Peter Emmerson

 Homo clausus: Marx and Nietzsche.

 I think it’s fair to say that the isolated, closed state of mind associated with Homo clausus develops in relation to a need or preference for thinking in terms of ideals, i.e. theometaphysically. Homo clausus is consequently an ancient cognitive identity linked to religious, philosophical and mathematical perceptual strategies. Homo clausus withdraws from the world of events to an ideal mental place where absolute truth/relativism abounds, a place of safety built on and around the great rock of certainty. Homo clausus is a perfectionist, a theologian, a philosopher, a mathematician, a rationalist, an idealist. Homo clausus can enable and justify the total detachment of difficult emotions and habits. Homo clausus finds solace in a world where ideals can be translated into reality, but also finds this politically useful. Homo clausus can isolate him/herself; Homo clausus can be free. Homo clausus is egocentric, looking out on the universe and judging all that surrounds. Homo clausus is privileged and influential so can afford to set aside survival needs and be divorced from reality. Homo clausus is deceived and a deceiver, a believer in the possibility absolute truth/relativism and a proselytizer of such beliefs for the benefit of self and those in authority who find such wares useful. Homo clausus is a theometaphysicist who pretends to be a scientist, as with Newton, Darwin, Marx and Einstein. Homo clausus is an ideologist!

The Cartesian ‘I’ is perhaps the most influential version of the thoughts of Homo clausus. Descartes constructed a world as an extension of the human mind that dispatched all doubts to the margins putting the human self, the ‘I’, in a position of privilege, certain in the knowledge that the truth techniques of verbal logic and mathematics which testified to God’s divine presence, allowed us access to perfection in order to facilitate the solution of human problems. The developments in maths that Descartes was involved in, offered new hope for Homo clausus, as his other incarnations founded on religion and philosophy, came under attack from natural philosophy (science): the new maths justifies Homo clausus in turning a deaf ear to the increasing volume of noise as scientists in particular, grappled with the relative uncertainty that goes with investigation of the facts.

The Cartesian view still electrifies so much of western thinking, promoting theometaphysical styles of analysis in a modern guise, too often directly influencing the practice of real world activity by elite scientists such as Hawking & Mlodinow. Homo clausus also has another more direct influence by posting health warnings about the malaise which stalks our rational western practices and that threatens the sensible world of absolute truth in the beguiling form of ‘relativism’. Relativism, not to be confused with ‘relativity’, is the devil which constantly menaces the ordered world, preying on the slightest weakness in the explanatory power of the apostles of absolute truth and their allies. The relativistic world is one of chaos and absolute uncertainty, where no method of arbitration exists to sort out disputes of any kind, where the established lose control. Philosophers argue that if we deny the existence of absolute truth the outcome is its dichotomous opposite, no truth at all, relativism – an intellectual state of anarchy leading to the break down of order, that Thomas Hobbes warned us about.

As far as I am concerned, relativism is another example of idealist thinking, as is incidentally, the concept of anarchy. Both are ideological; they are concepts used by the truth-finders and their influential patrons to frighten outsider figurations into accepting their arguments, a bit like those politicians who say that if we in Britain abandon the first past the post system for choosing MPs at general elections, in favour of a more democratic process of proportional representation, we will encounter something patently and incontrovertibly bad; an unstable, weak government. What they really mean is that we should keep a system that guarantees little threat to the position of those who already hold social influence: if the established hand over some of that influence to the voting people of Britain, they give away some of their hold on government to those who might not give it back. There is an ideology connected with democracy in Britain that fosters voter disengagement from politics to help established figurations utilize their control. The established political figurations pretend to govern for the people, whereas in fact they govern for themselves, as if Britain and the people in it were their own property: they are would-be absolutists. Britain is relatively democratic to the extent that the people, who are in fact subjects not citizens, are constantly ignored because they can be. It is probably the case that most people in Britain would like to see the reinstitution of the death penalty for heinous crimes. It is tempting to conclude that the reason for the lack of change in the law is that the small highly influential minority who know better, disagree: the established political figurations backed by their truth-finders. The corollary to this is that the aristocratic mentality, ably assisted by Homo clausi, is still alive and well in British elite figurations, providing the justification for ignoring the would-be citizenry in order to retain overall dominance. A referendum on capital punishment would mean loss of control, whichever is the outcome. If you believe responsibility for order is a matter of science rather than ideal, then all those who profit from ideals will lose influence: the established will have to justify their position to the outsiders by another means, that takes account of the relative uncertainty of everything as opposed to absolute uncertainty! A more democratic process requires an opening of the mind of Homo clausus to the fact that relative uncertainty is the actual nature of experience, rather than the choice between certainty or uncertainty, truth or relativism. It will not be easy to alter such an ancient state of being.

However, we can continue the process of development in criticism of the Homo clausus mentality by promoting the de-mystification of idealistic concepts such as ‘proletariat’ or ‘Übermensch’. If you take Nietzsche’s philosophical superman who exercises his will no matter what the cost, you have a life-form that is so distant from reality and social influence it can act alone: this not a person it is a theometaphysical android constructed by Homo clausus. Similarly, Marx’s version of ‘natural man’ who is only truly at home in the collective, is so strongly caught up with others that it cannot think or act in a relatively autonomous manner; another of Homo clausus’ theometaphysical constructions. If we distance ourselves from the mind set developed by the theometaphysicians, we can do better science and accept we are never independent of social influence, and never wholly dependent on it either – only Homo clausus can be independent or dependent: in fact we are in a relationship of relative dependency/independency. Similarly, certainty per se does not really exist, but we can be relatively certain. Equally uncertainty does not exist, but we can be relatively uncertain. As far as I can see, science offers knowledge at various levels of relative uncertainty, whereas Homo clausus can construct the certain/uncertain, idealist world of theometaphysics. Even though I believe Marx’ and Nietzsche’s models are too compromized by their idealism, they are major steps forward in the debate about what we know – that relative certainty and relative uncertainty abound.

 4.2.2.1 Beyond Marx to Nietzsche and further still.

Marx believed that he was enlightening us to the clash between the truth of science and the insidious fallacies of ideology. He alerted us to the fact that much of what we believe to be true is in fact merely opinion, the opinions of influential figurations of people who can manipulate the processes by which knowledge is produced so as to give it the appearance of truths: the practices of the theometaphysicians being a case in point. The statements of the experts in what is correct are then used by the established to maintain and if possible, extend their dominance. This is a very similar conclusion to that arrived at by Nietzsche a little later, the difference being that for Nietzsche there is no absolute truth to be had at all. Where Marx idealized the human collective, Nietzsche idealized the human individual. However, what both point to is the relative uncertainty of what we know.

Marx presents a picture of oversocialized people and neglects to give proper consideration to the impact of personal reflection on human activity by overemphasising the significance of structural forces such as class. On the surface this seems quite a useful strategy because it appears to open up the opportunity to analyse social experience in terms of tangible things that can be measured scientifically such as practices. However, it could be construed as an empiricist reaction to the problem of interpretation and has parallels with Foucault’s response to the problem meaning in 2.3.3 above, i.e. when confronting a theoretical conundrum let’s move the analysis to something measurable that can be relied upon. I would argued that we can see a similar strategy adopted in psychology with the development of behaviourism by the pragmatists Watson and Skinner who wanted to put their psychological feet on more solid ground and get away from mind games of introspection. Both Foucault and the behaviourists opted for hard evidence, whether as archaeological objects in the case of the former, or in the case of the latter, the carefully measured learning behaviour of reinforced rats in Skinner’s boxes. I think Marx is an earlier example who in focussing on work (economic) activity, manages to circumvent the problem of consciousness and how to measure it. Because human thinking is so difficult to quantify and understand it is put aside as if social and psychological modes of analysis can be viable without taking into consideration the processes of reflection. This is surely a serious error when so much of our behaviour is learned. How can a model that pretends to offer insight into human behaviour ignore the importance of thinking? – such models chuck out the baby with the bathwater producing a social world populated by androids.

By contrast, Nietzsche overindividualizes people understating the influence of social processes in human functioning, by giving precedence to the power of interpretation practised by the oversimple notion of human will. This model is the dialectical counterpart to Marx’ socially determined android; a totally self-motivated, subjective, sociopathic robot, that pursues the possibilities of ultimate individualism in constant danger of being corrupted by the degenerate temptation to conform to the will of others by behaving in line with social convention. Nonetheless, from my point of view, the respective structural/individual emphases are not in themselves the real difficulty with the theories of Marx or Nietzsche. It seems to me that the fundamental flaw in their work is related to an overindulgence in theometaphysical thinking that produces models too rich in idealism, with an overemphasis on the need to satisfy conditions for absolute truth or relativism. In operating in this fashion, Marx and Nietzsche assembled two theometaphysical monsters, thereby perpetuating a human idealistic stereotype described by Norbert Elias as ‘Homo clausus’ (closed man).

 4.2.2 Marx

Comte’s breakthrough was given further impetus by Karl Marx and his followers. Marx is another who has been vilified and for similar reasons as Comte and Nietzsche. However, the reaction to Marx has been less one-sided as 20^th century world politics exemplifies. Marx believed himself to be a scientist of history like Comte. Whether this was successful is very much open to question, particularly since the 1930s when writers such as Orwell unmasked the tyrannical style of communism that evolved under the umbrella of Marxism in the USSR and elsewhere. The proliferation of Marxist oriented beliefs continued until the 1960s since when the attempts to explore the possibility of a communist state have gradually dissipated. What is remarkable is the rate of collapse in socialist-oriented states: if anyone in 1964 had predicted the break-up of the USSR by the 1990s they would have been treated with contempt. Whilst there are many reasons for such changes, I feel a major contributor to the difficulties of the theory and its political applications is that Marx was guilty, like Comte, of using too little science in his analysis of human history, which left room for sufficient idealism to invalidate his model.

Like that of Comte, Marx’s theory leads us to question idealism without fully realising the potential of his message. Both wanted to historicize knowledge but both left undisturbed deeply entrenched idealistic modes of analysis that patterned and, as far as I am concerned, distorted their understanding of social experience: for Comte it was the laws of nature; for Marx it was primarily the Hegelian dialectic. Both are expressions of a law-like universe that has at its core a belief in absolute truth.

Marx’s incorporation of the reworked Hegelian dialectic allowed him to grossly over-simplify historical processes. Hegel made an important step away from pure theometaphysics by confronting the problem of history, rather than ignoring it, in arguing that historical change was a universal feature of human life, driven by conflict over differences in belief: confrontation and violence results from profound differences in opinion held by people. Marx accepted this dialectical theory of history without fully testing its practical viability. This is poor science. Yes, he remodelled the dialectic to a focus on a scientific problem, the issue of human differential access to wealth. Yes, this historicizes Hegel’s model even further by giving priority to the work done by people rather than the ideas they have; but he didn’t go far enough in detaching himself sufficiently from the idealistic character of the model to gain enough reality congruence to do science; instead, he produced a more material theometaphysics. As mentioned earlier, the irony is that in his argument that market capitalism is mere ideology, Marx’ great humanitarian effort is as guilty of ideological slight of hand as his adversary Adam Smith, on whom he rounded for among other things his unquestioning acceptance of the ideal of private property. As far as I can see, both theories are energized by ideals that limit their usefulness as scientific models for testing, and thus their ability of solve practical human problems.

By developing a model where the rules of the social game are governed by idealistic dialectical forces, Marx was able to justify the existence of the two great classes of capitalism, the bourgeoisie (ruling class) and the proletariat (working class), as the manifest expressions of the nature of oppression, and, as the practical means by which emancipation could be achieved. By characterising capitalist society as essentially comprised of two massive, identifiable, social structures that ghosted their way through history until it was time for them to play out their revolutionary destinies in the dialectics of history, Marx had in fact enhanced the influence of idealism in his model and concomitantly, lowered its reality congruence. The idea that any structure, whether physical or social is fixed is a myth. Science tells us that structures are in a permanent process of change. They can appear stable but they are in fact just disposed to very slow, almost imperceptible, rates of change: for the most part rocks that comprise structures such as mountains change very slowly and in relation to a human lifetime may not appear to change at all. Darwin showed that natural selection may well take thousands of generations for small mutations to occur in life forms. The psychologist James Gibson pointed out, that distant things move relatively slowly in comparison to those much closer: if we extrapolate this idea further, the heavens do not move at all. From a scientific point of view, social processes vary significantly in terms of their rate of change.

I want to argue that capitalism is a process where figurations, not classes, coalesce and dissipate, never to reform in quite the same way again. Marx’s classes only gave the impression of clearly identifiable structures because he was viewing them from too great a distance, the distance that idealism can provide, total detachment or objectivity. If I am right, the prophecy that the revolution would occur at some historical moment when capitalism was pregnant with class-consciousness was always doomed to failure, not because of alienation and false-consciousness as the Marxists would have us believe, but because the model is overidealistic. Such an unrealistic model characterized by the struggle between two social-structural monoliths, does not correlate with the fluidity of human social experience and was therefore unviable as an attempt to scientifically analyse human groups; it was more about faith than hard evidence.

However, one aspect of Marx’s model that does offer useful insight into the workings of human figurations is his reworking of the concept of ideology. For Marx it was not only fear of unemployment and starvation that demanded compliance from the working class; their exploitation took place at another less tangible but highly influential level. Just living in a capitalist system meant being conditioned to accept capitalist values, which were transmitted through various mediums such as the family, religion, education, news media, the justice system. Thus, the members of capitalist society, whether bourgeois or proletarian, were thoroughly bonded to its belief system, which immunised them from alternative, less oppressive, more natural social models. The notion of ‘natural’ is another important ideal that patterned Marx’ theory, a belief that in a state of nature man is benevolent à la Rousseau, rather than competitive and greedy, as per the alternative version proffered by Hobbes.

The problem for Marxism is how to break down the conditioned conservatism of the alienated proletariat to enable them to throw off the chains of capitalist oppression and achieve a state of nature? Deideologization was a key feature of his strategy. All capitalists are corrupt because they are ideologists who spread positive propaganda about the unnatural, unjust system they govern with a set of values and cultural practices that are based in self-interest and profit as opposed to the good of all. In this process values are stated as if they are absolute truths; thus we get statements by capitalists that people have a right to private property or that competition is beneficial to everyone. What Marx’ model of ideology does is warn us about the potential that established figurations have for managing what we know. By drawing our attention to the way in which social institutions can be used to define the truth he opens up the possibility for challenging those truths as ideology and brings further to our attention the debate on the socio-historical nature of knowledge as something relatively uncertain, albeit through an idealistically flawed model.

4.2 Sociology and the historicizing of knowledge.

4.2.1 Comte

The successful development of natural philosophy and the new mathematics was preyed upon by philosophers and renamed the Enlightenment, such that the methods of natural philosophy could be applied more widely to the problems of human experience itself: hence the evolution of life and social sciences such as biology, economics and sociology. One outstanding analyst of this sequence of events was Auguste Comte, who, in the first half of the 19^th century, put together a radical series of ideas that seriously undermined the idealist model, by arguing that human knowledge is a function of ordinary social experience. In so doing he pointed to the significance of language as something social; not only do we learn our language from others, we change our thinking by listening to their criticisms. From this point of view knowledge is historical. Rightly or wrongly, Comte believed that what comes to be seen as knowledge develops in relation to the problems that people face during their lives. This certainly explains the sociogenesis (things that develop in relation to social experience) of technology. However, it also explains the sociogenesis of idealism! According to Comte knowledge has developed through three stages beginning with supernatural explanations that involved magic. This was augmented by the metaphysical which incorporated more secular methods into the mix, such as logical argument, numbers and geometry. More recently, such types of knowledge have been augmented still further by the attempt to engage more fully with the factual world; a third stage in the development of knowledge that Comte called the ‘positive’ or what we now call science. Thus today, the supernatural, metaphysical (usually referred to as philosophical) and scientific co-exist as methods of solving human problems.

Comte’s law of three stages in the development of human knowledge has been heavily contested, to the extent that his ideas in general have been stigmatized in order to restrict the spread of his ideas: see Elias, What is Sociology? It is arguable, I would suggest, that this was not so much a reaction to the inexactitude of Comte’s statements, but was more about the implications of accepting his general point; that theologians and philosophers are just two figurations of people, now in competition with positivists (scientists), whose inexorable attachment to idealism had been seriously rumbled, as something contingent upon social experience. The implication of accepting Comte’s findings on the historicality of knowledge is that because social experience is volatile, then so is the knowledge that accrues with it: not a position to be countenanced by anyone who needs the promise of a definitive answer, even the more ‘reasonable’ Socratean position that is advocated by Popper. Comte’s move beyond theometaphysics helps increase the likelihood of relative uncertainty becoming seen as the real nature of experience, with ideals such as truths being demoted to the level of any other product of thinking. Traditionally philosophers have characterized as ‘phenomena’ the things that we see and hear, sense data, as some corrupted, lesser form of knowledge. The acceptance of a perspective of relative uncertainty recasts the truths so zealously guarded by theometaphysicians as just phenomena too, much simplifying our knowledge compendium. Such a view sees the brain as the processor of information more akin to Hobbes, Locke and Hume than Descartes or Kant. Absolute truths and reasonings are social constructions, pieces of mummified, theometaphysical clutter; cognitive idols that distract our perception away from what is construed as the terrifying and anomic possibility that relative uncertainty is everywhere: Emile Durkheim developed the term anomie to describe the disorienting experience of high rates of social change when collectivist social rules have to be jettisoned in the rush to a more individualistic survival pattern.

It is fair to say that Comte was not of this relatively uncertain view; he believed in the over-idealistic notion of a law-like universe. But his arguments contribute to the opening up of a route that leads to the analysis of relative uncertainty. As with Nietzsche later in the 19^th century, the attempt to stigmatize Comte was a good example of institutional bullying, which can occur to people who in developing new ideas and immigrating to new ground are deemed to threaten the large majority left behind: their small numbers make them easy pickings for the established. Sociological philosophers such as Comte and Nietzsche, as members of outsider figurations had little influence and limited potential to fight back: the madman tag therefore stuck and and did its work. Their real crime was to produce radical, threatening arguments, which questioned the very foundation of our belief in ideals such as the absolute truth. Such a finding has serious implications for personal security and the authority and status of those who purvey the truths, as well as subverting the position of other influential figurations, which rely on these truth-finders to justify their dominance.

 4 Science and the gradual emergence of ‘relative uncertainty’.

4.1 Recap.

Having explored aspects of the general development of idealism and its relationship to authority and control, I now want to investigate science more specifically. I have tried to explain how the ideal notion of uncertainty has emerged as both an experience and an aspect of formal European discourse, in relation to the changes in the balance of social influence that saw the slow rise to dominance of the business-oriented figurations with an interest in a close examination of the possibilities of fully exploiting the natural world, one feature of which was the growth of science. Correlatedly, the old truth-finders, the theologians and philosophers, were of limited use and so their influence declined in favour of their idealist cousins the mathematicians. This change in the knowledge mix made the likelihood of an analysis connected to the idealist problem of endemic ‘uncertainty’ (as opposed to the realist ‘relative uncertainty’) more probable and with it the perception that people were constantly under threat from de-stabilizing forces such as relativism and anarchy. Even though I would contest the possibility of being a relativist or anarchist, as both are statements of ideal states of being emanating from the mouths and pens of theometaphysicians for those with a need for absolute control who have a lot to lose, the future during periods of intense social change can quite easily appear totally unpredictable, i.e. relativistic and anarchic. By helping open up the scientific enterprise, I believe the business-oriented figurations inadvertently made it easier to envisage an anti-idealistic perspective of ‘relative uncertainty’ beyond ‘uncertainty’, even though on first appearances the latter is all consuming.

Such an outcome is I believe an important aspect of the legacy of later science as greater levels of realism develop undermining the early utopianism that spoke of God’s laws of nature. However, there is still a long way to go as Hawking & Mlodinow point out – truth-finders are still in search for the Grand Design. Nonetheless, the latter title is a sign that influential scientists have less idealistic goals are in mind, as Design replaces Law. Relative uncertainty really does threaten idealism because it relegates the tools of the traditional truth-finders (faith, verbal and numerical logic) from ends in themselves to the means by which we investigate our problems. This is not relativism it is realism where processes have probabilities, not once and for all outcomes presided over by the all too human agents of Gods, the theometaphysicians. I believe that this important insight has come about because sociologists from Comte to Elias have developed models that explore the social variables in the formation of knowledge opening the way to a more realistic set of perceptions such that our experience is relatively uncertain, rather than the idealistic uncertain.

The intellectual love affair with the truth which spawned the concept of objectivity can be formally traced back to ancient Greek theometaphysicians such as Plato and Aristotle, who have dominated western intellectual life ever since: see Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy; Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and Twilight of the Idols. Relatedly, the issues they and their contemporaries debated have been subjected to constant revision, whether from a theological standpoint by writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, or, more secular notables such as Descartes and Locke in the 17^th century, Hume and Kant in the 18^th century, and Karl Popper in the 20^th. This long programme of acceptance and rebuttal, is dominated by the research of ideals in the attempt to establish the absolute truth; a desperate hunt for the certainty and stability concomitant with peace of mind, bodily safety and maintenance of social influence. The development of formal science in the 17^th century, connected with the formation of institutions such as the Royal Society, constituted a shadowy revival of the anti-idealist challenge that had always accompanied the doctrines of absolute truth. The practitioners of this new style of philosophy, natural philosophy, such as Newton, seemed on the surface largely unaware of the radical nature of their enterprise, thoroughly schooled as they were in theometaphysical truth-finding frames of reference, especially the new mathematics.

On one level it is surprising, considering the level of scepticism associated with any investigation of the natural world, that massive science as we know it ever got off the ground, surpassing anything ever achieved by the likes of Archimedes. Clearly science prospered in spite of significant resistance from many theometaphysicians to the extent that it eventually challenged the dominance of the theologians in particular. Nevertheless, as referenced above, the old school of theometaphysics remains alive and well, still foraging for the ideal in order to drive out personal and social insecurity, as well as bolstering the needs of the established figurations by providing the authority needed to manage the process of order. The belief in the sovereignty of mathematics is directly commensurate with the deistic model of a universe governed by God’s laws. Even though scientists are less certain of themselves nowadays, their commitment to mathematics is one good reason for the survival of idealism, God and all. Certainly since Hume’s discomforting conclusion that factual knowledge is a matter of probabilities, the capacity for idealism in scientists has been tempered by a more secular, relative view that speaks of theory rather than law: compare Einstein to Newton. Thus, formal science is evidence that certain people were willing to think the unthinkable; that there is relative uncertainty, even in a mathematical universe.

 3.3.1 The Idealist Triumvirate: truth-finders of theology and philosophy continue to influence events through their partnership with the new kids on the block – the pure mathematicians.

Even though they take more of a back seat these days, let’s not forget the importance of religious beliefs in the contemporary discussion of ideals. Since the heady days, before the Reformation, of the European Roman Catholic orthodoxy, Christian ideals have been gradually wedded to the more secular rational analysis of Descartes who used the divine hand of God to explain the perfection that can be found in pure verbal logic and mathematics. This reassessment of religious thinking was also a response to the new scientific impulse that favoured a full on engagement with sensory experience, something not really fitting with the Church’s Platonic/Aristotelian preferences. Descartes re-examined the feasibility of trusting sensory information and rejected it, returning as philosophers do, to the safety of his mind. Mathematics is the key to unlocking the truth of it, he concluded, whether it be to understand God or the world.

The crisis of confidence confronting the long established orthodoxy of Roman Catholicism, that boiled over into the Reformation, was at least theoretically assuaged. Even though a schism had occurred in western Christianity the turmoil was to some extent stabilized by Descartes and others such as Isaac Newton and Leibniz, who were instrumental in the transformation of mathematics into the truth-finding technique par excellence, that would allow the full extension of idealistic forms of analysis beyond the mind so well understood by philosophers, into God’s virtually uncharted factual universe. The capacity of the new mathematics to establish absolute truth in the venture to discover the Laws of God’s universe was miraculous in itself, but it has the added advantage of being far less vulnerable to rhetorical corruption than verbal media such as the Bible. Mathematicians have very quickly become the prime arbiters of the truth of things, providing rational assurance of the veracity of the revolutionary scientific enterprise that lives and works in what the theometaphysicians generally shunned, the uncertain world of sensory reality: the work of Karl Popper exemplifies this position. The voices of western religious truth-finders however, especially since the 19^th century, have not been so discernible.

This reinvigoration of the power of ideal reason vindicated our axiomatic faith in its efficacy and ensured that its influence continues to flow through our culture, largely untrammelled by suspicion or dispute. One significant exception was Nietzsche, who confronted the truth mongers as one of their own, a philosopher, in arriving at the almost intolerable conclusion that the absolute truth is nothing more than an intellectual construction for use in the relentless battle between people for control. For Nietzsche everything boils down to individual human wills; therefore, all is personal and a matter of belief on account of the fact that we can never escape our prejudices, even by using rational techniques such as logic or mathematics. After millennia spent pursuing the Holy Grail of the absolute truth of things, it is not surprising to find the majority of philosophers strongly opposed to such a view. I would proffer two reasons for this: 1) philosophers would have to question their values in the search for ideals; 2) they would also have to face that which ideals were designed to avoid, the fact that life and death, bereft of ideals, are shot through with uncertainty and insecurity; a prospect that for many is too hard to bear. In other words, by rejecting the sanctified position of rationality as the arbiter of doubt, we admit the possibility of ‘relative uncertainty’ with all its implications for our fear structure and sanity; and if Thomas Hobbes is right, our personal safety too.

With the development of the exploration of factual experience, albeit chaperoned by its ideal partner, pure mathematics, theometaphysicians became more vulnerable to challenges from figurations espousing more realistic models which spoke of relative uncertainty. However, the underlying belief in the virtues of ideal styles of rational analysis in western cultures has been extremely resistant to criticism, continuing as it does to have an overwhelming influence on our thinking, discussions and practices. The relative status of the theometaphysicians has changed in Europe such that the once dominant priests have seen a gradual decline in their social influence, as have more recently the philosophers. However, this has been more than compensated for by the rise in authority of their cousins the pure mathematicians, such that idealistic styles of thinking still have an immense impact on contemporary thinking. The theometaphysicians continue to dominate, as the people who are trained to put aside their emotions and prejudices in order to supply what we know and trust, the truths that allow us to control our fear and retain our positions of dominance.

  3.3 Resistance to the notion of ‘relative uncertainty’: idealistic cultural habits that foster a belief in dichotomies such as objectivity-subjectivity .

Sociologists as pure and applied scientists have now spent approximately 200 years at their trade. What is clear from all this enterprise is that nothing is certain/uncertain. This finding has led many to reject the right of sociology to be called a science; others have abandoned the scientific programme and returned, if not to theology, then to philosophy. Still others have moved into number crunching, regardless of the efficacy of the knowledge they produce, supplying data for various agencies. The comparative low status of sociologists and applied scientists generally, may well, as noted earlier, be reflected in these outcomes, because few people with influence want uncertain conclusions, they do not produce either personal or social control. However, one group of social scientists, the economists, have taken refuge in mathematics and have reaped the benefits and sit at the high table. Nevertheless, their status is fragile as real events plunder their over-idealised models: see Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan; although not immune to idealism himself as his worship of Popper suggests. In other words some degree of ‘relative uncertainty’ is I believe a fact, that has been gradually dawning on more and more people and inexorably spreading its influence on formal thinking since the 17^th century: if there really were any truths would the law rely on juries to convict people of serious crimes rather than eminent justices or princes; would politicians and others in established positions not demur to the demand for a democratic system?

This contradiction in our formally stated belief patterns that admits to both the idealism of certainty/uncertainty and the more realistic relative uncertainty, is one of the most interesting features of human experience, an aspect of which is the use and acceptance of idealistic concepts such as ‘objectivity’, or ‘subjectivity’ for that matter. Objectivity is used in relation to scientific practice to differentiate it from other non-objective (subjective) practices which are open to dispute and thus lacking in truth. Yet in reality the outcome of such so-called objective practice, scientific knowledge, can only produce wisdom that is inexact, with varying levels of probability, as the continuing debate in theoretical physics about the limitations of the models associated with Einstein and Heisenberg evidences. Objectivity as a feature of scientific practice is a philosophical intrusion derived from the idealistic assumption that the rules of logic or mathematics, which exclude the damaging effect of human judgement that is the cause of error, can be applied directly to reality. Thus, in this sense, objectivity as a concept derives from the philosophical study of science, not from its practice: it is a philological cousin of absolute truth and accordingly, gives status to those whose activities are deemed objective and the conclusions at which they arrive. Scientific figurations are attached to objectivity because it at least gives the impression that they are correct, cleansed from infection by human values and therefore error: they can offer control. This is a smokescreen! Objectivity is for many within scientific figurations a wish statement of self-delusion. However, it is also an ideological tool used by scientists to obtain authority and wider social influence. Ideals are useful as statements of intent, to impress those who are under-informed, or soothe those unable to face the facts that it is a relatively uncertain world.

Beliefs in ideals such as objectivity are related to the assumption that human beings can think or act morally as a separate, ring-fenced experience, with its own specific rules and subject matter. According to this view, problems of right and wrong can be analysed independently of personal values and politics: when scientists like Professor Wolpert are involved in professional science, they are not dealing with considerations of social influence or personal values. Such a perspective would seem misplaced. Recent neuropsychology, using brain scanning technology, has found strong evidence that the brain should be understood in terms of its interconnectedness, rather than areas of discrete activity: see Steven Pinker, a well known exponent of the computational model of psychology, and a covert idealist. Our experiences and beliefs have one thing in common; their existence is related to our socio-psycho-biological experience. Thus, I think it is reasonable to question the repeated statements of people who argue that moral issues are separate from scientific issues, which are in turn separate from political concerns. It is my argument that moral, political and scientific thinking and activities are inextricably bound together and that in believing they are not, leads to errors of judgement. Consequently, we should see the statements of all three brands of truth mongers, theologians, philosophers, mathematicians and by implication, scientists, as at best relatively certain and worthy of dispute. This would be progress.

The prominence of idealistic concepts such as objectivity offer further confirmation of the continued capacity of philosophers to define intellectual debate, contrary to the view of Hawking and Mlodinow, who in their recent book The Grand Design, state in over-confident manner that philosophy is ‘dead’. Certainly within western orientated cultures, philosophers still enjoy considerable status and influence: philosophers are constantly present as intellectual experts on serious BBC Radio 4 programmes such as The Moral Maze, In Our Time and Start the Week. Their position of authority is all the more remarkable when one considers their patent lack of success in answering the questions they have set themselves in over 2000 years of practice, with the notable exception of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose masterful denunciation of philosophical practice as verbal legerdemain, was revenged for quite some time by a thorough stigmatization of his ideas: the same tactic that was used against Comte. In using the concept of ‘objective’, Hawking & Mlodinow contradict themselves.

Philosophers suggest that objectivity is one half of a dialectic or dichotomy, which has as its counterpart, the concept of subjectivity. From this perspective, objectivity is in one respect a state of mind, achieved when we are being rational, when we put aside our prejudices in order to explore the possibilities of a logical or mathematical analysis so as to obtain the absolute truth of things. By contrast, subjectivity is a state of mind where our preferences flood through, a cerebral experience patterned by emotions that produces potentially dangerous relativist (not relative remember) truths, truths that are anarchic, forever disputable because they are the product of personal conviction. A good example concerns the truth of religious belief, which is largely a matter of trust or faith transmitted from generation to generation. The existence of the human soul has never, as far as I can see, been shown to exist as a palpable entity; neither is there any hard evidence that it survives death. Yet, guilty people in their multitudes have been dispatched to eternity in the belief that death is but a gateway to another existence where the process of judgement and punishment can, if necessary, be finished off. Part of the reason that human beings feel confident to carry out such sentences, in the face of little or no factual evidence in support their beliefs, is their capacity to hold personal truths based on nothing more than conviction, that is, subjective truths that are contestable and yet resistant to the facts.

At least part of the reason for the persistence of rational method and the concomitant belief in the importance of objectivity, is to act as a defence against our dangerous potential to think and act in this totally subjective fashion; what Durkheim might have described as this anomic, relatively unfettered by social rules. Yet it is clear from the evidence provided in the previous paragraph and the continued popularity of religious belief, that the campaign to resist the influence of subjective truths by countering it with an appeal to objectivity and its senior partner rationality, in which science nowadays takes a leading role, has enjoyed only limited success. Could this be related to a problem with rationality itself? Could it be that rationality is nothing more than a method for analysing a problem that is in fact contingent upon personal experience? Rational method is not a once for all system of analysis that allows you to arrive at a correct solution because it is objective and circumvents the influence of human values (subjectivism). Thus, there is not just one rationality but any number of rationalities to choose from, dependent on the context, that is, a function of what you are intending to achieve and the means available to achieve it, as pointed out by Max Weber. This contrasts starkly with the general understanding of rationality as a neutral method of calculating the correct answer, uncontaminated by human value. Rationality is contingent upon social perspective. It is therefore not surprising, as Weber showed, to find a belief in God to be rational, because it is highly dependent on social experience: if all around need the security of faith to live life happily, faith is a rational response to the problem of fear. The problem with rationality is that it has been theometaphysicalized from a method of solving everyday human difficulties with varying degrees of success depending on the circumstances, into a general problem solving tool (mathematics being the primary modern example) for the exploration of the truth of things. This, I would argue, is useful because it is crucial in the battle to control uncertainty: high levels of certainty lessen feelings of personal insecurity and increases the capacity of established figurations to defend their dominance.

  3.2 More solid resistance to idealism? – the case of the orthodox applied sciences.

Anti-idealism has been slow to develop in sociology as the recent flirtation with postmodernism suggests. However, another area of formal resistance to ideals such as uncertainty involves applied sciences such as engineering and medicine. There is nothing exact about measurement; it is all about estimation – the steel girder is 5 metres long, plus or minus 1 millimetre, the drug has only a small chance of harming you if it has been tested using randomized trials, even though catastrophe such as death can still occur. The sciences that deal in measurement are very reality-oriented and specify their findings in terms of probabilities not proofs, in stark contrast with the much less reality-congruent pure sciences such as physics, chemistry and biology; the word ‘pure’ by its very nature is redolent of idealism. Why is it that applied sciences are seen as the poor relations of natural science? I believe it is their lack of idealism that explains this. They have lesser status because they are not truth-finders, they are merely the artisans who deal in day to day problems explained in terms of probabilities, whereas the physicists deal in ‘cool’, they are the dominant figuration of scientists who are the custodians of the faith because they control the thing of ultimate value as the apostles of the mathesis, the absolute truth. If people were asked to explain the workings of the universe, I would suggest that two types of answer would dominate: 1) supernatural accounts such as God 2) models developed by physicists such as Newton, Einstein even Heisenberg, although the biological Darwinian model is now a close rival.

Leaving the supernatural aside, although it must be said that in all the above there is an element of mysticism as Comte suggested, the high status accorded to physicists is I believe, constituted on the basis of their expertise and love affair with idealism in the form of pure mathematics and to a lesser extent, philosophical logic: see the work of Karl Popper. Even though this elite figuration of mathematical truth-finders has run into a red light signalled by the inability of Einstein’s model to explain the world of sub-atomic particles, physicists and theoretical scientists still insist on a mathematical discourse that speaks in terms of ideals. So, rather than ponder the possibility that the boundary between the macro-universe (stars and planets) and the micro-universe (sub-atomic particles such as baryons and quarks) is actually a problem of idealistic method, Heisenberg ingeniously revamped the old method by invoking the ‘Uncertainty Principle’ and a new mathematics. Thus in true idealistic form we have a dichotomy: we are certain about the big part of the universe and uncertain about the little bits. Instead of looking for a more reality congruent, radical model, lead by the facts, we continue re-branding the old idealism. It may well be that in reaching the limit of certainty and crossing over to the mathematics of uncertainty, we have been brought face to face with relative uncertainty because neither ends of the dichotomy are feasible – Einstein nor Heisenberg. However, to investigate the ‘Relative Uncertainty Principle’ may require the total exhaustion of the old way, (M-theory gives the impression of something akin to this happening) before a more reality congruent model can be developed.

The use of the word ‘Relative’ is very important because it distances us from the idealism of the ‘certainty-uncertainty’ dichotomy, suggesting a continuum comprised of degrees of certainty/uncertainty with no definitive limit to either. Based on my experience I would suggest that like the rest of our knowledge of the universe, the world of tiny events is not ‘Uncertain’ as per Heisenberg; it is ‘relatively uncertain’. Only mathematicians, other than God or philosophical logicians, can provide the ideals of certainty or uncertainty, to act as guides in our search for knowledge. However, the mistake is to assume that they are knowledge in themselves, when in fact they are an aid for comparison, a useful means of modelling or approximating the world. Consequently, we spend large amounts of time considering ideals and issues of certainty and uncertainty and too little on the practical problems that employ the real nuggets of knowledge provided by applied science that embrace relative uncertainty by allowing us to calculate probabilities. This may be explained by the preference of established business-oriented figurations and their allies for truth over relative certainty.

However, high reality-orientation does not immunise applied scientists from idealising infections that can paralyse their models, any more than Soviet style communist governors could eradicate religion. Social science, and more pertinently for this discussion – sociology, is I would argue, a case in point and offers further insight on the way idealism can subvert scientific goals. I think it can be argued that the development of sociology has been hampered by figurations within its ranks idealistically committed to the politics of inequality: sociology has been colonised by people whose main purpose has been to use it as a base in the battle for authority in areas such as class, sex and race. Accordingly, sociological perspectives have too often been motivated by sheer moral outrage, rather than the relative detachment necessary for scientific analysis of social problems. This is not to say that class etc. should not be researched; it is the goal of that research which is at issue. If by investigating scientifically social problems sociologists produce findings that explain relative inequality then fine. If however, research is motivated by a wish to establish the ideal of equality, it is not scientific and therefore not sociology. Such a programme motivated by the need for authority that idealism can provide will suffer from too large a dose of what theometaphysicians call subjectivity, or, what I would prefer to call, after Elias, ‘relative involvement’.

Too much research done under the auspices of sociology, especially in the field of theory, has I would argue, been carried out by people from figurations dedicated to ideals such as equality, who should have proffered their ideas as philosophy, politics (as opposed to political science), cultural theory, literary criticism or journalism. The involvement of such people, often highly influential, disrupts not only the scientific character of the discipline, but also clouds the vision of those who practice it. Perhaps the most prominent example was the importation of Marx’s philosophy into sociology, with its blend Hegelian idealism and underdeveloped science: Marxism is arguably a piece of humanitarian conviction politics, that speaks of absolute truths rather than probabilities. As opposed to benefiting from Marx’s insights by refining the scientific aspects of his model, especially his attack on idealism, too many sociologists have been preoccupied with pursuing, re-analysing and justifying his metaphysics – why is this? Because like Marx they want the authority to change the world rather than understand it in a more realistic way; their agenda is political, it is about the fight for influence to attain personal ideals, not science. Such a process is evidence of the still pervasive influence of philosophy through conceptual habits that allow us to pursue ideals disguised as science, even in a world of greater uncertainty. Thus, it is easy to exclude sociology from science and call it a branch of the humanities, subservient to the philosophers.

The problem is in part a function of the special place that sociologists inhabit in the community of scientists, because in order to establish their right to exist as bona fide members of the figuration they had a bigger fight on their hands with the traditional figurations of truth-finders: the theologians and philosophers. One of the pioneers in this process, Auguste Comte, felt the full force of their stigmatizing influence, which is ongoing, as a reading of Michel Foucault testifies who has contributed to the vilification of Comte’s concept of positivism. It was not so easy for theologians and philosophers to assimilate sociologists into their ranks as they had the physicists, because sociologists were immediately identifiable as rivals, competing for dominance in the same field of expertise – human moral knowledge. The threat posed by earlier natural scientific figurations to the old orders of truth-finders was met with fierce resistance, as the likes of Copernicus and Galileo found out. However, as we now know the development of scientific figurations could not be stopped, even by the still formidable Roman Catholic Church, as the more reality-focused business-oriented figurations became more influential. The natural philosophers (early scientists) were I would suggest ameliorated, a job made easier because the natural philosophers were claiming expertise over the relatively uncolonised ground of the material universe, Genesis apart. Nevertheless, their activities were closely chaperoned by the ancient truth-finders, to produce a new amalgam of knowledge that mixed together theology, philosophy, mathematics and science – deism. In contrast, sociologists were a threat of a more serious order on account of the fact that they were disputing ownership of the same area of knowledge. Just as later scientists such as the figuration headed by Darwin have attracted so much fierce resistance, sociologists have been subjected to very aggressive attempts to undermine and discredit their approach.

It was arguably not until the 19^th century that the threat from natural scientists became truly manifest, with the emergence of a historicized scientific account of life forms in the shape of the Darwinian model. The arrival of the de-theologized theory of natural selection, has attracted very intense anti-scientific resistance from the start, which arguably continues to provoke unrest as the attempt to reassert the various theological orthodoxies by contemporary groups of religious fundamentalists testifies. The emergence of sociology was a pre-cursor to these hostilities, as a historicized science intruding onto the hallowed ground of human morals. The birth of anything is fraught with problems, made only worse if the new arrival is perceived to be a direct threat to the established: the reaction in ancient Egypt to the arrival of Moses springs to light as a mythical example. For the traditional guardians of moral knowledge, a sociological explanation undermined everything they had laboured for millennia to produce, by suggesting that knowledge was something that changed with time. Such a conclusion is anathema to the truth-finders whose raison d’être is defined by the search for stability; a programme by its very nature, resistant to a historicizing approach to knowledge. Consequently, the raw material that sociologists had to develop, inherited from the truth-finders, was almost starved of any historical content having been thoroughly scourged of such corrupt material by theologians and philosophers committed to ideals. Not only was the raw material of sociology in need of a thorough transposition, it was relatively easy to re-colonize by 20^th century idealists, waiting for the first major hiccup in sociology’s theoretical development when both Parsonianism and Marxism were found wanting as what Thomas Kuhn called a ‘paradigms’.

3 The Applied Sciences: anti-idealism.

3.1 A possible anti-idealist response to understanding contemporary authoritarianism through the use of figurations.

In tackling this question I want to draw attention to the difficulties experienced by anti-idealistic forces such as applied sciences. One possibility is to explore the re-emergence of authoritarianism in late 20^th century Britain from a social scientific point of view using the concept of figuration. This might at first glance seem a strange venture, as sociology is not usually associated with the more usual candidates for membership of the applied sciences such as computing, engineering or forensics. However, from my point of view the social sciences are about the application of a scientific approach to people and therefore qualify as applied sciences. In addition and more pertinently as regards this essay, the main factor that defines membership of the applied sciences is the existence of a high level of what Elias termed ‘reality congruence’ (a close correspondence with the facts), higher even than theoretical physics. My argument is that high reality congruence is negatively correlated with idealism: the nearer you commune with the facts the less opportunity there is for idealism. In this sense we cannot be non-idealistic for there are no definitive ends to a continuum: we are always influenced by our values, thus there are just degrees of realism/idealism. Because of its close proximity to the facts applied science is I believe, anti-idealistic.

I want to return to certain features of the re-emergence of authoritarianism in British politics since the late 1970s. A figurational analysis could examine the network of interdependencies between what on the surface appear to be groups in conflict such as the Conservative and Labour Parties. What has always intrigued me was to hear Tony Blair and Gordon Brown speak of their admiration for Margaret Thatcher, someone who did serious damage to the Labour Party and its allies. Foucault for example might have cited this as evidence of the dominance of a new authoritarian discourse that emerged in the late 1970s and which has patterned political thinking of all varieties ever since. If this were the case, it would be extremely difficult for those who were resistant to its arguments to do anything other than conform, or at best post their disagreement in a manner that is consistent with its rules of engagement: which is arguably why Foucault got involved in taking action at a local rather than national level, where discursive forces were less well organised to resist.

As with other structuralist types of analysis, this style of argument under-represents the people to whom it supposedly relates, in favour of the discursive systems they use, thereby turning a blind eye to the web of interrelationships that bound Thatcher, Blair and Brown together as a political figuration, where certain styles of thinking, speaking and acting became acceptable. None of this trio operated alone or with personal freedom; their thinking and behaviour was moderated by those around them. In other words giving a style of government the title of a person such as Thatcherism is misleading because it ignores the complexities of the web of social connections and influences that bind people to each other, in a similar style of authoritarian government, even though they are enemies. Nonetheless, such structural processes, be it social or discursive, should not dominate the analysis to the detriment of the people involved. Whilst Margaret Thatcher did not drive her perspective through single-handedly, as the politics of individualism would suggest, she was part of a figuration of people with significant amounts of influence who marshalled their allies to bring about change, moving the British economy back towards a market model and reducing the activities of certain parts of government. A figurational approach favours neither structural nor individualistic perspectives by exploring the processes of social influence that bind people together.

Politics is a rich ground for idealism and therefore often dominated by flights of fancy rather than factual understandings. In the recent British election of 2010, there was one loud and constant call, that seemed to unite the parties of whichever persuasion; that Britain needed ‘strong and stable government’ as though this alone would guarantee our future well being. I never heard anyone saying we want competent people to govern, of any variety. The suggestion is that stable, strong government which results from an overall majority in parliament is a precursor to success. This is a view that I believe does not stand the test of the material facts. Both Thatcher and Blair had landslide majorities and neither made Britain ‘Great’ again. No! – at the last election the old ideals of strong and stable government were peddled out once more, the ideals that would help one or other figuration to establish an authoritarian government where they could implement their preferred plan with minimum resistance, thoroughly mixed with ideals to disguise their incompetence and abuse of social influence. Such talk of stability is an ingredient in an orthodox meal of ideals that goes back to ancient Greece and probably further, useful to justify authoritarian approaches in established figurations, served up by the theometaphysical truth-finders. This is not driven by discursive rules, it is driven by figurations of people competing for influence: the ideals are the technology of influence use by people in figurations with similar ambitions of control. Nevertheless, in places where democratising and civilising processes are well developed, such that there exist large numbers of figurations of people with high levels of self-control, there is enough relative detachment around in those with significant social influence to make it more difficult to quietly exterminate those who resist like Thomas More. Even so, this does not guarantee the development of a surge in interest in more reality congruent applied sciences as idealism is still highly valued.

 2.3.3 The king’s new clothes – 20^th century idealism dressed as history – Michel Foucault.

My initial reaction to the previous sentence was to write ‘Idealism has reasserted itself’. The fact that I wanted to make such a statement is an example of our tendency towards idealism, as if it has a force in itself. It is as if ideas and discourses drive us rather than our emotions. Thus idealism plays a role like some sort of immanent spectre influencing life’s activities. The truth-finders still have enormous sway even though many contemporary philosophers have abandoned any attempt at establishing the truth, by disguising themselves as anti-authoritarian radicals, as if by being anti the established, they somehow qualify as agents of the move away from absolutist styles of oppression. It is however I would suggest, just a different brand of oppression because its roots are firmly linked to idealism, a prime example being the very influential French philosopher Michel Foucault.

Foucault put together his archaeological approach to history as an alternative to the normal type of history that exhaustively examines the documents people leave behind in order to construct a once for all, correct interpretation of past events. Such an enterprise was impossible, believed Foucault, and so he put together what on the surface seemed a more realistic, empirical approach that treated the writings of the past as if they were merely objects; the debris left behind by people about whom we can know very little. His programme was heavily influenced by structuralist arguments that gave priority to systems such as language. From this point of view human thinking and activity is conditioned by biological, logical and linguistic patterns: Lévi-Strauss’s use of binary systems and Noam Chomsky’s conclusions on the deep structure of language are two influential examples. Thus the author is rather like the record or cd player in a hi-fi system, simply relaying the different pre-recorded messages according to a pre-determined format. This structuralist style of analysis that Foucault adapted demotes human creativity to the level of conformity and writes people out of their own history; more realistic? – how absurd.

This is how philosophers operate, even philosophers of the 20^th century. They construct models to suit ideal processes taking too little heed of factual evidence. What is important to them is the model and its purity; the facts are made to fit the ideal-type, comparatively unmoderated by reality. Foucault revised his earlier fundamentalist enterprise reinvigorating history to a degree with people, but only as far as Nietzsche’s arguments would allow. The post-structuralist method that emerged saw knowledge as a piece of technology that was used by powerful groups to dominate others. However, Foucault was still, even after his conversion, very reticent to identify the actual people that wield intellectual and discursive power. We hear about the outcomes, the discourses such as La Mettrie’s Man Machine and Bentham’s panoptical model for creating order, but never really go behind such accounts to analyse the variables that are involved in the human practice of power or what I prefer to call social influence. It is all very nebulous and cloudy, merely suggestive of human activity and nothing more; he never fully locates people in their own lives.

As far as I can see this is because he was an idealist and therefore capable of being certain/uncertain! – absolutely convinced that the problem of meaning is insurmountable, and that, as a result, there cannot be any possibility of absolute truths in history. This is the logical absurdity of Foucault’s position because in his certainty that there are no truths he has discovered one – no meaning. For an idealist there is therefore only one possible alternative – the absolute uncertainty of ‘relativism’. Relativism, not to be confused with relative, is the idealist answer to the conclusion – ‘there is no absolute truth’. If the latter is accepted then all we are left with is opinion, multitudes of truths dependent on the numbers of people who can enunciate views, because there is no method of judging what is right or wrong in what they say. These are the stark, dichotomous alternatives that denote a non-realistic analysis: absolute truth or relativism. It’s a pity Foucault did not learn this other lesson from Nietzsche, that the gap between dichotomies such as ‘good and evil’ is not empty. Whilst Nietzsche’s analysis is itself idealist, it does point to the real experience of dichotomies such as right and wrong as being too simplistic. In the real world of ‘relative uncertainty’, there are always other ways of looking at things, other perspectives – it is never this or that.

On the surface Foucault’s analysis seems quite a plausible, integrating philosophy with elements of history, psychology, literary theory, economics etc. It would appear from this that in accepting the impossibility of finding the definitive meaning of historical documents he has gone beyond his philosophical forebears and their obsession with absolute truth to a more liberal, less dogmatic position. He has drawn our attention to a range of discursive objects (texts) that testify to the ways in which knowledge is defined in the battle for power and dominance. He has unmasked the Enlightenment fraud that science is liberating and beneficial. He has revealed uncertainty everywhere. Yet he does this by removing the people, by washing over their relatively autonomous existences and the meanings they gave to their lives, with a set of axioms built on an ideal that the meaning of what people in the past say to us cannot be understood. There is no attempt to compromise by suggesting that we can understand others sufficiently to do science for example. If we can’t understand all, then we understand nothing.

In ditching collective meaning Foucault abandons people. Meaning is a shared thing, like language it does not exist without figurations of people and cannot be ignored just because the model doesn’t cope. In abandoning any attempt to research collective meaning, Foucault makes the assumption that all meaning is individual as per Nietzsche, and that life is a battle to impose your meaning on others. This is essentially an intellectual exercise, the application of a truth-model to history that makes no sense in the reality focussed world of science. There is in Foucault little attempt to check the facts and modify the model accordingly – this is another idealistic enterprise that frees off the writer from the bonds of social accountability giving them maximum autonomy to exhaust their prejudices, disguised as skilled philosophical argument. As such it legitimates individual self-indulgence, excuses the shirking of responsibility and absolves people from personal guilt – it is postmodernism, ‘Je ne regrette rien’. Another form of authority based in idealism.

What we find therefore by the end of the 20^th century is a recognition that uncertainty abounds coupled with a deep suspicion of certain types of authoritarian governance yet a continuing and profound belief in idealistic ways of seeing. So what is it that explains the still pervasive appeal of ideals such as uncertainty?