Kant's idea of a history for citizens of the world

 In 1784 Kant published an essay entitled "Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht", which is available in English translation under the title "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" (translated by Lewis White Beck in 1963) [1].

The concept of the cosmopolitans, or citizens of the world has become somewhat politisized recently, with Theresa May refering to them as "citizens of nowhere" [2]. 

Kant likens human freewill to the unpredictability of the weather, noting that the weather, despite being, in Kant's time, unpredictable, maintains the conditions needed for plants to grow. Likewise, marriage may be a highly personal decision, but across a population there is a steady and predictable rate at which individuals take this decision. 

Kant's idea starts from the premise that Nature has given reason to man and man alone, and that man exists to develop and perfect a society based on reason. Nature is capitalised in Lewis White Beck's translation, reflecting the way in which Kant, in this essay, raises Nature to a god-like status as the ultimate authority. The third of the nine theses in the essay has Nature willing that man should lift himself above animal existence through the exercise of reason. Kant appears to argue that we would be wise to devote ourselves to the goal that Nature has willed. The 2nd thesis points out that the full capacities of reason cannot be realised in an individual and will only reach fruition in the race as a whole. The term used by Kant, "Gattung", could also be translated as genus or type.

The 4th thesis highlights the role of antagonism as a means to develop humanity. This thesis explores the fact that antagonism is a intrinsic part of humanity, not only between individuals but also within individuals expressed as conflicting urges to associate with others for stimulation or to seek isolation for personal contemplation.

The 5th thesis postulates that the greatest problem facing mankind is the creation of a universal civic society, and 6th points out that this is very hard, not least because it is up to mankind, with all their imperfections, to create this universal society. He goes so far as to say that nothing perfectly regular van be constructed out of the crooked timber of humanity. He does not elaborate on how this "crooked timber" came into the possession of he glorious faculty of reason. 

The 7th thesis highlights the critical role of a league of nations in creating a stable framework within which nations can develop a form of civic society appropriate to their values.The 8th posits that Nature has a inbuilt purpose and intent to promote progress, which is to be understood in terms of fully developing the capacity to reason. 

The 9th thesis proposes that a world history developed from a philosophical perspective might contribute to the efforts to built the universal civic society. 

The personification of Nature by Kant has interesting parallels in more recent discussions about Gaia by James Lovelock and others. Lovelock sees the natural world as having in-built self-regulation which is comparabel with the self-regulation in a living organism, with feedbacks established to maintain conditions within the organism which allow all parts of the organism to function smoothly.

[1] https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/kant/absicht/Kapitel1.html

[2] https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/theresa-mays-citizen-of-the-world-speech-comment_uk_57fbae0de4b04e1174a53cdf

On "Four Thousand Weeks"

Reflections on "Four Thousand Weeks" by Oliver Burkeman, subtitled "Time management for mortals".

The basic message is that many texts on time management set targets which mortals cannot hope to achieve and result in endless stress and disappointment. He discusses, from multiple perspectives, the paradox that we can achieve more by trying to do less. His arguments are backed by an endless stream of interesting anecdotes and learned references. 

 We should, he argues, learn to value our life for its own sake, rather than as a limited amount of time in which some entity which we identify as our "self" seeks to make a lasting impression on the rest of the Universe. 

 Cutting his message down, it may appear contradictory to propose that we can achieve more by seeking to do less and that whatever we achieve is insignificant, but there is a consistent message that we can avoid frustration and a sense of drift by taking a step or ten back from the target driven mentality of the modern world.

 There is some interesting commentary on the lessons of the COVID pandemic and lockdown, with reference to "The Great Pause" by   Julio Vincent Gambuto.

"4000 weeks" is an excellent and thought provoking book. While Gambuto and many, many others like him blame a "them" for luring us into a cycle of reckless consumption and destruction, Burkeman recognises are own unfortunate tendency to dig ourselves into psychological traps and the need for collective action to counteract these human weaknesses, such as the need for prescribed "weekends" when many of us are off work and we can "spontaneously" meet each other in a variety of ways. 

 

Varroa Life cycle .. a question about details of timing

Varroa Life cycle ..  details of timing

The Module 3 (extremely useful) study notes provided by the Mid Bucks Beekeeping Association include a diagram of the varroa life-cycle, on page 16, which states that “Time taken from egg to adult for males is 5-6 days and for females is 7-8 days”. These numbers are widely repeated on information pages about varroa, often together with the beautiful illustration drawn by Byron Alexander (below).

Illustration from Byron Alexander[1] (possibly from

Henderson, C, J. Steiner and B. Alexander. 1986. Varroa jacobsoni life cycle; American Bee Journal 126:117-119.

 But … in Honey Bee Pests, Predators and Diseases (Morse and Flottum) different numbers are given: 5.5-6.2 days for males and 6.5-6.9 days for females. These numbers are backed up by an article by Collinson (http://www.beeculture.com/a-closer-look-varroa-mite-reproduction/ ) which gives 3 references (Donzé and Guerin 1994; Martin 1994; Rehm and Ritter 1989) for time to maturity from egg of 5.8 and 6.6 for male and female respectively. 

Also … the 7-8 days to maturity for a female egg does not add up: if the mite lays the first male egg after 60 hours, and then a female egg 30 days later, and then we add 8 days for reaching maturity .. this would take us to almost 12 days for the first female mite maturing. To get 1-2 female mites maturing before the worker brood emerges we need a maturing time closer to the 6.5-7 time range.

The idea that a female mite takes a full 2 days longer to reach maturity than an adult is also inconsistent with the diagram on page 15 of the study notes.

Hence, I believe the shorter time of 6.5 to 6.9 days for a female to reach maturity looks more likely than the 7 to 8 days suggested by the B. Alexander illustration.

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1: More about Byron Alexander: https://archive.org/stream/entomologicalcon00byer/entomologicalcon00byer_djvu.txt