal (human) behaviour; we must be also aware of the other 3 aspects.

Proximate Questions about the individual animal (micro view*[4])
1. LIFETIME DEVELOPMENT - how does the behaviour change with the individual's age? What early experiences are necessary for the behaviour to be shown? Which developmental steps and environmental factors play a role?
2. Current MECHANISM - what are the stimuli that elicit the present response? How has it been modified by recent learning? How do behaviour and psyche "function" on the molecular, physiological, neuro, cognitive and social level? How do these relate to each other as a structure?

Ultimate Questions about the species (macro view)
3. EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY - how does the behaviour of this species compare with similar behaviour in related species? How might it have arisen through the process of evolution? Why did the behaviour evolve in this manner and not otherwise?
4. RESULT / EFFECT - how does the behaviour affect the animal's chances of survival and reproduction? What is the function or purpose*[5] of the behaviour in this context?

*References
[1] Collins English Dictionary:
ethology (noun) is the study of the behaviour of animals in their normal environment (via Latin from Greek etholigia, from ethos character; current sense, C19)
[2]Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinbergen%27s_four_questions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaas_Tinbergen
[3] Neil pointed out this similarity to Aristotle on Thursday.
[4] 'micro/macro' view - this was added here after Bill suggested it on Thursday and and posted it here in his excellent COMMENT. He also said that the Historical Develpment is a "Process" and the Current Form is a "Snapshot".
[5] 'purpose' is an ambiguous and misinterpreted word which best avoided if possible.
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The topics we discussed, using the 4 Questions, included:
. . . How/why the human eye sees.
. . . Human behaviour in Bournemouth on Saturdays.
. . . Incest Taboo & the Westermark Effect