The Forking Monster

Continuing the present investigation, we can see from the previous post that there is a two-headed monster lying upon our path to happiness. This monster, or simply fork in the road, points to a need for a delicate balance between purposefulness and satisfaction. (Keep in mind that I am doing metaphysics here. I do not point to "reality" as such, but rather to a framework where my reality might fulfill my expectations.) We want to avoid the simple hedonistic variation of happiness because of its ungrounded nature. Similarly, we want to avoid the the negative consequence of choosing a purpose that has us blindly and happily pursuing some or other form of general mischief.

One important thing to note about the nature of this investigation is that it is before the fact. Here, I am not building a structure of justification, as one might upon looking back in hindsight. Justification in this sense is completely unimportant. For, what good does justification do to change the way we look at a life that was undeniably unhappy? As long as we are still able to be honest with ourselves, such a task becomes trivial and possibly self-negating. In fact, the affirming component of justification for this investigation lies somewhere in the future. What else would justify it but that it makes me happy? For these precepts to be useful, they must be applied forward. Therefore, whenever some good comes of this investigation, it is already looking forward and is informed by the past. It is not some way of looking at the past in a new light.

With that note, where can we find the proper framework for looking at and weighing our hedonistic happiness, our purposes, and the ways they are intertwined? Should it be a framework that speaks to both aspects in the same language? If so, how can we come to what must be a form of common denominator?

In order to provide this framework, I will need to extract some useful work from the philosophical tradition, especially from Wittgenstein. I want to be perspicuous here, and so I shall attempt to show the nature of the framework from the top, down. I want least of all to build up some system by slowly calling upon and manipulating some reservoir of "intuitions". An important sense that I want to bring out is that the common denominator is not even systemic in nature. But, to begin, I want to share a vision of how to talk about language.

Many philosophers of language have endorsed and furthered a process of examining language that has produced a peculiar and detrimental practice of utilizing thought experiments. To be exceedingly brief, the experiments often utilize fantastical circumstances in order to inform about the extremes of lingual meaning. The idea is for them to "cage in" a word, so to speak, by delimiting the boundaries of sense quite literally. The problem is that the normal mechanisms for establishing meaning do not resemble fantastical thought experiments. Further, the practice of drawing lines so important to common theories of meaning in the philosophy of language is, in fact, inimical to the process of language evolution. To paint an analogy, it would be to assume that if we could take a slice in prehistoric time and analyze it enough, we would have achieved the essence of knowledge or understanding that holds true today. Our language would simply follow from what we knew then logically, instead of from the essentially stochastic nature of evolution that we now endorse in science.

This is very much in the tradition of Platonic ideas. According to that tradition, meaning in language is some variation of a mind reaching into an eternal space of concepts and attaching them to some representation in the world. Against this, I take the Wittgensteinian route of tracing the meanings in language across to human behaviors and practices. In short, meaning is entirely cultural. We must carefully remember also that culture is entirely human. (Here, I make no claim or reference to animal culture, I make no important differentiation between humans and animals, and I leave this point untouched as entirely irrelevant to the present discussion.)

Wittgenstein took the utmost cautions when investigating language. Here I am only investigating happiness. However, my initial investigation was very un-Wittgensteinian in that I entirely ignored the grammar of the word happiness. I completely ignored the ways we already use the world and all the different types of importance it can take on. You might say that I simply borrowed the word as a pretty good stand-in for what I am actually seeking. I defined what I am seeking in the earlier posts as quite specific. Remember that I am not showing a revealing light upon the happiness we already carried before this investigation. I am revealing a way to make decisions at this point in my life whose importance most nearly looks like achieving or being happy.

The common denominator is, following my care stated above, somewhere in the acts and uses, practices and cultures of human beings. In the next post I will look more carefully at the host of acts and practices that fall closest to those I would need in creating my framework. Stay tuned.