disarming reviews.

This review of John Kekes' The Human Condition by Jussi Suikkanen has a disarming quality to it.

"The upshot of this difference between our practical perspectives is that either Kekes fails to capture the human condition from the properly internal perspective, or I'm failing to function as a human agent." Suikkanen then summarizes Kekes' book before returning to three objections. The latter two of these seem eminently reasonable [even if I have some sympathy for Kekes' neo-Aristotelianism], but the first does make me wonder about the nature of the agency of Suikkanen (whom I have never met.)

I quote Suikkanen: "Firstly,I do not understand what it would be to take my own attitudes as the objects of critical reflection. Imagine that you were in front of a large and colourful tapestry in an art gallery. Now, imagine also that someone asked you to describe what visual experiences you are having of the tapestry. In this situation, it is impossible to turn your focus solely inwards to your own attitudes. All you can do to answer the question is to look outward to what the colours and shapes of the tapestry are, and describe them. This is how we can only indirectly come to know our experiences of the tapestry by being acquainted with the tapestry itself as an external object. This idea is often called the transparency of our attitudes. The same goes also for our practical attitudes and critical practical reflection. Try to come to a conclusion about what you desire to have for breakfast. All you can think of are the different qualities of the different foods you could have and how desirable they are because of those qualities. You will not be able to access your practical attitudes by looking inside to your mind (it is not even clear what this would be like). This also goes for the process of correcting our practical attitudes such as desires. It too must be directed outwards -- for instance, to the reasons why toasts are better than cereals -- rather than to anything inside us. Because of this kind of transparency of our attitudes, I cannot image what it would be to take only all my attitudes as objects of thought and to correct them, where this would not be considering the world outside me and the reasons out there."

1. In the gallery example, Suikkanen seems to be beholden to a kind of "myth of the given." S/he ignores an option. S/he writes "it is impossible to turn your focus *solely* inwards to your own attitudes. *All* you can do to answer the question is to look outward to what the colours and shapes of the tapestry are, and describe them." Well, no. You can describe the colours and shapes as well as your feelings/emotions. There are lots of ways of 'seeing'--some colors and shapes are patterns of objects/images, etc. And these resonate.

2. This so-called transparency of attitudes is almost certainly (a theory-induced) self-deception. (One does not need to be committed to Freudian psychology to see this.) This is why we require others to discern many of our attitides.

3. In the breakfast example, there is also a remarkable insistence that practical attitudes are *entirely* outer-directed "All you can think of are the different qualities of the different foods you could have and how desirable they are because of those qualities. You will not be able to access your practical attitudes by looking inside to your mind (it is not even clear what this would be like)." Hmm...this seems remarkably ignorant of most modern advertising, which insists that our consumption/purchasing habits can be transformative of the kind of persons we are (and want to be). While there is much to resist against the moral-psychological presumptions of modern consumer society, *even* our breakfasts are often NOT at all about the qualities of the food, but much more about the values/status of how we like to make and see ourselves.