Paul Weiss: Common Sense & Beyond

Paul Weiss: Common Sense & Beyond

I found an old book of papers presented before the New York Institute of Philosophy on the issue of human freedom (or non-freedom, if you prefer). Edited by Sidney Hook, the papers reflect a broad diversity of opinion. In reading them, I could only conclude that philosophers today are no less divided on the issue than they were then, in the mid-1950s. One piece did stand out for its reductio ad absurdum of many philospher claims on the issue. By Paul Weiss and titled "Common Sense and Beyond," some excerpts from it are provided below.

Steven Pinker & The Fear of Determinism

There was a young man who said "Damn!"

It grieves me to think that I am
Predestined to move
In a circumscribed groove:
In fact, not a bus, but a tram.
(Attributed to Maurice E. Hare, 1905)

"One fear of determinism is a gaping existential anxiety: that deep down we are not in control of our own choices. All our brooding and agonizing over the right thing to do is pointless, it would seem, because everything has already been preordained by the state of our brains. If you suffer from this anxiety, I suggest the following experiment.

Ramesh Balsekar's Inconsistencies

Former general manager of the Bank of India in Bombay, Ramesh Balsekar studied under Nisargadatta, often translating as Nisargadatta's native language was Marathi. After the sage's death in 1981, Balsekar held speaking enagements in countries such as Germany, the United States and India. The author of many books, he is retired in Bombay, recently still meeting with visitors almost each morning although he is favored mainly by Westerners rather than by Indians. A good summary of his teachings can be found in the anonymous Consciousness Writes, a title styled after Balsekar's own book, Consciousness Strikes.

Having read his accounts of the enlightened life, I find his explanations are sometimes contradictory as well as self-gratulatory. These two items provide an example.