A New Dynamism for Philosophy

1. Perception and Reality
2. Self and Others
3. Time and Space
4. Meaning
5. Truth
6. Imagination
7. Freedom and Responsibility

A central contention for dynamism is that many philosophical problems result from misguided efforts to answer a series of core questions. Western philosophy continues to rely too heavily upon Newtonian and earlier assumptions of inertia or stability in the material world in its efforts to answer them. The assumptions confuse our thinking on concepts, consciousness and other areas of philosophical importance.

In its place dynamism reaffirms a tradition of process philosophy that is more sympathetic to a post-Einstein understanding of reality. Dynamism defines the material in terms of energy and the scope of its influence, and a hallmark of consciousness activity is the way in which energy is directed and appropriated.

Chapter One [Perception and Reality] aims to demonstrate how, as human beings, we are set apart from reality, whilst remaining a part of it. Dynamism identifies living forms according to a characteristic manner of exerting an appropriating influence on the material world. It shows how the exertions use concepts to generate a direct relationship with reality. Conscious beings enjoy a greater scope of influence than simpler living forms.

Forming an essential focus for that influence are relationships between objects that permit intervention and demonstrate a capacity for mobility. Reality accordingly becomes not only directly accessible to experience but also accommodated beyond its domain. Major traditions in philosophy are examined and rejected in developing this dynamic position, and important distinctions, such as between appearance and reality, sensation and perception, are interpreted anew. The latter distinction supplies the foundation for a later chapter in which the sensation is employed in developing a new theory of the mental image.

This also offers simple and satisfying explanations for other “hybrid” experiences that involve the imagination, such as theatre going or examining pictures.

Chapter Two [Self and Others] explores the implications of a dynamic model for self knowledge. Active appropriation or possession reveals a self operating at two levels, giving conscious life forms a sense of themselves at both general and individual levels of subjectivity. With the individual level operating within the general level, the dynamic approach offers an original theory of the self. It is a theory able to preserve a privileged personal perspective and yet able to maintain a parity implied by the existence of other persons, and by the advance of neuro-scientific knowledge.

The theory explains how the ownership of experience is non- transferable, along with important differences between first person and third person perspectives on experience and reality. Such differences confound materialist theories, but explanations for them flow from a dynamic theory, without the need to postulate a spiritual soul as an independent source for consciousness. So interpreted, our individual subjectivity no longer represents an obstacle to our knowledge of an objective reality. A dynamic theory only permits this subjectivity to emerge once a divergence of perspectives from an already acknowledged objective reality can be located with reference to conditions or circumstances.

A philosophy built upon energy rather than matter suggests new insights on Time and Space, and Chapter Three explores some of these. Time is more fundamental than space in a dynamic universe. The discharge of energy is a source of influence producing events.

These are the source of temporal position and that can make the passage of time more understandable. New definitions of the present, past and future emerge that avoid any paradox associated with the fixed positions and a shifting passage of time that attaches to our familiar concept of time. An important part of the programme is to revise the traditional understanding of cause and effect.

This has presumed an unexplained flow of time between events, but a dynamic philosophy accords a fundamental role for causal influence as the source of events and which in turn can explain the passage of time. It now becomes possible to dispose of the problem of induction which was never satisfactorily resolved within the limits of traditional thinking on cause, effect and temporal succession. Space is subordinate to time, and represents the persistence of Time under conditions where positional or displacing influences come into operation.

Dynamism continues its opposition to empiricism by developing the idea that space and our apprehension of it are fundamentally three- dimensional. There is no need to retreat away from the mysteries surrounding space and time which, notwithstanding Relativity, remain objective and knowable within a dynamic theory.

Chapters on Meaning and Truth explore the relationship between concepts, language and reality and show clearly how concepts encapsulate the knowledge that descriptions are able to express. Dynamism revives and sharpens a distinction that modern philosophy has blurred between meaning and reference, and reverses Wittgenstein’s influential view that language use is the source of its meaning.

A dynamic interpretation explains how a true understanding of reality and genuine communication between language users is achieved, freed from the obvious difficulties that beset a Wittgensteinian alternative. The chapters [Imagination] offer new insights on some of the important components of language, the ways in which it operates and is shaped to the purposes it serves. Clarifying the relationship between language and reality also clears the way for a new convergence theory of truth that replaces the triviality of correspondence and the inadequacy of coherence theories.

The standing of scientific discoveries is reinforced with attacks upon philosophies that confine truth within paradigms or orthodoxies that defy investigation. A clearer understanding of necessary truth also emerges from the discussion, and a foundation for mathematics is suggested with a definition of number and an explanation for the special status of mathematical propositions. Several of the epistemological conclusions of earlier chapters are brought together to produce a final chapter devoted to free will and responsibility.

Freedom is linked to an authentic personal agenda and to its unencumbered execution. It is a freedom that allows choice, is compatible with predictability and causal influence. Dynamism attacks materialist efforts to undermine free choice that rely upon a problematic interpretation of causality and an obsolete conception of scientific knowledge.

Along with other libertarians it is sceptical that any action could be identified with a single sequence of material states or processes. Dynamism is also critical of materialist theories that attempt a reconciliation with free will. These fail to address and explain the role of deliberation and choice in producing a free action. A model of evolutionary biology is often misapplied to disguise this attempt to sideline consciousness.

A dynamic account of individual freedom neither implies nor condones selfishness. A theory of society is introduced that offers sustainable accounts of responsibility and authority that withstand the moral scepticism of classical theories based upon either emotion or intellect alone.

In developing the idea of a free society, dynamism is able both to subordinate the individual to society and yet promote its well being as an essential part of the decision making process. In doing so dynamism opposes individualism and liberal philosophy, but creates the exciting prospect of justifying the legitimacy of authority and demonstrating the truth of moral judgements. The conclusion of the book indicates how we can begin to explore the implications of these ideas.

A New Dynamism for Philosophy

1. Perception and Reality
2. Self and Others
3. Time and Space
4. Meaning
5. Truth
6. Imagination
7. Freedom and Responsibility