Men…?

“REAL MEN”

“You’re all the same, probably followed every trend out there since you can remember and will continue to follow every trend because you lack a sense of self and the ability to generate your own thoughts.” Lady Part

Three points only:

(1) The phrase “real men” is an example of what we call “philosophical essentialism,” the view that there exists certain men who exhibit those qualities on the basis of which such “real men” are to be distinguished from other men who fail, in varying degrees, to embody those relevant qualities. Indeed, in contemporary philosophical post-modernism such essentialism has been rejected in favour of the view that what it is to be a man is a social construct, that there exist no such meta-constructivist attributes which are, severally or jointly, definitive of what it is to be a “real man.” In other words, for the postmodernist, “real men” do not exist. It appears that Lady Part’s assumption is at the outset on philosophically shaky grounds. Further analysis is required. What attributes, for example, does Lady Part claim are definitive of such “real men”?

(2) Lady Part maintains that “real men” are not followers while other men follow every trend because they lack a sense of self. But what is to be understood by such a “sense of self?” Presupposed, of course, is the actual existence of such a self but this just drives the question back one step. What, in other words, is the “self?” Montrealman has engaged this question elsewhere and will not rehearse his analysis here. Suffice it to say that the self can be seen either as the passive construct of his social environment as with the postmodernists or, alternatively, an an active agent who does his own constructing. Clearly, the second avenue is the one
favoured by Lady Part but, as previously pointed out, the issue of infinite regress rears its ugly philosophical head. In other words, who is the “self” who does the constructing of the completed self and was he, in his turn, constructed by some more remote previous self? Clearly, any resolution of the issue remains in abeyance, a product of one’s antecedent philosophical views.

(3) In addition to lacking any sense of self, Lady Part maintains that “real men” possess the ability to generate their own thoughts. In philosophy, of course, this is called “ideogenesis,” the nature of the origin of one’s thoughts. Where do our thoughts come from? Where are my present thoughts coming from as I write this? The origins of one’s thoughts would appear to map on one’s sense of one’s “self,” whether a passive social construct as with the postmodernists or an active agent who constructs his own personality as with the essentialists. As with the issue of the nature of the self, however, the question of ideogenesis must similarly remain in abeyance, a product of one’s antecedent philosophical views.

In conclusion one must extend the indeterminate nature of the self and of ideogenesis to the existence of “real men” themselves. Do they exist or don’t they? The question necessarily must remain in abeyance. But, as with philosophy generally, the conceptual underbrush has been cleared away to reveal the difficulty of the question in its fullest and most rounded manifestation.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

“REAL MEN” (2)

“You’re all the same, probably followed every trend out there since you can remember and will continue to follow every trend because you lack a sense of self and the ability to generate your own thoughts.” Lady Part

Three points only:

(1) Having mastered the contours of the essentialist/constructivist dilemma in respect to determining what might coherently be termed “real men,” further fruitful lines of analysis open up in respect to questions relating to the act of denotation itself. In other words, why do we give a particular name to an object rather than another name? For example, when does a bush become a tree? Is it simply a matter of size or are there intrinsic qualities definitive of each, and if so what are they? Then there are the borderline, counter-intuitive cases such as the tomato. Intuitively, we think of the tomato as a vegetable but those who claim to know insist that it is a fruit. On what grounds do they make the distinction? Then there those objects for which we have no name at all. Think of the left half of the wing of an airplane? What is its name? We have none. So naming suggests that we bring an object under a concept. In naming we “carve meaning” out of the chaos of extramental realty but the grounds on which we do so are elusive. So we can see the difficulty in naming complex objects like “real men.”

(2) We saw that Lady Part’s claim that “real men” possessed a “sense of self” presupposed the existence of such a self, whether actually existing as with the essentialists or constructed as with the postmodernists. However, her reference to a “sense of self” suggests more than this. It suggests that the self possesses reflective power, that in addition to being a self it can reflect on its own existence. Now this power of reflective thought is decisive for what it means to be human. We not only think but we can reflect on our own thought while thinking. That is what I am doing now, reflecting on my own thought as I write this. Man – well, “real men” anyway – is a reflectively self-conscious animal. To give voice to such reflective self-consciousness he has developed a symbol system called “language” in terms of which he conceptualizes his own existence in relation to both animate and inanimate extramental reality. Unlike the other animals he has transcended mere perception to attain a higher order of reality. That order is conceptual. “Real men” live in the realm of ideas.

(3) We saw that while Lady Part’s claim that “real men” possessed the ability to generate their own thoughts, such generation mapped onto the essentialist/constructivist divide. However, as a result of our gloss on the nature of reflective self-consciousness contained in the concept of a “sense of self,” we can now see that ideogenesis – the activity of generating our ideas – must also spring from that higher, conceptual order of reality, that realm of ideas itself. In the same way that man swims in language like the fish swims in the sea, so he inhabits a conceptual realm which, at one time, reconciles the essentialist dichotomy. In a word, “real men” are a combination of both. On the one hand they construct themselves and, on the other, become real men as a consequence. Lady Part was right.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!