The Conquest of Happiness: The Scientific Method Applied to Human Condition - Book IV

By Giano Rocca

The pursuit of happiness, not intended as individual, perennial, struggles to seek to remove personal unhappiness, but as the realization of a stable, conscious and shared condition, requires the in-depth knowledge of the arduous journey, carried out by the human species, for climb the steps of civilization, that is never a definitive conquest, but always in danger and with the chasm of the regression present in front of she, in the perspective of historical evolution. Some philosophers (such as Hesiod) have theorized a "golden age", stating that it was existed in the distant past of human history, understood as the age of happiness: identified by some later philosophers, such as the "state of nature", and from many religions with the "Garden of Eden". It is necessary to demythise this conception and to correctly investigate the reality of primordial societies, available to of all living species, at a certain stage of evolution. This was done in this volume, analyzing, then, the formation of more complex societies or structures, which in our view constitute, for each large organizational typology, a specific structural universe in its own right, which also constitutes, a higher level in the conquest of civilization: a higher level of civilization, characterized by a higher degree of individualisation of individuals, and a deeper expression of one's own, natural, need for sociability. These advances, which have required, to become achievable, several millennia, if not, a biological and physiological, profound mutation, fruit of the general evolution of the species, has not yet satisfied the dream of to make it achievable a society that is, actually, coherent with human nature, as well as it manifests itself in every single individual, since the current state society does not allow at all to realize the dream of an authentically happy life, and based on the conscious and responsible choices of each individual who adheres, with voluntary and conscious choice, to a specific society. The organizational modalities of such a society appear so far from the organizational and communicative abilities of contemporaries, to be supposed that we should expect a beneficial invasion of more advanced aliens, or the further evolution of cybernetics, which is able to create androids, so evolved at the point to be able of defined "sons of man", that they can teach us a new way of interpersonal communication, a new morality and a greater awareness of ourselves and of the actual historical condition in which we find ourselves living. We, however, do not despair, with the application of the scientific method, adapted for the study of human beings and social relationships, of have the chance to create a project of social organization that allows the realization of the perennial dream of human beings: a condition of conscious happiness, lasting and progressive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Giano Rocca
• Release date: May 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463915608

Giano Rocca

Giano Rocca was born in a small village in the Langhe, called Roccaverano, from parents of humble origins. After completing his primary school studies, he moved to Turin, where he attended secondary school and the University, enrolling in the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. He was a pupil of the political philosopher Norberto Bobbio. He attended school institutions supporting himself with his work, employed by the large local industry, then called "FIAT". His interests can be summarized in the study of "social" and "human" sciences, although he soon realized that knowledge in these sectors had not yet reached the episteme of science. He was primarily determined to carry out an analysis of history capable of compensating for the gaps and contradictions of current conceptions and, in particular, of Marxist analysis, whose alleged "scientific essence" has been falsified by the anti-communist revolutions that have occurred in the Soviet Union and in the countries of realized Socialism, especially in Eastern Europe. The published books aim to provide an overall view of the human condition, with particular attention to the historical reality of societies based on statehood, analyzing them in their structural complexity and their historical dynamics, to identify the possible outcome of human evolution itself. He developed the concept of degrees of civilizing, identifying the fifth level of civilizing in the "closed societies", or feudal ones, while in the "open societies", or mercantile ones, he identified the sixth level of civilizing. The sixth level of civilizing, however, appears neither irreversible, nor automatically a harbinger of further progress, which progress can only come from a metamorphosis, or palingenesis, of the human condition, which undermines the very presuppositions of organic-stratified societies, of to which the societies based on statehood, as a whole, are but the most advanced examples. To accomplish this palingenesis, neither the "class struggle" nor the social and political revolutions are suitable. It is necessary to rethink, in depth, the causes of the formation of the historical structural reality and, once the remedies have been identified, apply them to individuals and their inter-personal relationships, a premise for overcoming the conflict between individuality and sociality, defined by philosophers as the great "social problem". It is necessary to lay the foundations for the planning and creation of a sociality consistent with the most authentic nature of individuals, enhancing, and not sacrificing, their individualization. This is achieved by creating nuclei of a new type of society, which is able to fully satisfy the basic needs of individuals and their need for progress of the level of civilizing. This new type of company can be defined: SOCIETY SOCIALITARIAN.

Book preview

Biography:

Prologue:

Preface:

PART I: Universality (or Globality) of Historical Structural Reality

Chapter 1: Relative Universality of Historical Structural Reality

Chapter 2: Autonomy of the Evolution of Structural Reality Statual

Chapter 3: Justification of Historical Structural Societies

PART II: Society of an Unconscious Nature and the Formation of the Pre-Statual Structural Universes

Chapter 4: Intellectual Abilities Used by those Living in Pre-Structural Societies

Chapter 5: Relationship between the Sexes in Pre-Structural Societies and Pre-Statual Structural Societies

Chapter 6: Characteristics of Pre-Statual Societies

Chapter 7: Degree of Sociality Allowed by Societies Pre-Structural and the Pre-Statual Structures

Chapter 8: Pre-Human Species and Historical Structures

Chapter 9: Limitation of Communication: Birth of Power and of the Historical Structural Reality, as a Consequence

PART III: Historical Structures and their Articulations, or their Internal Discontinuity

Chapter 10: Essence of the Historical Structures

Chapter 11: Unaware Origin of Historical Structures

Chapter 12: Partitions, or Discontinuity, of the Historical Structures

PART IV: Causes of the Evolution of Historical Structures

Chapter 13: Psychological Causes of Structural Evolution

Chapter 14: Metatheories of the Dominant Section of Society and their Influence on Historical Evolution

Chapter 15: Optimism and Pessimism, where they are Generalized, and their Influence on Historical Evolution

Chapter 16: Conservatism, and its Influence on Historical Evolution

Chapter 17: Scientific Spirit and Structural Evolution

Chapter 18: Military Spirit and its Relationship with Structural Evolution

Chapter 19: Policy Choices, Implemented by Governments, and their Influence on Structural Evolution

Chapter 20: The Forcings, Implemented by the Policy, and by the Dominant Classes, on Evolution

Chapter 21: Structural Causes of Evolution

Chapter 22: Demographic Causes of Evolution

Chapter 23: Various Theories on the Causes of Evolution

Chapter 24: Production Development and its Relationship with Structural Evolution

Chapter 25: Geographical Position and its Influence on Structural Evolution

Chapter 26: Technical-Scientific Development and its Effect on Structural Evolution

Chapter 27: Historical Incidents and Structural Evolution

Chapter 28: Links, Commercial and Cultural, Inter-Regional, and Influence on Structural Evolution

Chapter 29: Differentiations, and Levelings, Regional, or Local, in Productive Development, as a Cause of Structural Evolution

Chapter 30: Diversity of Speed of the Evolution Among the Different Peoples, in Repetition of Cycles of the Statual Structural Universe and Historical Structures, in General

Chapter 31: The Type of Nutrition and its Consequences on Historical Evolution

Chapter 32: Climate Influences on Structural Evolution

Chapter 33: Astronomical Influences on Historical Evolution

Chapter 34: Regression Phenomena from the Universe Structural Statual at to some Pre-Statual Structural Universes

PART V: Pre-Statual Structural Universes

Chapter 35: Pre-Statual Structural Universes: Organizational Characteristics

Chapter 36: Relationship between Sexes, in Pre-Statual Structures

Chapter 37: Power, in the Pre-Statual Structures

Chapter 38: Elements Common to Pre-Statual Structural Universes and to the Universe Structural Statual

Chapter 39: Magic, and Religion, in the Pre-Statual Structural Universes

PART VI: Essence of the Metamorphosis between Different Structural Universes

Chapter 40: Metamorphosis, or Unconscious Passages, between Structural Universes

PART VII: Tribal Structural Universe, and its Specificity, with respect to the Structural Universe of the Hordes

Chapter 41: Characteristics of the Structural Universe of the Hordes

Chapter 42: Tribes and Essence of the Gentes

Chapter 43: Elements of the Metamorphosis, which leads to the Stratified Structural Universe

PART VIII: Stratified Structural Universe and its Analogy with the Statual Structural Universe

Chapter 44: Organizational Characteristics of the Stratified Structural Universe

Chapter 45: Horizontal and Vertical Division of Labor, Incipient in the Stratified Structural Universe

Chapter 46: Organization of Power in the Stratified Structural Universe

Epilogue:

Bibliography:

Biography:

Giano Rocca was born in a village in the Langhe, called Roccaverano. He moved to Turin at the age of 18, he had attended the Secondary School and the University, a pupil of Norberto Bobbio, of which he appreciated, above all, the ability to renounce his own convictions, when they proved to be fallacious, which is moreover, the basic principle of the scientific method, and this principle he pursued, until he did back to the acceptance of the Socratic principle: I know not to know.

Giano Rocca has reflected, throughout the course of his life, on this fact: if philosophy proves to be able to recognize its failure, in the absence of systematic adoption of the scientific method, it is highlighted that, in the absence of a philosophy of the history, based on sound scientific foundations, the study of history, and of the so-called social sciences, is totally vain and misleading, as it is based on ideological criteria, or a form of knowledge without the fundamental basis of demonstrability or, alternatively, of the falsifiability.

His research, solitary, wants to lay the foundations of an authentic science of society, insofar as it lays the foundations of its own hypotheses and theories, on elements that are entirely, and easily, verifiable, and can, therefore, constitute an element of progress of knowledge, if the afore-mentioned hypotheses and theories are corroborated by comparison with reality, namely with socio-economic events.

Prologue:

The conquest of conscious happiness is a long and troubled process. Contrary to what was affirmed by some philosophers (such as, for example, Hesiod), who spoke of the primordial and unconscious natural society, which is the within reach of all animal species that express their primordial sociality, in an elementary form of society, as so-called gold society, believing that the subsequent societies, provided with structures, constituted a decline, as they are no longer natural societies (namely, consistent with the biological nature of all living beings) and are not even consistent with nature human (which is different, compared to the cosmic nature, and the nature of all other biological species), and thus, do not allow the constancy of conscious happiness, which can, only, derive from the coherence of social reality with human nature, which is it materializes in every human individual. We, on the contrary, believe that the structural societies, which have supplanted the unconscious natural society, constitute, on the one hand: an artifice, with respect to animal nature, and human (in particular), and a substantially unconscious construction, and with extraneous evolutionary mechanisms to the human will; on the other hand: they are instruments of progress of universal civilizing, since because they allow us to recognize, to each specific type of society, a greater opportunity for expression of natural sociality and of self-conscious individuality and, therefore, a higher level of civilizing (compared to the level of lower civilizing) and, therefore, a gradual human and social progress. Every level of universal progress, which goes beyond the unconscious natural society (definable as the first level of civilizing) is identifiable as a historical structural universe. Only the attainment of a conscious natural society, or coherent with human nature, will allow a state of lasting conscious happiness to be acquired, but this will lead to the overcoming of historical structural reality.

In Part I of this Volume IV, of the series entitled: "The Scientific Method Applied to the Human Condition", we have analyzed the concept of a relative universality (which, with a term currently widespread, is defined, even with multiple meanings, and contradictories : Globality), to indicate a planetary diffusion of certain, and clearly identifiable, forms, of a structural reality that overlaps and conflicts with the most authentic and truly universal universality, which is human nature, and which can be defined as: absolute universality. We have analyzed, briefly, the autonomy of the evolution of, the afore-mentioned, historical structural reality, with respect to the will and awareness of the human beings involved, both considered individually and that collectively. We have, also, considered the its justifications for own existence, as the vehicle of the universal progress.

In Part II, we have analyzed the essence of the primordial state of nature, or unconscious natural society, as the first form of expression of the sociality of individuals. We have explored his characteristics, the limits (in the terms of the expression of the natural need for sociality, of every single individual) and the appreciable qualities, such as the absence of any hierarchy, discrimination and subjection of an individual compared to one, or more, others. We have, therefore, analyzed the gradual establishment of the first forms of non-natural social organization, but endowed with an organizational structure, more or less stable over time and, at first, only of type organic. We have found that the first forms of social organization equipped with structures, are not exclusive to the human species, but it is possible to traced some of his substantial elements also in possession of other species, less evolved of the human species.

In Part III of the present essay, we analyzed, as a whole, historical structural reality, of which the first forms had a purely organic appearance, while the later, more evolved forms had an organic-stratified appearance. We have classified the various forms of structured organization, grouping them into various: structural universes, thinking that the various organizational types can, each, define a specific level of the universal process of the gradual advancement of the civilizing.

In the fourth Part, we analyzed the various causal agents, which intervene to determine the evolution of the aforementioned structural reality. The evolution between the aforementioned structural universes, constitutes an undeniable progress on the level of civilizing, that is, on the level of individualization of the singles, and of the manifestation of their sociality, which constitute the two aspects of the manifestation of being, quintessence of the meaning of the existence of every living being.

In Part V, we have analyzed the various elements of the social reality of the structural universes that preceded, chronologically, but also on the plane of the progress of the civilizing, the structural universe that is based on the organizational form statual, which is the only one that can be said exclusive of the human species.

In the VI Part of the essay, we have dedicated to the analysis of the ways in which the transition from one structural universe to another happens, a passage that we have defined: metamorphosis, wanting to indicate a slow and gradual mutation, just as the transformation of the bugs in butterflies, being the passage from a given stage, or level, of civilizing to another.

In Part VII, we have, summarily, analyzed the structural universe of the hordes, which we believe has constituted the second level of the universal civilizing (being the first form of society endowed with structures), comparing its characteristics with the tribal structural universe, that is, the third level of the universal civilizing.

Finally, in the VIII Part of the present work, we have analyzed the characteristics of the stratified structural universe (classified by us, as: the fourth level of the civilizing), comparing them with the fundamental elements of the statual structural universe.

Turin, 22 January 2018

Giano Rocca

Preface:

Philosophical speculation and metaphysics have never been able to give acceptable answers, intended not as definitive, but as based on solid cognitive bases, to the questions that underlie our reason for existing: who are we? Where do we come from? Where do we go? If, therefore, these questions are continually repeated, in a way that is also cloying, it is evident that philosophy has failed its task. This failure can be ascribed to not having made the method of investigation that is characteristic of Galilean - Newtonian science: that is, the method of demonstrability (namely: corroboration), or falsifiability, of the proposed theories, allowing the accumulation of the acquired knowledge. If this method has not been applied, it is not so much due to the difficult demonstrability of the correspondence of the answers, to the real essence of the cosmic and human nature and of the historical reality which constitutes the human condition itself, in society; but above all to the veil of unknowability, which is interposed, from social reality, to the ultimate knowledge of its foundations and mechanisms. Prophets and demiurges of various ages and stature have grappled with the task of ripping through this veil of unknowability. That they have not succeeded, is demonstrated by the fact that their intuitions have been transformed into dogmas, placed at the base of religions, or political ideologies, which constitute the justification of the persistence of the historical condition existing before those same intuitions.

Science, despite its spectacular progress, has been severely tested (by a certain epistemology) in the twentieth century, and by some of its evolutions (such as, for example, the contribution of science to the construction of the atomic bomb). All of this has put science, applied to nature, into a bad light. Its application to social and human reality has not, yet, reached the status of scientific laws. Moreover, it is a general belief (even of the so-called social scientists), that in the social field it is not possible to experiment the elaborated theories. On the contrary, we are convinced that many social experiments have been carried out throughout history. For the twentieth century we can mention, for example: the Soviet Union, mainland China, the Cuba of Fidel Castro, the Viet Nam, the Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge and North Korea. But the tendency towards their generalization has been (independently of the wars of conquest implemented, directly or indirectly, by the political regimes underway in those social systems), in the 1930s, with the establishment in the West, of various regimes (or types of government), which have forced the society at to make a gradual transition to an intermediate system between the oligopolistic capitalist system and the so-called socialist systems (better defined as the intermediate systems between feudal and bureaucratic systems, of type: centralized, partially centralized or decentralized); we refer to the fascist regimes and to those pseudo-fascists, one Nazi and the so-called New Deal in the US. Another tendency to generalize (or globalize) the socialist systems was manifested, even, in the seventies, both in