Stichwort: Vorurteil (bias)

Autor, Quelle: Melchin, History, Ethics and Emegent Probability

Titel: Individuelles Vorurteil (individual bias)

Index: Individual Bias (Vorurteil): Ablehnung der intelligenten Integration, Verweigerung der Frage, Rückwirkung auf die Spontaneität (neurale Mannigfaltige); Egoismus

Kurzinhalt: ... the failure to integrate properly the demands of the neural and intersubjective exigence with the anticipations of a question, in a scheme of acts involving understanding, judgment or decision.

Text: 7.2 Individual Bias

14/7 Lonergan calls individual bias the distortion in the development of an individual's intelligence and the consequently ensuing distortion in his or her whole affective and experiential orientation which results from the refusal to choose the good of order over the individual's egoistically centered desires and fears.1 Such egoism is not to be confused with the individual's desire for his or her own development in virtue, in wisdom and in ultimate happiness.2 Rather, egoism is the exclusion of the immanent drive of intelligence to participate, dialectically, with the drive towards spontaneous, intersubjective unification in the pursuit of the common good.3 It is the refusal to raise and to meet the further questions that arise in the design and execution of one's own projects. And such a refusal constitutes a circumscription of one's own horizons of concern and a limitation that one sets on the range of concerns to which one will open oneself. The intelligence is given free play within the boundaries set by personal desire. But beyond these confines practical intelligence is simply ruled out.4 (214; Fs) (notabene)

15/7 The quest for the good of order was conceived as the dialectically structured drive towards the unification of two principles, the operative principle of intelligence and the principle of mutuality.5 Consequently individual bias will manifest itself as contradicting both principles. As a deformation of intelligence, individual bias contradicts the drive of intelligence to raise and answer the relevant further questions. And as a violation of the demands of intersubjectivity, the individual bias suppresses the spontaneous concern for approval of and approval by others. In addition, since the spontaneous drive of intelligence actually involves its own dialectic operating between an exigence in the neural manifold and a drive to order that manifold, the bias will also constitute a distortion in the experiential orientation of the whole subject. Thus, when Lonergan calls individual bias or egoism 'an interference of spontaneity with the development of intelligence,' his presentation here is somewhat misleading.6 It might seem, from this presentation, that knowing seeks an autonomy from the distorting influences of the other human passions, appetites, feelings and drives. And so in this view the individual bias would be another instance of the intrusion of 'affectivity' into the proper exercise and development of autonomous rationality. But this view stands in contradiction to the thrust of my interpretation of Lonergan's account of the dialectical interaction of intelligence with experiential exigence, on the one hand, and with the principal of mutuality in the dialectic of community, on the other.7 (214f; Fs)

16/7 What intelligence seeks to achieve is not a flight from experiential spontaneity or affectivity, rather, an integration of such affectivity. The neural manifold changes with changes in the subject's environment. And operations in 'the basic pattern of experience' seem to order the neural manifold in accordance with a set of anticipations immanent in the question and in subjective spontaneity on the one hand, and with an intelligibility immanent in the environment manifesting itself as an exigence in the neural manifold, on the other. Thus the drive of intelligence involves the tension between two principles seeking resolution in the adequacy of an appropriate integration of a human person, in the context of a flexibly recurring scheme of acts. The individual bias, then, is not so much an intrusion of the biological or aesthetic, affective or intersubjective spontaneities into the proper development of intelligence, but the failure to integrate properly the demands of the neural and intersubjective exigence with the anticipations of a question, in a scheme of acts involving understanding, judgment or decision. The individual bias is, ultimately, an intelligent, responsible act that does violence to the demands of personal and intersubjective experience. And it does so by failing to carry out its own mandate. (215; Fs)
(notabene)

17/7 If carried on long enough the refusal to raise and to answer the appropriate questions will result in distortions not only in the horizon within which intelligence operates but also in the experiential and intersubjective routines of the whole person. These experiential routines are the basis for the subject's practical interrelations with his or her environment. And so as they become more and more distorted the probabilities for adequate integration become lower and lower. Distorted experience becomes the foundation for distorted understanding and praxis and the bias sets the subject on an accelerating course of decline. (215; Fs) (notabene)

18/7 However, while individual bias is operative in society, the recurrent deformations that follow from operative 'social structures' can in no way be attributed to the individual bias. For while individual bias occurs extremely frequently there are not recurrent patterns or trends associated with stable f-probabilities in identifiable classes of individual bias. And when such recurrent patterns and classes arise then the bias is no longer to be explained in terms of the refusal of the 'good or order' but in terms of deformations in the operative notions of what would constitute such order and in how it is to be achieved. In his account of the dissolution of the possessive market structure in the nineteenth century, Macpherson notes that the development of class consciousness, political articulation, and a vision of alternate social and economic relations among the working class resulted in their becoming aware that the existing 'order' was neither necessary nor in the service of their interests. Thus was lost their sense of equal participation in the marketplace. (215; Fs)

19/7 Furthermore with the universal franchise and the perpetuation of consciously operative class division, the general sense of cohesion, necessary for the functioning of the possessive market structure, was also lost.8 This account illustrates well the fact that operative orders need to be known as in fact 'good.' Bias can be operative recurrently in classes to marshall power in the service of group interests which do not serve the wider common good. But as long as such is known to be the case (and evidence is never long in arising) the fact of order ceases to be the 'good or order.' Lonergan's account of the group bias shows that structural parallels exist between the individual bias and the group bias. But the difference lies in the fact of system operative in the genesis and maintenance of f-probably recurrent classes of deformations in notions of what constitutes the 'good of order.' And while power is an accelerator, power is not the central issue in this account. (215f; Fs)

Stichwort: Vorurteil (bias)

Autor, Quelle: Melchin, History, Ethics and Emegent Probability

Titel: Gruppenvorurteil (group bias)

Index: Gruppenvorurteil (group bias); Dialektik: Anpassung zugunsten des Strebens nach Wahrheit; Spannung: dominante - margnalisierte Gruppen

Kurzinhalt: ... the 'group bias' results when the second dialectic, operative immanently in men and women, undergoes a recurrent distortion. And the drive towards mutuality with members of the social group takes precedence over ...

Text: 7.4 Group Bias

28/7 In the above presentation of Lonergan's notion of intersubjectivity I suggested that two dialectics are operative immanently in the living out of man's nature as distinctively human. The first involves the tension between the exigence of the subject's experiential basis in the events and schemes of his or her neural manifold and the intelligent and responsible drive to integrate that manifold in acts of understanding, judgment, and most profoundly practical, moral activity. The second dialectic involves the tension between the first dialectic and the spontaneous drive to unification with other human subjects as subjects, in the mutuality of respect, care and love. The individual bias occurred when the human subject so circumscribed his or her horizon of personal desires and goals that the drive of intelligence and responsibility was stopped or cut short. In the face of an experiential exigence demanding further questions to be answered, a broadened sensitivity to more remote realms of experience and finally an expansion of that horizon within which intelligence functions, the spontaneous dynamism of intellect is laid to premature rest. The result of this failure of intelligence and responsibility is a reordering of the experiential manifold, a censorship of its exigencies and a repression of the relevant neural demands until they either forced their way back into conscious life or deformed the habitual operations of the subject. (219; Fs) (notabene)

29/7 When the social and economic routines that are constitutive of a society begin to meet changing conditions which demand substantial changes in their operative structures, there occurs a rising frequency of instances of bias in the intelligent, responsible operations of subjects. But unlike the individual bias this instance of bias is not merely the result of individuals restraining the mandate of intelligence in the interest of personal gain. Rather, the 'group bias' results when the second dialectic, operative immanently in men and women, undergoes a recurrent distortion. And the drive towards mutuality with members of the social group takes precedence over the demands of practical intelligence and responsibility. (219; Fs) (notabene)

30/7 When changes in the environment of a society's operation begin to demand structural changes in the relations which constitute that society then the dominant groups in that society face the prospect of significant threats to their established gains and interests. Thus members of the group circumscribe their own horizons of interests as over against mounting evidence that such is not the more general good. And bias begins to operate.1 But because the interests which are defended by the dominant group are those of a class or group of people the drive towards solidarity within the group will begin to operate massively and effectively to preclude habitual attention to the defects in its horizons. Thus the conditions surrounding the wide-scale genesis of insights and responsible action that seek the good of the whole of society are precluded (i.e. regular experiential contact with the suffering of the marginalized, and the habitual raising of questions concerning the relevance of this experience to the restructuring of the whole society or economy). The intelligent and responsible acts of the group settle their accounts with the drive toward intersubjective mutuality within the group before consulting the exigence of the experiential data on the whole of society. And the common insights, values and expectations of the group operate spontaneously as a horizon within which intelligence meets the data of experience.2 (219f; Fs)

31/7 The fact that the dominant classes possess control results in their increased ability to mobilize insights that promote their own interests. Corresponding to this success is the failure of marginalized groups to make operative the acts and routines which would promote their own welfare.3 Thus the course of social development (220; Fs)

[...] does not correspond to any coherently developed set of practical ideas. It represents the fraction of practical ideas that were made operative by their conjunction with power.4
32/7 The tension between the partial insights operatively constitutive of the social whole and the experiential exigence of the conditions of social and economic life which demand a restructuring of the social whole (a restructuring which would favour the whole of society and not simply the dominant groups) manifests itself in a tension between the dominant and the marginalized social groups and a visible distortion or aberration in the routines of social and economic life. This distortion eventually becomes great enough to be visible to all and the tensions between the groups begins to manifest itself in class unrest. This combination of evident distortion and class unrest becomes a principle for social and historical change that awaits the catalysis of an individual like Marx to be actuated.5 (220; Fs)

33/7 Clearly Lonergan shares Marx's (and Hegel's) appreciation of the fact that history moves forward as the distortions of any age fuel the engines for their own reversal. But in Lonergan's view, an end to this cycle of domination cannot consist in a transformation of historical conditions. The historical cycle which results from the group bias and its tendency to effect its own reversal by mobilizing the neglected interest and insights of the marginalized is conceived by Lonergan to be an ongoing shorter cycle of alienation and short-lived liberation. Once the marginalized groups come to power their own attempts to structure the whole of society in accordance with the partial insights of their own perspective eventually suffer the same distortions due to the group bias for which their predecessors were ousted. The basis for this conviction, that the group bias is not to be overcome immanently, is rooted in Lonergan's basic conception of the problem operative in the group bias. And here he differs with Marx in his assessment of the form and the import of historical, economic conditions for acts of 'production,' and of the role of subjective agency in effecting historical change. And so in order to understand as precisely as possible the locus and the nature of these differences I will draw upon some reliable sources to summarize, very briefly, Marx's analysis of the human situation and its prospects for solution. (220f; Fs) (notabene)

Stichwort: Vorurteil (bias)

Autor, Quelle: Melchin, History, Ethics and Emegent Probability

Titel:

Index: Allgemeine Befangenheit; langer Zyklus, Niedergang (General Bias and Decline); Common sense; Machiavelli

Kurzinhalt: Most simply, the distinctive characteristic associated with the operation of the general bias is the restricted horizon or viewpoint within which common sense (practical) intelligence operates.

Text: 7.6.2 General Bias and Decline

65/7 The general bias concerns the insufficiently developed and infrequently actuated capacities and skills of intelligent, responsible knowing and doing.1 The normal routines of human life are massively constituted by the common and more or less novel mediating activities of theoretical and practical intelligence. Such activities are performed in accordance with developed capacities and within the confines of corresponding cultural, economic, social, historical conditions and limitations. The simple fact about human life that is expressed in the notion of general bias is that the problems encountered most regularly throughout human life demand a general level of developed capacities and skills in excess of that which is commonly operative. This fact is true not only of aggregates of persons, but also of the course of any one person's life. And the consequence of this fact is that human attempts to order human life in accordance with the immanent norms of developed intelligence quite regularly fail. Finally, by specifying the essential problem in the human condition as insufficiently developed skills, this view paints a substantially gloomier picture than that of Marx. This view certainly lends itself to a consideration of the social, cultural, economic and psychological conditions surrounding the development and exercise of skills. But unlike Marx's view, Lonergan's view permits no shortcuts around the basic requirement that each and every human being acquire, develop and exercise the relevant capacities and skills. This, I would argue, is the reason for Lonergan's endless preoccupation with 'the subject.' For I can never acquire or exercise a skill for another person.2 (233; Fs) (notabene)

66/7 Lonergan's account of the human condition in terms of the general bias does not rest with noting the recurrent fact of failure. Rather, he goes on to discuss the particular characteristics of failure which result from the operation of the general bias and the historical consequences of its impact. Most simply, the distinctive characteristic associated with the operation of the general bias is the restricted horizon or viewpoint within which common sense (practical) intelligence operates. (233f; Fs) (notabene)

The lag of intellectual development, its difficulty and its apparently meagre returns bear in an especial manner on common sense. It is concerned with the concrete and the particular. It entertains no aspirations about reaching abstract and universal laws. It is easily led to rationalize its limitations by engendering a conviction that other forms of human knowledge are useless or doubtfully valid. Every specialist runs the risk of turning his specialty into a bias by failing to recognize and appreciate the significance of other fields. Common sense almost invariably makes that mistake; for it is incapable of analyzing itself, incapable of making the discovery that it too is a specialized development of human knowledge, incapable of coming to grasp that its peculiar danger is to extend its legitimate concern for the concrete and the immediately practical into disregard of larger issues and indifference to long-term results.3 (notabene)


67/7 Lonergan's call for a higher viewpoint, a wider perspective on man and history within which to understand the specialized operations of common sense, recalls Dilthey's efforts to set the groundwork for his fundamental science of man. And Lonergan is explicit in conceiving his higher viewpoint as analogous, in intent, to Marx's historical theory. (234; Fs)
So far from granting common sense a hegemony in practical affairs, the foregoing analysis leads to the strange conclusion that common sense has to aim at being subordinated to a human science that is concerned, to adapt a phrase from Marx, not only with knowing history but also with directing it. For common sense is unequal to the task of thinking on the level of history. It stands above the scotosis of the dramatic subject, above the egoism of the individual, above the bias of dominant and of depressed but militant groups that realize only the ideas they see to be to their immediate advantage. But the general bias of common sense prevents it from being effective in realizing ideas, however appropriate and reasonable, that suppose a long view or that set up higher integrations or that involve the solution of intricate and disputed issues.4

68/7 The historical consequence of the operation of the general bias is the emergence of a dynamic trend that stands in opposition to the drive of finality towards successively higher emergent integrations. Lonergan calls this inverse trend 'the longer cycle of decline.' And the central characteristic of this trend is the 'neglect of ideas to which all groups are rendered indifferent by the general bias of common sense.'5 The reason why the general bias yields this trend is to be understood in terms of the fact that history is constituted by meaning.6 The insights made operative in one age set the conditions for life in the next age. If common sense is generally prone to restricting its horizons of operation to the realm of the immediate and practical, then the alternating cycles of group bias consistently will fail to discover and to implement the insights that would serve the good of all. For the group bias turns the operation of intelligence to serve the interests of the group. In addition, since the data base of common sense is the common experience of life in that age, every narrow viewpoint of common sense that is made operative will set the experiential range of the successive age. As long as common sense excludes insights that are relevant to understanding and directing the whole of life (the distinctive characteristic of common sense's operation), it will bequeath upon the next generation an ever-narrowing data base for the discovery and regulation of human affairs.7 (234f; Fs) (notabene)

69/7 Like the other biases, the general bias is not merely negative. It is not only an exclusion of complete insights. Rather, like the other biases the general bias involves the subject in a dialectical tension with the exigencies of his or her intersubjective experience. The partial insights of common sense result in a distortion of the subject's experiential manifold. And so subsequent insights and practical decisions begin conforming more and more to the distorted experiential base. But the general bias involves its own peculiar form of distortion, a distortion that is more serious than those of the other biases. For insufficiently developed intelligence with its shrunken or delimited horizons does not grasp the need for growth. And as ever-narrower points of view gain wider and wider acceptance, insufficiently developed intelligence pronounces theoretical issues to be irrelevant. The result is that common sense not only finds itself insufficiently developed, it also judges further development to be impossible or irrelevant. (235; Fs) (notabene)

70/7 The cycle of decline has a number of distinct implications. And Lonergan's presentation of these implications is cast as a dramatic monologue which mounts from a technical restatement of the elements of the longer cycle, through the history of the growing irrelevance of religion and philosophy to a graphic portrayal of the barbarism of Hitler's Germany. One could speculate on the names, dates, places and events to which Lonergan alludes. And in some cases little imagination would be required. But throughout the monologue Lonergan's principal target is that particular form of insufficiently developed intelligence which manifests itself in a repudiation of intelligence. The narrowed horizons of common sense practicality with its short-term preoccupation with solving the problems at hand using the immediately available tools gives rise to a commonly operative theory which judges the theoretical issues, the general of ultimate good, the foundations of truth, to be irrelevant speculation. And to illustrate this narrowing of horizons in the field of political philosophy, Fred Lawrence quotes Leo Strauss in identifying Machiavelli as a key figure in the history of this shift towards short-term practicality: (235; Fs)

The initiator of the shift from the medieval synthesis into that succession of lower syntheses characteristic of socio-cultural decline was Machiavelli who, in the fifteenth chapter of his odd little book. The Prince, wrote the fateful words: '[...] many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation. A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain himself to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it according to the necessity of the case.'8

71/7 The general bias with its longer cycle of decline concerns the failure of the development of intelligence in its various schemes of operation with its respective transformations. Intelligence which neglects or refuses to understand itself places an insurmountable obstacle in the path of its long range development. And since common sense intelligence looks to the data of contemporary experience for the source of its insights, the mounting exclusion of theoretical insights on man from the normal range of experience gives rise to the growing conviction that such insights are neither possible nor relevant. It is claimed that the truth about humanity is not to be found in an analysis of his capacities or her potentialities. Rather, it is to be discovered in generalizations from common performance. And when such generalizations are put forward as the only plausible norms for subsequent performance, then every subsequent stage is bound to conform to the past age's incomplete understanding of itself. The only norms for intelligent performance are current or recently past general performance. And so intelligence, both in its speculative and in its regulative or moral operations, becomes 'radically uncritical.' For it has rejected its own immanent norm of 'progress,' in favour of the extrinsic and arbitrary norm of current practice.9 (236; Fs) (notabene)