The Crisis of Modern Times: Perspectives from The Review of Politics, 1939-1962

8 “On Contemporary Nihilism” (1945)

C h a p t e r 8 On Contemporary Nihilism Aron Gurwitsch Aron Gurwitsch (1901–1973) was born in Vilna, Lithuania. Under the advisement of Carl Stumpf, Gurwitsch studied mathematics, theoretical physics, philosophy and psychology, and he later went to Freiburg, Germany to study under Edmund Husserl. Husserl greatly influenced Gurwitsch, and he would spend his career continuing and expanding Husserl’s phenomenological approach. With the rise of National Socialism, Gurwitsch moved to Paris where he lectured on Gestalt theory and phenomenology at the Sorbonne and interacted with prominent French thinkers including Maurice Merleau-Ponty. He then moved to the United States, continuing his work on phenomenology and Gestalt theory at such institutions as the American Philosophical Society and the New School for Social Research. Like Husserl, Gurwitsch’s efforts in scholarship were directed towards grounding logic, mathematics, and the sciences in the structures of human consciousness by means of the phenomenological method. He believed that the achievement and promotion of human welfare in practice presupposed the acquisition of theoretical knowledge of the structures of human conditions. I At the present time, reason is not held in any too great esteem; “rationalism” is deprecated in most intellectual circles. “To believe in reason” is to be behind the times, to give evidence of a mode of thinking that is out of date, out of contact with what today is called “progress.” The “belief in reason” is now replaced by all sorts of psychological and sociological sciences: the psychology of the unconscious, of the subconscious, of behavior , of suppressed desires and conditioned reflexes. The variety of sociolo146 On Contemporary Nihilism 147 gies is no less disconcerting—not should we forget the sociological psychologies and the psychological sociologies. Formerly man was considered to be an animal rationale, a rational being; now he has become simply a vital being, not further qualified. Since man lives in community with his fellows, it was formerly the practice to inquire into the structure and organization which society ought to have in order to correspond to the rational and human nature of its members. But today no such question is raised; it is taken for granted that man, as a social animal, must adjust himself to his environment or suffer the consequence to his well-being and his happiness. It is no longer a question of whether one may or one should adjust oneself to certain social conditions: it is now only a question of what is the most effective means or technique of adjustment. Let us look a little more closely into this naturalistic philosophy. We are told that man, like any other living being, comes into the world equipped with a certain organization; he has what are known as “instincts”: primitive modes of behavior, elementary reactions. The human organization is more plastic than thatof animals;thisplasticityallowsforthedevelopmentof newreactionswhich are grafted upon the primitive modes of behavior. Depending upon the circumstances , the organization undergoes alteration and reconditioning; new modes of behavior make their appearance in increasing complexity. But, however great this complexity, every human action will forever be what it was in its most primitive form: simple reaction, behavior, produced by the functioning of the organism and conditioned by exterior stimulations. The psychological sciences are given up to the study of mechanisms which are set in motion by exterior stimulationsandtheactionof whichdeterminesthewholelifeof man.Atthesametime, these sciences are concerned with discovering the means by which the functioning of the mechanisms can be influenced and modified, and, consequently, by which any reaction acquired by an individual in the course of his life may be supplanted by a different one. Of whatever sort these means may be, or the technique of their application, they can be reduced to a matter of reorganizing and reconditioning. There are animals capable, in varying degrees, of being trained. From the point of view of the psychology we have described, man is the animal most susceptible to training. While we may not find this conception stated so explicitly or so crudely, it is, nevertheless, the basis of much that is done today, both in theory and practice. As one consequence, it must follow that such things as beliefs, convictions and ideas are to be included among reactions. To have ideas, to form thoughts, to profess a belief, these, too, are among the ways in which one behaves, in which one reacts to his environment, to other human beings and...