"Devine, James" wrote:
>
> Ali writes:
> > FOR THE SUBJECT MATTER, OF ECONOMICS THE FUTURE
> > DETERMINES THE PRESENT (people plans determine what
> > they do now)? FOR PHYSICS THE PRESENT DETERMINES THE
> > FUTURE (where the particle is at present determi,es
> > where it is going to be in the future?
>
> it's only _expectations_ of the future that determine the present and those
> expectations are based on past events (including those of a minute ago).
> JD
I think Jim's take is too narrowly "economic." Ali's version works
better if taken at a higher level of abstraction -- and over greater
historical time. Operating from the taxonomy of 'states' offered in
Plato's _Republic_, try asking the question, "What is the temporal
location of the _meaning_ or _reality_ (as opposed to appearance) of an
act. Plato categorizes states "psychologically," i.e. in terms of the
structure of motives that characterize them. Then, very roughly:
1. An Aristocracy and "Aristocratic Man" (Plato calls it a Timocracy):
Motive or Internal Reality of an act lies in the _PAST_. That is, the
(landed) aristocrat acts to preserve the status which he inherited, and
pass that on to his heirs. The reality of an act is the reality defined
by that past which is to be preserved. The Aristocratic man is
_ambitious_ in the sense of wanting to make visible what he is. (More on
this below)
2. An 'Oligarch' and Oligarchic Man. Preliminary: I've never been quite
sure of the social actuality of Plato's "oligarch.' His description of
the oligarch has misled some historians, marxists (e.g. George Thomson)
and non-marxcist, to see Athens as an almost capitalist economy. For the
oligarch's motive is _money_, and in Plato's terms, he lacks _ambition_.
Ambition is the desire to show what one is (i.e., to make visible the
past embodied in one). The Aristocrat therefore spends money freely and
generously: he is liberal with it. (As a result of course he is often
broke, which is the grounds for Plato's hatred of interest -- not just
excessive interest but any at all. Probably Plato thought of the
merchant as the characteristic oligarch, one who bought cheap and sold
dear. The merchant's reality was in the future: the object he purchased
was of no use to him, nor did he wish (as an aristocrat might) to
preserve or display it. It was useful only when he got rid of it. And
Plato seemed to think of him as a miser: he was fearful of expense --
i.e., incapable of either living in the present or in honoring the past.
3. Democracy and Democratic Man. The Democratic man was a spendthrift,
neither honoring the past nor caring for the future, a creature of
immediate desire. He lived only in the present. The present and only the
present was real. (Plato never quite noticed, of course, that if all one
has is what is sufficient to get through the present, then willy-nilly
one lived in the present.
Carrol
