The new commandements

Been reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion every now and then. There's a lot of food for thought and I won't go to the many of the main thesis here, but only bring out one nice topic. Dawkins is referring to a web-site which has tried to formulate a secular set of rules for moral conduct. They call them the ten new commandements. Cathcy name for it, isn't it?

Here they are:

First Commandment: Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.
Second Commandment: In all things, strive to cause no harm.
Third Commandment: Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.
Fourth Commandment: Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.
Fifth Commandment: Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.
Sixth Commandment: Always seek to be learning something new.
Seventh Commandment: Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.
Eighth Commandment: Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.
Ninth Commandment: Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.
Tenth Commandment: Question everything.

Let's look at them at more detail. The first seems to be ok, a sort of version of Kantian / Christian golden rule. The second might need some qualifications - harm in what sense? To persons? But I guess it speaks mostly for itself. The third is of utmost importance in these times. Dawkins suggests this further maxim: "Do not discriminate or oppress on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species." but this is in a way included in the third new commandement. "Fellow human being" should include all men and racial and sexual differences. "Fellow" living thing should include living beings in general. "The world" includes nature. So when push comes to shove, this new commandment alone would be a basis for moral conduct.

But let us push on. Fourth commandement is referring to our sense of justice. It may be a tough job to forgive wrongdoing sometimes, but I agree that it is a worthy goal. Fifth commandment is a philosophical one and very important. It is a kind of Cartesian maxim - we should be always ready to learn new things and enjoy it. The sixth commandment is not really required as it can be implied from the fifth - I might replace with one which Dawkings presents. It extends the fifth commandment to education: "Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you." This commandment also encourages to dialogue which is very important for moral thinking.

Now to eighth commandment. This refers to open discussion which is the foundation of free society. Communication is extremely important to understand different world-views and in general, the conduct of others. If one is not ready to discuss or hear other points of view, different from his or her own, there is no possibility for a social order. Ninth commandment and seventh commandment are parts of the same thing - to think for oneself. This Kantian idea of intellectual autonomy is the ideal of a modern man and especially important for secular thinking. It leads naturally to the tenth and last commandment: Question everything. The essence of philosophy.

Insiders and Outsiders

I am reading (or rather going through) a new book called "Insiders and Outsiders in 17th-Century Philosophy", edited by G. A. J. Rogers, Tom Sorell and Jill Kraye. It is about the reception of various 17th century philosophers with a rather vague effort to try to put them into different categories which seems to me to be an effort to fool the publisher to accept it rather than a serious attempt to create new ways to see Early Modern Philosophy.

Much I would like to read the whole book, I have time only to the Leibniz-articles. I rather liked the one by Daniel Garber who tooks the trouble to go through Fontenelle's Éloge of Leibniz in detail and some other later French editions of Leibniz's works. Some nice anecdotes also - never knew that the story of Leibniz's marriage is from the Éloge. Herder, according to Catherine Wilson, was also a Leibnizian of sorts. This was also news to me - he even shared a similar picture of human psychology of the Leibniz of New Essays. Robert Merrihew Adams' article on the 20th century reception of Leibniz is more familiar stuff, but of interest is his remark that the Academy-edition does not include a volume for Leibniz's Theological papers which is indeed a little bit strange (to be sure, there are papers belonging to that topic in Philosophical writings). He also speaks nicely about the intellectual fruits of studying Leibniz. 


Btw. The last record I heard was Teenager of the Year by Frank Black.

Blog as Diary

I never did write diaries systematically. Every now and then I started, but soon gave up due to sheer laziness. I have had this blogspace for a few years now, but never had the energy to write anything. Then I started to feel a need to put down thoughts about my work, mostly to remember them later or because it might be nice to look at them years later and see how naive or ignorant I was at the time. For a few weeks now I have been using my Twitter account for this kind of purpose, but I soon became tired of having to count the symbols all the time. So I'll try this format.

I will mostly blog about philosophy which is my work and calling. My interest include Early Modern Philosophy, especially the rationalists and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. But I will not limit myself to philosophy only. I am also interested in history, (rock) music, fiction and films and I might every now and then blog about contemporary issues. But let's see how long it gets before I get tired of this.

One thing is clear. I am fairly lazy and sometimes busy and I will not promise steady flow of blogs. I like to put thing shortly, but I am glad to discuss should anyone want to.

Oh, and reason I am writing in English (I am a Finn living in Helsinki) is that philosophy is an international discipline and I am likely to blog about fairly specialized stuff for which I will probably not get much response from Finland only. I can, however, discuss in Finnish. I can also read Swedish, German, French and Latin. However, when I am writing (or if I am writing) about topics which has to with Finnish culture or politics or whatever and which are not intelligible to the international readers, I'll write in Finnish.