Random quote
It is the nature of extreme self-lovers that they will set a house on fire if only to cook their eggs.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Travelling with Bacon

To the trains

Travelling is of all time. Only the means to travel have changed, and even these haven’t changed as much as we might think. Travelling by air is new, indeed, but you can see a car or train as an updated version of a coach. A car, so an automobile, actually is nothing but a cart with a motor, and a train actually is a number of carts coupled together pulled by a cart with a motor. Also the reasons for travelling haven’t fundamentally changed such as business, family visits, tourism, pilgrimage, study and exploration, and nomadic travels. What has changed over the years is the timescale of travelling. Today travelling goes faster. Moreover, it has become cheaper. The result has been mass tourism, a new phenomenon, indeed.
Humans have always travelled, even if the circumstances were difficult and dangerous. I have often been surprised how much, for instance, medieval people have travelled. Erasmus (c. 1467-1536), the great Dutch humanist, was born in Rotterdam and went to school in Deventer. He got his doctorate in Bologna in Italy, after having studied in Paris for some time, and he died in Basel, after having lived in several towns and cities in Western and Southern Europe. Erasmus rarely stayed at the same place for a long time. Also his Dutch predecessor Rodolphus Agricola (1444-1485) is a case in point. He was born in Baflo, a village in the north of the Netherlands near Groningen; he studied in Erfurt and Cologne (Germany), Leuven (Belgium), Pavia and Ferrara (Italy); and over the years he travelled often between these places. After having worked in Groningen for some years, he moved to Heidelberg (Germany), where he died, after having become ill on a trip to Rome. Or take Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425), Ibn Batutta (1304-1368/9), and Zheng He (1371-1433/5), who were also avid travellers, not to forget all those prehistoric travellers whose names we’ll never know. Travelling is in our genes.
Montaigne (1533-1592) loved travelling, too, though he did it mainly in France. However, once Montaigne made a trip through Switzerland, Southern Germany, Austria and Italy. His travel journal has become famous, although he had written it only for himself; not for publication. Also Francis Bacon (1561-1626) has travelled quite a lot. He has travelled around in France and has been to Italy and Spain as well. He travelled mainly for educational reasons and for performing diplomatic tasks. He was about 20 years old then. In his days the habit arose that young men of good breeding made a “grand tour”, an educational trip through Europe and especially to Italy. We see this reflected in Bacon’s essay “Travel”, an essay full of advice. Just this makes the essay interesting for the modern reader, for many modern tourists travel not only to relax (like lying on the beach) but, if possible, they also want to learn something.
One of the first of Bacon’s advices for travellers is to learn the language of the country to be visited. I think he is right and during many trips I tried to learn a bit of the local language (not counting the fact that I know the main languages of Europe and have a basic knowledge of some other languages). But makes it still sense? How often doesn’t it happen to me now that I begin to speak, say, French or German and I get an answer in English! How annoying if you want to use the local language. Anyway, if you don’t speak the local language (and if the locals don’t speak English, I want to add), it’s good that you are accompanied by a teacher or a servant who does and who also knows what to see there, so Bacon. Nowadays, there is hardly any traveller who can afford this, but in modern terms we can say: Travel in a group with a tour guide or take part in local tours with a guide, and use the internet in order to find out what there is to see where you stay.
What then are the things you must see on your trip, anyway? Bacon gives a list of some fifty “things to be seen and observed”, too many to list here, but – in modern terms – he recommends to go to all those things that, indeed, modern tourists usually visit, too: Churches, monasteries, old buildings, ruins, museums, old cities, libraries, gardens, etc. and he advises us – again translated in modern terms – to go to shows, theatre performances, etc. Actually, it’s nothing new. However, what is quite remarkable for a modern tourist, Bacon tells us also that “… weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows … are not to be neglected.” The killing of a human was apparently seen as a show in those days. But would it be different today if there were still public executions? Even more, here and there in the world capital executions taking place in front of a large crowd still happen.
Then a list with travel advice follows. In short:
- keep a diary
- don’t stay too long at the same place; also when you’ll stay in the same city for some time, change your accommodation now and then
- avoid your compatriots, deal with the locals, and go to local restaurants
- take advantage of the advice and recommendations of the locals and others known with the region where you stay
- avoid quarrels and problems during your trip and avoid the company of people who might bring you in trouble

- after your return home, keep contact with some people in the region you visited
- and last but not least: “let [your] travel appear rather in [your] discourse than in [your] apparel or gesture; and in [your] discourse let [you] be advised in [your] answers rather than forward to tell stories; and let it appear that [you do] not change [your] own country’s manners for those of foreign parts, but only plant some flowers of what [you have] learned abroad into the customs of [your] own country.”

But for how many modern travellers is their trip nothing but living in an enclave and how many have stories to tell, anyway, let alone that they can give answers about the trip?

Random quote
In taking revenge, a man is merely even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is his superior; for it is a prince’s part to pardon.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Note
Pass over: To forgo. If you wrong me and I pass over revenge, that means that I don’t try to harm you in return.
Prince: A ‘prince’ is a supreme leader. Any king may be called a prince.
Source: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bacon1597.pdf

At the top

Some time after Montaigne, also Francis Bacon (1561-1626) has written a book with essays. Some say that he has been inspired to do so by Montaigne’s Essays, but this is not certain. Anyway, like Montaigne’s essays, they are still widely read. Insiders say that they have been written in beautiful English, but this is difficult to judge by me as a non-native speaker. What I know is that they have been written in a clear style. They are much easier to read and understand than Montaigne’s essays. On average, they are also much shorter. Like Montaigne Bacon treats a wide range of subjects, like truth, death, revenge, love, atheism, travel, prophecies, ambition, etc., but no military subjects (which you find among Montaigne’s earlier essays, though not among the later ones). Much of what Bacon writes is still worth consideration for the modern reader and applicable to the present world.
Take, for example, the eleventh essay, titled “Greatness of place”. With “place” Bacon means “a position with power and responsibility in some enterprise which may be governmental, military or commercial”, as the Glossary to the edition of Bacon’s essays used here explains, and the place is “great”, because it “is famous or conspicuous or the like.” We could think here of the position of political leaders, CEOs and the like. Such leaders should be [my words, for Bacon writes “are”] “servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business”. I write “should be”, for I often have the impression that they are servants of themselves, but that’s another matter, which I don’t want to discuss now. Anyway, being servants, these leaders, so Bacon, “have no freedom in their persons, in their actions, or in their times”, which makes it strange that someone wants to become a leader, also because the way to the top is laborious and takes much pains. However, once there, many high placed people refuse to give up their positions when the time to do so would be there: “[T]hey don’t want to retire when there is reason for them to do so … in old age and sickness…” Indeed, especially in authoritarian states (but not only there), we see that leaders often stick to their place, “although they thereby offer age to scorn.” Not always, wisdom grows with the years. However, and that is a related problem Bacon points to, people at the top tend to lose self-knowledge and become “strangers to themselves”. They depend for their “self”-knowledge on how others see them, and, I want to add, then they are vulnerable to flattery and emotional manipulation.
After this “description” of those at the top, Bacon goes on to a series of advices for them. I think this is the part of the essay leaders can learn the most from. Learn from others that had the same position as you have now, from what they did well and wrong, and be an example to others, so Bacon. And then – and I think that this is especially presently important, as it is often ignored – “Try to make your course regular, so that men may know beforehand what they can expect from you;·… don’t noisily raise questions of jurisdiction. … Preserve … the rights of inferior places; and think it more honour to direct them from above than to be busy in all of them. Embrace and invite helps and advice concerning the carrying out of the duties of your place; and when folk bring you information, do not drive them away as meddlers, but hear in good part what they have to say.” I have added italics in my quotation, and I think I don’t need to explain which world leader I have in mind…
And so the essay goes on. It’s not very long, and I advise you to read it yourself, since it helps you better understand the behaviour of some world leaders today and what they do wrong. However, I want yet to pick out a few passages and remarks by Bacon that I find highly relevant in the present world situation. Bacon mentions four vices of authority: delays, corruption, roughness, and facility [being too flexible]. I think that the problem of delays and corruption needs no comment. By mentioning facility, Bacon is afraid that it makes the leader vulnerable to trickery and favouritism. About roughness, he says: “[S]everity breeds fear, but roughness breeds hate. Even reproofs from authority ought to be grave, and not taunting.”
Some leaders think that it is necessary to comment on what their predecessors did. Bacon does not advise against doing so, but he says: “Use the memory of your predecessor fairly and tenderly; for if you do not, that is a debt that will surely be paid when you are gone.”

Bacon’s essay “Greatness of place” ends here and so here I should end my blog, too. However, I can’t resist adding yet two quotations from Bacon’s next essay “Boldness”:
“Just as there are mountebanks—itinerant quacks—for the natural body, so are there mountebanks for the politic body; men that undertake great cures, and perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, but have no grounding in science, and therefore cannot hold out.”
Then follows a warning by Bacon against people who cannot keep their promises: “So these bold men, when they have promised great matters and failed most shamefully, if they have the perfection of boldness they will slight it over, and change course with no more ado.” As if nothing happened and nothing went wrong, they go on.

Think before you act and be considerate, but those at the top think that they are almighty.

Random quote
A lot of people are gullible, who in their approval are not guided by the argument itself, but by the person who speaks, no matter how much he says implausible and contradictory things.

Rodolphus Agricola (1444-1485)

Cultural misunderstanding

I think that all of you know about them, but nevertheless again and again we fall into the trap: cultural misunderstandings. I got the idea to write about it when I was reading about the question whether people do or don’t line up, when they wait somewhere, like at a bus stop, for a counter, etc. There appears to be much variation. For example, David Fagundes (pp. 1187) writes: “Within some cultures, the practice of queueing … is taken for granted. Americans, for example, tend to take the norms of the queue very seriously, and treat them as having independent moral force… Sweden also ranks among the world’s highest-queuing societies... And at the height of the Nigerian oil shortage in the late 1970s, patrons at petrol stations waited in well-organized lines despite the pressure of a resource crisis... But not all nations take the queue this seriously. For example, concern for queue priority in Switzerland is low, and lining up is not standard practice when waiting for service.” Then a footnote follows: “One observer wrote, ‘[f]or such a polite society, the Swiss can’t queue. At bus stops, train platforms, and cable car stations, it’s a free for all. Scrum down, elbows out, and every man woman and child for themselves.’ ” (my italics; see Fagundes for the sources)
Is it true that the Swiss don’t queue? Physically maybe not as much as the Americans or British do, but as someone objects: “People complain that Swiss have no ‘queueing etiquette’ ... instead of standing in a line (like other cultures think is normal) we’ll just all stand around randomly. But each person waiting knows that ‘those people’ were before them when they arrived ... doesn’t matter what order ... and this guy came after me ... as long as he doesn’t cut in front then all is ok ... and similarly that guy is watching the woman who came after him... This seems like an efficient way of queueing...” And in fact it is, though it is not queueing physically but mentally. To my mind, thinking that the Swiss don’t queue is a clear case of a cultural misunderstanding: A failure to understand someone, a custom, habit, institution, situation, etc. properly because of a lack of knowledge of their society and ideas, values, norms and the like. It is setting your own stamp on other manners of doing without understanding them and their backgrounds well. It often makes that those other ways of doing are seen as weird, rude or in another negative way, and so as inferior to yours. And even if not seen as inferior, cultural misunderstandings can lead to awkward situations, avoidance behaviour if not to conflict.

Although the example of a cultural misunderstanding just mentioned is a bit surprising – since one could expect an investigator of a social phenomenon to have an open eye for possible variations in the phenomenon studied (and indeed, elsewhere in the literature on waiting in line I have found descriptions of such mental queueing) – it is understandable that in daily life many people fall in the cultural misunderstanding trap. Daily interactions are often complicated and to “reduce” miscommunications and “weird behaviour” to cultural misunderstanding in the first place would be a kind of objectivation of your communication partner and not taking him or him seriously as a person (in a sense!) and seeing that person as “a case” and not as an individual. Moreover, what is not permitted in one situation may be permitted in another context. For example, somewhere on the internet I found this example: “One Canadian woman with a Pakistani background told … she was always annoyed by the question ‘Where are you from?’ when living in a Canadian suburb. To her, it sounded like, ‘You’re obviously not from here.’ But when she moved to Dubai, she welcomed the question. Given that 90% of the people in Dubai are not from Dubai, it was a natural way to get acquainted.” Besides this, doesn’t mutual understanding need to come from two sides? Often it is reasonable to expect that your communication partner also has a feeling for the possibility of a cultural misunderstanding.
Some think that cultural misunderstandings have something to do with a language barrier. Of course, a language barrier can be a source of confusion and misunderstanding, but as the Sustainability Directory website makes clear, cultural misunderstanding is “a deeper issue that touches on how we perceive the world and interact with those whose perspectives differ from our own” and ignoring or not recognizing them can have many negative personal and social consequences, as said. One such a consequence is that “[c]ultural misunderstandings often give rise to stereotypes, which are oversimplified and often negative generalizations about a particular group of people. These stereotypes can then lead to prejudice, which is a preconceived judgement or bias against individuals based on their cultural background. When people hold stereotypes, they tend to interpret the actions of others through a distorted lens, further reinforcing their biases. This can result in discriminatory behavior and unfair treatment, creating a cycle of misunderstanding and conflict.” And once there, prejudices and stereotypes are by far more difficult to overcome and remove than by simply explaining and clarifying the misunderstanding, which initially would have been enough, before the prejudice or stereotype had established. In the end the effects of prejudices and stereotypes can be devastating for the victims.

I’ll end with a few examples of cultural misunderstandings, some serious, some less serious:
- Greetings: While cheek-kissing is common in some countries, including in case one meets someone for the first time, it may be unfamiliar to others from cultures where handshakes or bows are the norm.
- Business encounters: In the Netherlands, for example, meetings and negotiations must be kept short and to the point. Other cultures take their time before coming to the point and see this even as necessary because they place more emphasis on building relationships.
- Appointments: In some cultures, arriving at the time appointed is strictly observed, while in others punctuality is flexible.
- Communication: In countries like the US, UK and the Netherlands, speaking directly, openly, and concisely is normal and valued, while in other cultures it is seen as rude, and more indirect ways to approach your communication partner are the norm.
- Personal questions: What are considered personal questions and so not asked, certainly not in first contacts but often also not among people who go along very well, differs from culture to culture.

The consequences of cultural misunderstandings can be quite annoying to say the least and can have far reaching negative consequences, but who would like to have everything the same? And is your way really the best?

Random quote
Dissimulation is only a faint kind of policy or wisdom; for one needs a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell the truth and to act on it; therefore it is the weaker sort of politicians who are the great dissemblers.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Note
Policy: Skill or thoughtfulness in the handling of practical matters.
Politician: When Bacon speaks of someone’s quality as a politician, he means that person’s ability in the management of people, not necessarily of large numbers of people.

Source: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bacon1597.pdf

The frogs who asked for a king

Constructed from real photos; no AI.

The end of the year is always a time that we look back on what we did and on what happened around us, and we think about what was good and what was not so good and what was bad during the past year. It is also what I want to do in this blog. However, in evaluating this year, and actually the last few years, I don’t want to use my own words, but I have chosen a fable by La Fontaine. I present it without comment. I am sure that you, my dear readers, will understand what I want to say.

I wish you a Happy New Year!

The frogs who asked for a king

The frogs grew tired, by democrats beguiled,
And made the air with clamours ring,
Begging of Jove to grant a king.
He dropt one down, quite meek and mild ;
Yet fell his majesty with such a splash,
That threatened their destruction with the crash.

The marshy folk, a timid race,
Hid from their monarch’s awful face.
Down midst the bulrushes and reeds,
Each to his hole for safety speeds ;
Nor dared for days to look
At him they all for some dread giant took.
The monarch really was a log.

It looked so grave, it frightened the first frog,
Who had but just enough of soul
To venture from his lurking-hole ;
With trembling and with fear
He cautiously drew near ;
Another followed, and another yet,
Till quite a crowd at last was met ;
They grew familiar and much bolder,
And jumped up on the royal shoulder.

The peaceful king said nothing, and lay still.
Their measure of content he could not fill,
For Jove they now attacked again,
And almost split the monarch's brain :
“ Give us a stirring king ! ” they cried.

The king of gods in anger soon replied,
And sent them down a crane,
Who cracked their bones, and slew them at his pleasure,
And gulped them down regardless of all measure.
The frogs complained again, but Jove replied,
“ What ! must our will by your caprice be tied ?
You should have kept your former government ;
You would not do so, you were not content
With the kind-hearted, gentle king I sent.”

Be happy with your present curse,
For fear I send you yet a worse. 

Source
Fables, Jean de La Fontaine, Book III,4

Random quote
I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.

Psalm 120:7

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 

The narrative fallacy

People like narratives, but people also like heroes, straight lines, unidimensional developments, events that happen for a reason and destiny. If we tie all these things together and construct it into a straightforward narration of cause and effect, and omit the details that don’t fit into the main line, we have a success story, or just the opposite, a story in which the hero is doomed to go down. But beware, if you have done this, you may have committed the narrative fallacy. It’s a natural tendency of humans to make such a “summary” story, for we like clear and simple lines that make the world around us understandable. However, often the world is not that way. It’s full of confusion, disorder, coincidences, and complexity, but it is difficult to live with that and therefore we look for order, intentions and simplicity. Didn’t Hume already say that cause and effect are in the mind?
The term “narrative fallacy” was coined by Nassim Taleb – a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and aphorist – in his book The Black Swan, and further developed by Daniel Kahneman (pp. 199-200) and others. The essence of the narrative fallacy is that we prematurely create a coherent story from disconnected bits and pieces of information and leave out other pieces of the story that are relevant, either because we don’t know them or because we think that they aren’t relevant. The point is, however, that the pieces of information that we connect may have no relation at all, and that pieces that are left out may be essential. Such a misleadingly constructed story may lead to false conclusions about success or failure. Descriptions of successful life stories are often made this way: The successful businessperson had a good education, a stimulating father, took the right decisions at the right moment and knew where to invest. However, the moments that the person had luck, the contributions of others and the like are often not mentioned. Then we might think that someone with the same education, stimulating parent and drive simply must be able to get the same results. But look around, many people are like this businessperson but luck was against them because of an unexpected drop in the stock market, others were working against them, etc. Your personal contribution is only one factor in your success (or failure).
Today, it is difficult to ignore AI, and after I had typed “narrative fallacy” in my Google search engine, unrequested (for I was looking for articles) I got a summary of its most important elements. Here they are:
- Oversimplification: We reduce complex realities (like market trends, personal successes, historical events) into tidy, memorable narratives, ignoring contradictory information.
- Illusion of understanding: The stories give us a false sense of comprehension, making us believe we grasp cause and effect when we’re just connecting dots.
- Underestimating luck: We attribute outcomes to talent or intent (hard work, intelligence) rather than to chance; success seems inevitable for those who follow the “story”.
- Impact on decisions: In finance, this leads investors to chase “good stories” over data; in life, it makes us believe we can predict the future based on past narratives. However, as I want to add, “bad stories” and failures are left out, though these are (together with the good stories) important to estimate how the chances of success are.
Examples of narrative fallacies are:
- Success stories in which the success is stressed but the moments where it might have gone wrong are left out. Chance is often described as just taking the right decision.
- Financial markets: Explaining a stock’s rise with a simple story, even if multiple unknown factors are at play.
- Conspiracy theories: Crafting elaborate stories to connect unrelated events, blaming a single entity, like a person, a group or a country, in a simple manner, while leaving out many other factors and “mechanisms”.
However, as Alexey Tolchinsky says in Psychology Today: “The examples of narrative fallacy need not be extreme; we are all prone to this phenomenon. It’s a human proclivity to connect the dots quickly, which is likely related to the limitations of our minds—it is effortful for us to hold on to multiple unconnected details.”
Avoiding the narrative fallacy is above all a matter of being aware of the problem, especially, so AI:
- Focus on data and probabilities rather than just stories.
- Acknowledge the role of randomness and luck.
- Be sceptical of simplistic explanations for complex events.
Nevertheless, being aware is often not the solution but the problem itself: People often think that they are aware of the problem and next interpret the facts just so that they fit into their prejudiced stories, while leaving out, just because of their prejudices, relevant facts as irrelevant. Is it surprising? As Kahneman says (ibid.): “Narrative fallacies arise inevitably from our continuous attempt to make sense of the world.” However, so he continues: “The explanatory stories that people find compelling are simple; are concrete rather than abstract; assign a larger role to talent, stupidity, and intentions than to luck; and focus on a few striking events that happened rather than on the countless events that failed to happen.” Could it be else? “[N]o story can include the myriad of events that would ever have caused a different outcome. The human mind does not deal well with nonevents.” We have come full circle.

Random quote
We know that sometimes in war fortune is more impartial than the disparities in forces would suggest. Surrendering would instantly render us hopeless, but by resisting we will preserve some hope of success.
                                                                    Thucydides (c. 460 – c. 400 BC) 

Characteristics of the Enlightenment

Spinoza enlightens the world
(image constructed from real photos; no AI)

Recently, I attended a lecture on Spinoza, and at the end someone asked the speaker: Do you think we are experiencing the end of the Enlightenment these days? I think that you know that Spinoza was one of the founders of the Enlightenment, and the question was relevant in the context of the lecture. The question pointed to the present rise of authoritarian leaders; the increasing suppression of the freedom of expression; blaming your opponents for the simple fact that they are your opponents, especially in politics; etc., etc. You’ll know what I mean. Now I think that these tendencies are dangerous and should be stopped, but speaking of the end of Enlightenment is yet a step too far at the moment. Movements in history go with ups and downs and temporary setbacks are not unusual. I think that since the end of the Middle Ages, on average, the world has become more enlightened. It is like a gradual upward wave motion. Nevertheless, in view of the present political crisis, I think that it is good to ask: What are the characteristics of the Enlightenment? This in order to better understand and realize what is going on and what we need to defend.
What follows are the main characteristics of enlightenment, as I see them; not so much of the Enlightenment as a period in the history of ideas but as a standpoint towards the present world and towards our fellow human beings. So, maybe I should rather say that this blog is about the question “What are the characteristics of an enlightened attitude?”

I think that the core of an enlightened attitude is tolerance towards others and their opinions and views, even if they are different from yours. However, this is quite abstract, so let me fill it in. The characteristics that follow don’t only refer to the direct relations between individuals, but also to the general political situation, which has a broader influence on the way individuals live.

- Not authority but reason and rational thinking are the guides to truth. In case we have different opinions about how the facts are, don’t determine what is true by a call on authority, status, position or ancient scriptures, but look for concrete facts that support or just refute what we think to be true. Don’t blindly accept what an authority says but think self. Accept that some questions cannot be immediately answered. Maybe later, maybe never. That’s especially the case for moral and ethical questions. Therefore, differences in opinion and ideas are normal; not objectionable.
- Have respect for individuality, for self-governance, and for individual, personal rights. Basically, people have the right to fill in their lives in their own ways, as they wish. Human rights are a clear expression of this point.
- Montaigne always said: What do I know? Montaigne lived before the Age of Enlightenment but can be seen as a precursor. Life would be impossible without accepting certainties and securities. Without them, you cannot act and you would be like Buridan’s ass. Nevertheless stay sceptical. Things can be different from what they seem. Be open to questioning established beliefs, authority (religious and secular), judgments and prejudices, and superstition. Accepting authority because it is authority is the first step to suppression of freedom.
- Observe and discover the world and don’t be afraid to know. Do this in a methodical, systematic way. This makes it easier for you and for others to detect mistakes. Share your knowledge and methods with others, so that they can discuss them. Accept that you can learn from what others think about them. Open science and public scientific methods are the foundation of knowledge and progress.
- Everybody has the right to know and to be free. Nobody is better or worse than someone else. Since in practice there is much inequality between humans, emancipation and liberation from the inability to think independently must be stimulated. It’s why free education is so important.
- In order to stimulate enlightenment in the political field separation of church and state and the separation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers (the so-called Trias Politica) are important as ways to prevent tyranny and the oppression of freedom of expression of one’s thoughts if not of the freedom of thinking itself.

Without a doubt I could have added more characteristics of an enlightened world, but I think that I have mentioned here the core of what is at stake in the present world. Look around and draw your conclusions and think about what can be lost and is difficult to regain once lost.

Random quote
There is never doubt in the soul because of what is doubted ... Doubt will just exist because of a second idea, which, however, is not so clear and distinct that we can draw any conclusions from it with regard to what is doubted; in other words, the idea that makes us doubt is not itself clear and distinct.

Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677) 

Where did Spinoza live?

Spinoza's Opera Posthuma (Posthumous Works) with the Ethica,
 published in 1677 by his friends after his death. 

As regular readers of this blog will know, I am not only interested in philosophical theories, views and ideas, but I also like to visit places where philosophers have lived and worked. So, when I was in Egmond in the northwest of the Netherlands, I visited the places where Descartes had spent many years when he lived in the Netherlands. And when I was in Basel in Switzerland this summer, I made a walk along the sites where Erasmus lived in the last years of his life. In Innsbruck I looked for places that Montaigne visited during his journey from France to Rome. And already quite a while ago I had been in the room in his castle near Bordeaux, where he wrote his Essays. Later I went to Bordeaux, where Montaigne also had a house and where he has been buried. But where lived Spinoza, the most famous philosopher of the Netherlands – with Erasmus – and one of the founders of the Enlightenment? So, I took my camera and went looking for his traces.

The Waterlooplein in Amsterdam. The house where 
Spinoza was born was about where the church is.

Baruch de Spinoza – his Portuguese first name was Bento and his self-chosen Latin name was Benedictus – was born on 24 November 1632 in Amsterdam in the Jewish quarter. His parents had fled from Portugal, because Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism. The city of Amsterdam had made an island in the Amstel River available to Jewish refugees where they could settle, although they were free to live elsewhere in the city, if they preferred. Where Spinoza exactly lived in the Jewish quarter is not known. About 140 years ago the area of the Jewish quarter was reconstructed and the houses were demolished. So, the house where Spinoza was born and passed his youth doesn’t exist anymore. Now you find there a square, the Waterlooplein, and in 1986 the present Opera and Ballet House and Town Hall have been built there. In 2008 a Spinoza Monument made by Nicolaas Dings has been erected on the square.

The Spinoza Monument on the Waterlooplein in Amsterdam

When he was 23 years old, Spinoza was banned from the Jewish community. Maybe it was because his religious views strongly conflicted with the Jewish religion; maybe other reasons were involved, too. Since then Jews were no longer allowed to have contact with Spinoza. He moved to the Latin School of Franciscus van den Enden (1602-1674) on the Singel in Amsterdam. It is not known exactly where the school was located. Van den Enden taught Spinoza Latin, put him in touch with the classics, and inspired him. About then Spinoza learned how to grind lenses. Grinding lenses and making microscopes and the like became the way he made his living.

The house where Spinozahuis lived in Rijnsburg

We don’t know when and why he moved, but in 1661 we find Spinoza in Rijnsburg. Probably he moved there that same year. Spinoza lived in the house of the surgeon Herman Homan. Maybe, Spinoza moved to Rijnsburg because regularly the Collegiants met there, a group of people with religious views that conflicted with the teachings of the official Reformed Church and that were not unlike Spinoza’s views. Rijnsburg was on walking distance from Leyden with its well-known university, so it was a place that allowed Spinoza easily to stay in touch with other scholars. In Rijnsburg Spinoza started to write his Ethica (Ethics).
In 1663, Spinoza moved to Voorburg near The Hague. He lived there in the house of the painter Daniel Tydeman in Kerkstraat (Church Street). Spinoza will have met there both Constantijn Huygens Jr. (1628-1697), statesman, poet and scientist with a special interest in lenses, as well as his brother Christiaan (1629-1695), the famous mathematician, scientist, etc. Their father, the politician and poet Constantijn Huygens Sr. (1596-1687) had built a mansion in Voorburg. Spinoza kept working on the Ethica here.

The house on Paviljoensgracht in The Hague
 where Spinoza had rented a room

In 1670, Spinoza moved again, now to The Hague. He had room and board with a widow on the Stille Veerkade, but because it was too expensive for him, in May 1971 he rented a room in the house of the painter Hendrik van der Spyk on the Paviljoensgracht, just around the corner. In 1670, Spinoza published anonymously his Theologico-Political Treatise. It was forbidden by the authorities in 1674. During his years in The Hague Spinoza finished his Ethica. He died on 21 February 1677 in his room.

Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague where Spinoza was buried

Spinoza was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in The Hague. There were many people present at the burial. Spinoza had been buried in a rented grave, and the grave was cleared in the 18th century. His remains were buried in the churchyard together with remains from other graves. Now you find a gravestone (from 1927) and a monument (from 1956) at the place where this may have happened. Soon after his death, his friends published Spinoza’s Ethica and other manuscripts as the Opera Posthuma (Posthumous Works). 

Gravestone and monument for Spinoza in the courtyard
of the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague

Stone bricked in the wall of the Spinoza House in Rijnsburg

Ah, if all men were wise

And wanted good!

The earth would be a paradise.

Now she is most of a hell.

Dirk Rafaelsz. Camphuysen
(Dutch poet, 1586-1627) 

Inutilities

In his essay “Of vain subtleties” (Essays I, 54) Montaigne writes that “there are a sort of little knacks and frivolous subtleties from which men sometimes expect to derive reputation and applause: as poets, who compose whole poems with every line beginning with the same letter.” Writing such poems was fashionable among the rhetoricians of his days. They excelled in writing poems with literary tricks. For instance, the Dutch national anthem, written about 1571 by an unknown author and the oldest national anthem in the world, consists of fifteen verses and the first letters of all verses together form the name Willem van Nassou, also known as William, prince of Orange and count of Nassau, the leader of the Dutch struggle for independence. However, so Montaigne, such vanities are not only mental but also physical, for he tells us that “the cloth of state [=canopy] over our tables is not permitted but in the palaces of princes and in taverns.” What is the use of it except as a showpiece in honour of the owner?

Such “vain subtleties” were not only typical for Montaigne’s time. He found them already among the old Greeks. It’s not surprising: “Tis a strong evidence of a weak judgment when men approve of things for their being rare and new, or for their difficulty, where worth and usefulness are not conjoined to recommend them.” This human characteristic that existed already in the past still exists today. Political leaders want to display their omnipotence and glory with useless projects like highways that nobody needs or by building palaces that are by far too big for themselves, but that are full of gold and gleam. The private palace of the former Romanian dictator Ceaușescu (toppled in 1989) is a case in point, but also the present renovation of the White House in Washington, D.C., the residence of the US President, belongs to this category. But such vanities are not more than striking extravagances, if one realizes that in fact the economy of the western societies is based on such inutilities. There are shops and websites that (literally!) sell “Useless Gifts” and even such products like golden toilet paper or bricks for $ 30 each. However, these are only marginal cases, for a walk through a random city centre will show you what I mean: Look how many fashion shops you find there. Do we really need all those clothes? How often it happens that people wear the clothes they have bought there only once or twice (or never!) and then throw them away (sometimes only after years, ashamed that they bought it?). But also in supermarkets, where we buy the products we really need each day, the choice of products is so big that I wonder why. Do we really need a choice of, say, more than ten types of toilet paper? Not to mention websites like TikTok that try to sell products like fashion and makeup in the first place and to the most vulnerable groups like children in the first place; groups of people who actually don’t have the money for it and products they don’t need and often are not worth the money. As Sander Bais wrote in an article titled (translated) “Of vain subtleties” (indeed, inspired by Montaigne’s essay): “The point of things is mainly that they are sold... Advertising and media firmly show us the way to fulfilling our needs while also dictating what those needs are. Big Brother determines which creams we should put on our skin, which meatball to swallow, which films we should have seen and which books we will like very much.” Are you surprised that such a society, so a society economically founded on inutilities, vanity and superfluity, is on the way to its own ecological destruction?
Although Montaigne, then, couldn’t see yet this actual meaning of his words in this essay – so in spite of himself –, as so often he holds up a mirror to us. But we see our image and close our eyes.

Random quote
A moment’s reflection reveals the deep counterintuitiveness of lines: That in a culture with an increasing sense of impatient demand for material goods and a decreasing sense of community, the overwhelming majority of people wait politely in queues, respecting the priority of complete strangers who they are unlikely to ever see again.

David Fagundes (Emory University School of Law, Atlanta (GA), USA)

Intention and luck

Photo taken in Amersfoort, NL, on the Boogschutterplein

At the end of my last blog I raised the problem that often it is not easy to say whether a person performed an action or just did something. Of course, a part of the solution will depend on how you define “intention”, although it doesn’t guarantee a solution. In my PhD thesis I defined “intention” this way: The intention of an action is the answer to the question to what purpose or why the actor performed this action. Let me apply it to the case of Carl in my last blog:
Carl wants to kill his rich uncle because he wants to inherit his fortune. He believes that his uncle is home and drives towards his house. His desire to kill his uncle agitates him and he drives recklessly. On the way he hits and kills a pedestrian, who happens to be his uncle.
Carl killed his uncle because he drove recklessly and Carl had the intention to kill his uncle and if he could have done it this way, probably he would have done it. Moreover, that Carl drove recklessly was because he had the intention to kill his uncle. Nevertheless he did not kill his uncle then and there intentionally. Is the best answer to the problem then that what Carl did (in my sense) was killing his uncle and that this killing was not an action? Maybe, and probably a judge would judge that way, but nevertheless, in view of my definition of “intention”, a possible objection is that Carl’s intention of driving then and there was that he wanted to kill his uncle and, indeed, he did so by driving then and there, and so his intention or at least the purpose of his intention was achieved as a result of his intention. He could have chosen to stop because he was driving recklessly, but he chose not to do so. Therefore, Carl intended to kill his uncle, and he killed his uncle because of his intention. So, he executed his intention, albeit in a deviant way. Isn’t there a lot we achieve by luck and we say then that it is my achievement that I succeeded? Maybe there is no luck without an intention.
I leave it to you to analyse the other cases in my last blog (and to criticize my solution of Carl’s case), but can intentional action be a matter of degree, or a mixture of luck and intention? This is what I wondered when I read about Connie’s case: (Source; adapted)
Connie, who has never shot a bow and arrow, is offered a large cash prize for hitting the bull's-eye on a distant target that even experts normally miss. She carefully aims and shoots, hitting the target dead centre in just the (direct) way she hoped she would. Was Connie's hitting the target an intentional action? Note that Connie has no natural talent for shooting a bow and arrow: she tries equally hard to win even larger prizes for duplicating the feat, tries it many, many times again, but does not even come close. (Mele)
So, can I say to have an intention just because I try, though knowing that actually I have no chance to succeed? And if I succeed, was it intentional? Maybe, you say “yes” but what then is the difference between Connie’s case and a lottery? Okay, in case of a lottery, you don’t have any influence on the result, while when trying to hit the bull’s eye, at least you can aim in the right direction. Nevertheless, you don’t know how to handle a bow and how to hit the bull’s eye. Your intention was hitting the bull’s eye in order to win the prize, but technically you didn’t know how to hit. Your hitting the bull was not deliberative and therefore not intentional. Connie cannot say why she shot this way. Her shooting was like buying a lot in a lottery. She just did what she did.
But suppose now that Connie has become a member of an archery club. She is yet a beginner, but in the club she hits the bull's-eye 25% of the time (a). Then she has become more advanced and she hits the bull's-eye 50% of the time (b). Some time later she even hits the bull's-eye 80% of the time (c). And after some years she got the title of markswoman in her club, because she hits the bull's-eye at least 99% of the time. She knows – maybe intuitively – how to hit the mark (d). Before she gives it a try, she can say “I’ll win the prize” for in fact it is sure she will. For her it is no longer a lottery but it is like driving her car. You have to learn it, but once you know it, you simply do it. But how about case (a), the 25% case (or even less than 25%, if you like). Can we say then already that Connie hits the bull’s eye intentionally? Or in case (b), the 50% case? Etc. When can I say it was my intention to do so; I did it intentionally; I did it deliberatively? When don’t I need to say anymore that something happened to me but that I made it happen? Maybe we cannot achieve an intention without any luck.

Random quote
Whichever side a crime comes from, whether it is in the name of the throne or the state, it is equally appalling, godless and monstrous. History can never acquit the perpetrators; whatever lofty euphemisms a crime is given, whether it is called “the king’s will” or “the sovereignty of the people”, a crime remains a crime. A people has no greater right to revenge than an individual, and a crime committed by the many is no less awful than a crime committed by one person.

Michel Masson (French author and journalist; 1800-1883)

Actions and doings

AI photo by https://perchance.org/ai-text-to-image-generator and edited by me.

In my blog last week, I stated that I don’t perform an action when I kick the ball and break the window unintentionally. Of course, it is something I did and I am responsible for breaking the window, because I should have been more careful when kicking the ball; and maybe it was not the right place to play football there, because there was too great a risk that I would break the window. This example illustrates that it makes sense to make a distinction between doing (something) and performing an action. I want to speak of doing in case of an unintentional activity or if it is open whether the activity was intentional. An action is then an intentional activity. In this blog, I want to restrict the meaning of doings to unintentional activities (so leaving out the possibility that doing is a general term for every human activity). I’ll also ignore Von Wright’s distinction between “with an intention” and “intentional”: Here, an intentional activity is an activity with an intention.

I want to restrict the meaning of doing also in another way: A doing is not a mere physical movement of my body like a knee reflex. A knee reflex is not something I did, although it was my knee that moved and although it was a consequence of my physical setup. It was not someone else who lifted my knee (although someone may have touched it with a hammer). The reflex happened to me; it was a piece of behaviour.
So, a doing is an activity unintentionally performed by me but that didn’t just happen to me. How is this possible? To make this clear, I want to use Anscombe’s idea of “under a description”. (see her Intention) Take this example (which is from Davidson, 1980, pp. 4-5, though): I come home and there is a thief in my house, which I don’t know. I enter my house and turn on the light. The thief sees the light and so he knows that I have come home and flees. Afterwards, I can describe what I did in different ways. I can say that I turned on the light, but also that I alerted the thief. These are two activities I did at the same time. What I did depends on the way I describe my activity. However, there is a significant difference between these descriptions: I did one, turning on the light, with an intention, while I alerted the thief unintentionally. Or take again the kicking the ball case. Here, too, my activity can be described in two ways: “Kicking the ball” and “Breaking the window”. Also in this case, one activity was intentional and one wasn’t.
What does this mean for my distinction between doing and performing an action? Both turning on the light and kicking the ball were my actions. Breaking the window and alerting the thief were doings. However, the latter activities can only be performed if they can be described as actions as well. Say, I trip over a stone, I fall and I break a window. Can we say that I did it (in the sense of doing used in this blog)? No, for tripping over the stone happened to me. It was a piece of behaviour at most and not a doing. There is an alternative description as an action in the case that I broke the window while I was playing football, namely that I kicked the ball intentionally. However, there is no alternative description as an action in the case that I broke the window when I tripped over a stone and fell. Note that in the first case I must pay the window, while in the second case maybe the person responsible for the bad condition of the road must pay. We can analyse Davidson’s case in the same manner, for example if I alerted the thief because I tripped over the threshold and alerted him by the noise.
What this analysis has taught us is this: A doing is an unintentional activity that can be described as an action in an alternative way. An action is an activity under an intentional description. (And a body movement is a mere piece of behaviour, if it is neither an action nor a doing and if the body is not moved by someone else).
Nevertheless, matters are not that simple. I am playing football and I kick the ball many times. I know that in this way I damage the grass. However, I had no intention to do so (it would be better if it wouldn’t happen). Moreover, I was allowed to play football there. Must we say then that damaging the grass was something I did (in the sense used in this blog)? This raises the question: Was it relevant that I damaged the grass by kicking the ball? Any action has unintended consequences, but not all consequences can be ascribed to me as my doings in a sensible way. Doings cannot be seen as unintended activities without regard to their relevance.
Or take these cases, described in my blogs On philosophical puzzles and Philosophical puzzles:
- A man tries to kill someone by shooting at him. He misses his victim by a mile, but the shot stampedes a herd of wild pigs that trampled the intended victim to death. (Daniel Bennett)
- Carl wants to kill his rich uncle because he wants to inherit his fortune. He believes that his uncle is home and drives towards his house. His desire to kill his uncle agitates him and he drives recklessly. On the way he hits and kills a pedestrian, who happens to be his uncle. (Roderick Chisholm)
- A climber wants to rid himself of the weight and danger of holding another man on a rope. He knows that by loosening his hold on the rope he can rid himself of the weight and danger. This idea makes him so nervous that it causes him to loosen his hold, and the other man falls into the depths. (Davidson)
The question is then: Were these killings doings or actions? Were the victims killed intentionally by the actions performed? Can you do something intentionally? Or, can you perform an action unintentionally even if you act with an intention? Maybe killings can be doings and not actions, even when you tried and so intended to kill the victim by what you did. 

Random quote
Science is a form of arrogance control.

Carol Travis (1944-) and Elliot Aronson (1932-)

Positive and negative actions

In my blog two weeks ago, I argued that waiting – if it is not a waiting that happens to you, because, for instance, you are in a lift that suddenly stops and you need help – is an action, albeit one of a special kind. A reader of my blogs commented that we can call this waiting a negative action (or act). Actions like walking, riding, or driving away can be called then positive actions. It’s a good point. However, I prefer to speak of active and passive actions, since actions like waiting give you the feeling that you are doing nothing and so that you are passive, while “real” actions like walking etc. suggest that you are actively involved.
Negative or passive actions are certainly not exceptional. Known passive actions in philosophy are omitting and allowing. Let’s take allowing. Most philosophers see it as an action, and if it is (and I think it is), this has deep consequences for our moral responsibility. Why? The difference between doing and allowing is sometimes described by saying that doing is making things happen and allowing is letting things happen. I think that the difference is more general than only between doing and allowing and that it applies also to the distinction between active and passive actions. Generally speaking, an active action can be described as making things happen, and a passive action as letting things happen. Then, allowing is a passive action, as said. However, the distinction just defined implies that both active and passive actions are actions. When I kick the ball and break the window, I caused the window to break. It is something I did, but was it an action by me? For it is not what I wanted to do. It was an accident. And much is happening in the world around me and we often don’t know what is happening. Can we say then that we allow these things to happen? No, of course. We can only say that we allow something to happen if we know (or could know) about it and are able to intervene (see my last blog). Therefore, I want to describe an active action as intentionally making things happen, and a passive action as intentionally letting things happen. This definition makes clear why we are responsible for what we allow. It’s not because we let things happen as such but because we let them happen intentionally, which implies that we had the explicit possibility to intervene. In a way, this is also so when we are waiting, but in this case the question of responsibility seldom matters.
I want to mention yet another difference between active and passive actions. An action can succeed or fail. I think that it is clear when it succeeds: The intended result is achieved by one’s doings, no matter whether the action was active or passive: Both the action and the result are there. However, things are more complicated in case an action fails. Basically, an action fails if it is not there, or if the result is not achieved, although the action has been performed. Again, this is clear for active actions. (In fact, it’s more complicated for “practical actions” in the sense of Aristotle, but I’ll ignore this here) But how about passive actions? If we haven’t waited, or haven’t allowed, can we say then that these actions failed? Usually, we see it as a success if we didn’t need to wait, as much as when what we were waiting for happened. Also, in case we do not allow something to happen, it’s not simply that our consent is absent (in the sense that an active action failed, for example like not being able to buy a book because it was out of stock), but we have taken another decision (note that the question is discussed here from the perspective of the person who does or doesn’t give the consent; not from the perspective of the person who needs the consent). And in case what we were waiting for didn’t happen, we waited in vain, and so our waiting was without a result, indeed. Nevertheless, we waited (although the active action “buying a book” didn’t take place, in case the book was not in stock). Similarly, if we allowed something to happen, but in the end what we allowed didn’t take place, then nevertheless we did allow it.
I leave it at these sketchy remarks but much more can be said about it.

Random quote
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788) wrote about 250 years ago:
Nature’s productive capacity is so great that the quantity of this vegetal humus would continue to augment everywhere, if we didn’t despoil and impoverish the earth by our planned exploitations of it, which are always immoderate.

Is waiting an action?

Bus stop in Paris

My readers may have noticed that I have become increasingly interested in “boring” questions of daily life, such as waiting. Waiting is often boring for those who are waiting, so many who wait seek distraction using their smartphones. But is waiting also philosophically boring? We spend much time on it, so from that point of view waiting should be an important theme in philosophy!
On the face of it, waiting seems a passive affair: it happens to you. Suppose, you have an appointment with a doctor, and she is not yet there. Maybe you arrived early or she is still busy with another patient. Then you have no option but to wait. Or you arrive early at the bus stop or the bus is late. Also then you can only wait, although it is not your choice. It just happens. On the other hand, when you go to a doctor or want to take a bus, no doubt you take it into account that you must wait. In that sense it is not something that just happens to you. It is not an accident like a car that hits you while you are walking to your appointment or to the bus stop. It belongs to having an appointment or taking a bus, though, if possible, you would prefer not to wait. So, at the same time waiting is something that happens to you and it is something you do, for you don’t cancel the appointment or leave the bus stop. This raises the question: Is or isn’t waiting an action?
What actually is an action? In my PhD thesis I explained that we call what we do an action if we do it with an intention. Now I think that we cannot deny that waiting is something we do. Although you can only wait when the doctor is not yet there or when the bus has not yet arrived, nevertheless it is not something that only happens to you, as we have seen. In fact, you chose to keep waiting. In case an accident happens to you, you are there “at the wrong place at the wrong moment”. Not so when you wait. Maybe you didn’t arrive at the right moment (and that’s why you must wait), but you are there at the right place, anyway. You have chosen to be there and not to walk away, although you may not have chosen to wait as such. You actively prefer to wait because you consider it the best option in the given situation. It is not so that you are forced to wait. If the lift suddenly stops and you cannot go out, you push the alarm button, and wait for help. In this case you are forced to wait. It is not something you do, but it happens to you. Such a wait is comparable to the case that you trip over a stone and automatically try to keep your balance. But such waiting is exceptional.
So, usually you wait because you have chosen to wait, since it is the best you can do in the situation at hand. You choose to wait, because you have reason to do so, namely the thing you are waiting for (the treatment by the doctor; going to the destination where the bus will bring you). If you had nothing to wait for, there would be no reason to wait. Moreover, you have considered that the best you can do is to realize this “for” now at the place and time you have chosen. You could have preferred to come at the last moment, but then you would run the risk that the bus has already left, or that nevertheless you must wait because the doctor has already given your turn to the next patient. Therefore you prefer to come a bit early and wait. So, your waiting is intentional, actually in two respects. Firstly, you are waiting for something, and this something (like the treatment by the doctor) gives the waiting sense. It is the purpose of your waiting and with that its main intention, in the expectation that your purpose will be realized, if you wait long enough. Secondly, you have incorporated deliberately some extra time, so that you will be sure to be in time for your appointment, for the bus etc. Even if the bus is late, or the doctor is still busy with another patient at the time of your arrival, you keep waiting, expecting that it will not be in vain. In short, waiting has an intention in view of your purpose and the extra time you have incorporated and so it is done intentionally and that makes it an action.
In analytical philosophy, an action is often represented by a practical syllogism (PS), so by a scheme like this (see my PhD thesis):

(1) A intends to bring about p.
(2) A considers that he cannot bring about p unless he does a.
(3) Therefore A sets himself to do a.

In this PS A refers to the acting person or actor. In line (1) of this PS we find the purpose p of the action we want to explain. Line (2) tells us which action a the actor will do to realize the purpose. Line (3) tells us that the actor starts to act according to his or her considerations in lines (1) and (2). If a waiting is an action – and not just happens to us like when we are in a lift that suddenly stops – it must be possible to describe it with such a PS. To my mind, it is easy to do so, since the “for” of what you are waiting for refers to your intention (so the thing you want to bring about) and with that to your purpose p, and the waiting is something you must do, for if you don’t, p will not be achieved. Of course, waiting is not the only thing you must do in order to reach your purpose, but it is a necessary part of what you must do to achieve your purpose or otherwise it will not be achieved. (If you leave the doctor’s waiting room, your appointment will not happen) In other words, waiting belongs to the means to achieve your purpose.
So, for the case that John goes to a doctor because he has an appointment with her, you get a PS like this:

PS (waiting)
(1) John intends to go to the appointment with a doctor.
(2) John considers that this appointment will not happen unless
- he leaves his house no later than time x and goes to the hospital
- and waits there till the doctor calls him for his appointment (in case the doctor is still busy with another patient, when he arrives in the hospital).
(3) Therefore John leaves his house no later than time x etc.

PS (waiting) shows how waiting fits in a practical syllogism in line (2) of the PS-scheme that contains the description of the action that must be performed in order to achieve the purpose. Such a PS can be constructed for any waiting, unless it is of the type of waiting for help in case of an accident like a lift that suddenly stops.
I have now shown that waiting is an action. In line (2) of PS (waiting) we see that waiting is not the whole and only action an actor must perform to achieve a certain purpose, but it is one of them. Many actions are links in an action chain. Or, from another point of view, many actions can be divided into several smaller steps or “partial actions”. All these partial actions belong to an overall action or “umbrella action”, in this case the umbrella action “going to the appointment with a doctor”.
The upshot is that, although waiting seems like a passive, not active, if not boring manner of achieving a purpose, in fact it is something you do with an intention and this makes it an action. Waiting is something you actively do.

ONE MILLION views

My philosophical blog reached a milestone: Today my blog passed the magical limit of

ONE MILLION views.

I started writing these blogs 18 years ago with the idea of only writing for myself. But I published these thoughts since you write better if you have an audience. But apparently the readers of these thoughts appreciated them and over the years more and more people have started reading my blogs, and the number of readers of my blogs is still increasing. And so it happened that today I passed the milestone of one million views.

!!! THANK YOU ALL !!!