Is “Pushpin as Good as Poetry?" A Debate over Higher and Lower Faculties.

Are elevated faculties, which are typically associated with that which is the very characteristic of being human, such as reason, to be more prized than those natural passions and emotions? For instance, is the educated, erudite man who discovers a new theoretical theory living in such a matter consistent with the highest fruition of the good life? Or perhaps are there no such criteria?

A view which argues that reason is more valuable than natural passion presupposes, as an a priori, Platonic truth, that man has a teleological purpose. That is, there are universal normative criteria for living the good life which are already present prior to the introduction of cultural norms and sensibilities. If one adheres to a teleological view, it would then seem that pushpin is perhaps not as good as poetry if the true essence of man was defined in terms of his reasoning capabilities. This must presuppose that the highest form of good for all men is to reason. (Plato, although he would argue that functions are natural, would back away from this further claim as he would state that such functions vary in men depending on particular virtues. It perhaps may be argued that he would then only rank ways of life in relation to certain ends.)

On the other hand, this Platonic universe imbued with purpose is typically contrasted with the modern, secular notion which argues that function in the world is assigned by mankind and is in fact, for the most part, arbitrary. Existentialism, for instance, and Sartre in particular, argued that mankind surges up in the world and defines value for himself afterwards. Value is not inherent but is rather created. In short, our existence precedes our essence. This is echoed in the philosophy of John Searle who argues that functions are never intrinsic to the physics of any phenomenon but are assigned from the outside by conscious observer. Functions are always observer relative. Thus, normativity, or the ability for things to malfunction or go wrong, is always in light of an observer. Humans impose the “ought” and the purpose onto functions where none previously existed as an “is”. This includes agentive (manifest) functions which have to do with our immediate purposes and are given by observers. For instance, when we say “This stone is a paperweight” or “This object is a screwdriver”, these are functions which we do not discover and they do not occur naturally, but rather are assigned through collective intentionality in a system of constitutive rules. (See: “The Construction of Social Reality”)

Although I disagree with him on this point, he posits that even nonagentive (latent) functions, which naturally occur, are not inherent. For instance, Searle argues that when we say “The heart functions to pump blood”, we are assigning its function relative to our own system of values, purposes, and general understanding. Our assignment is in light of the fact we value life. Searle states, “If we thought the most important value in the world was to glorify God by making thumping noises, then the function of the heart would be to make a thumping noise.” (p. 15) Thus, when we “discover” a function in nature, the discovery consists in the discovery of the causal processes together with the assignment of teleology to those processes. There are no natural facts discovered beyond causal facts.

Thus, if man assigns functions, it would seem that failure is only defined as relative to our current goals. In a universe absent of inherent purpose, there is then no way of living which is to be more prized than another. And with the introduction of such provincial criteria, comes for better or worse, post-modernism and relativity.