Jenna asked:

Why is it that when your neighbour is mowing his lawn you can smell it a good distance away?

I have a friend who likes this guy, but she doesn't know that he and I have been together. What
should I do?

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This question about the lawn would actually be regarded as a scientific rather than a philosophical
question; although science was itself once a part of philosophy, called 'natural philosophy'. Why is it a
scientific question? Because it can be explained in terms of the physical structure of things; or to put it
another way, the answer can be discovered by investigating, experimenting, observing.

Although I've said your question is scientific rather than philosophical, I do think we shouldn't be
over-eager to draw lines cutting philosophy off from other areas of knowledge and study. There are
areas of overlap — for example, cosmology and quantum physics seem at present to be leading
scientists in the direction of more philosophical questions.

As I studied quite a lot of science at school, I will try to answer your question as best I can. As far as I
understand it, when your neighbour mows his lawn, the grass is cut and crushed by the mower,
releasing its juice, which is the smelly part of the grass. The juice rises into the surrounding air as a
vapour. When this reaches your nose — perhaps quite a little way away — you smell the grass.

Your second question could be regarded as a philosophical question — a matter of practical ethics.
To put things very simply, in ethics, you can basically either decide what action to take by considering
the possible consequences, or you can choose to act in accordance with certain ethical principles.

If you were to consider the consequences of action in this case, you would need to think about what
the effects on your friend and the guy she likes might be. Would a possible course of action have
good or bad effects? You could, for example, decide to avoid telling your friend that you and this guy
have 'been together', if you feel this will cause less pain or unhappiness to your friend than telling her.
Alternatively, you might think it will cause less unhappiness if you tell her now, than if she found out
later.

If you were to act on an ethical principle, it might be something like 'It is always wrong to hide the truth
from a friend'. Do you agree with that?

How will your friend feel if she finds out that you and the guy she likes have been together? Will she
be angry with him? Or with you? Do you fear you might lose her friendship? Or his? Do you know
unpleasant facts about him that you feel she should know? There are many issues to consider here,
and no simple correct answers.

Katharine Hunt

With reference to your first question, I have been mulling it over for a few days trying to connect with
what it reminded me of. I have now remembered that when I was quite young I was blown over by a
gust of wind. Picking myself up I recall wondering how something we cannot see can exist, yet it must
exist because it has force. With hindsight I would like to think that this line of thinking was
symptomatic of the beginnings of philosophical rather than scientific thinking. Though probably the
two are indistinguishable at this age. This aspect of my brain promptly fell asleep for the next fifteen
years. Your question can I think be seen in similar way, you may have reasoned along the lines that;
something is happening some way from me. I am not in contact with the thing that is happening yet I
have experience of it. Can there be action without connection?

I am inclined to think that your question was a crossover between our personal experience of the
world and our philosophical and scientific understanding of it, and that it was a symptom of
philosophical awakening.

With regard to your second question, I have been thinking about what should be a philosophical
response to matters that engage on issues of personal relationships. We can identify three analytical
techniques commonly used by philosophers, though not exclusively philosophers. The techniques I
had in mind are those of; logic modeling, generalisation, and semantic modeling.

I just want to look at one aspect of one of these approaches and consider how it engages on one
aspect of the question. This aspect is the logic modeling of the concept of friendship.

If we think of the values of true and false and their analogues as images of the symbols that stand for
them then we can also think of the standard logical connectives as directing the flow of images in
logical space and when we visualise the world under consideration in this manner then these
connectives also direct the flow of mental images and therefore influence the way we think.

It is appropriate to characterise by digital values the flow of energy in control systems such as
electronics or even neural networks, however it does not have intuitive appeal to represent concepts
such as friendship as having on/off states rendering them capable of unfeeling calculation.

We can move in a middle ground between rational analysis represented by binary or first order logic
at one end of the analytical spectrum and response-emotivism at the other end by choosing the
values satisfaction and non-satisfaction to act as the vehicles of cognitive energy given quantity and
direction by the concepts of friend or lover. Supposing we take friendship to require the condition that
each friendship pair shares common values, then in terms of the model under discussion this would
be the requirement that a pair of friends have satisfaction in common. Referring back to the original
question we could then consider how the situation described could affect both the quality and quantity
of satisfaction in the friendship space. So by informing a friend of a past love-relationship the question
then becomes, "is my proposed action likely to increase, unchange or diminish the friendship?" Would
something be taken away, added or will the response be one of indifference to your friend but one of
loss to you? Will there also be similar transformations between your friend and her lover as a second
friendship pair and also between you and your ex-lover as the third friendship pair.

As we are taking logical connectives as our modeling paradigm we are not restricted to using
convergence as a model of the friendship relationship in fact it would be a bad model if we did
because not all of the abstract characteristics of friendship are captured by convergence of
satisfaction. We could as individuals have a broader concept of friendship such that each pair has
individual satisfaction as well as those held in common. The concept of independent satisfaction
allows the possibility that the individuals in each friendship pair may have things that add satisfaction
to one but not to the other without damaging the strength of the friendship or in the worst case
changing friendship into non-friendship.

In terms of the initiating situation the love-pair may add satisfaction to their world but not to your world
without reducing the satisfaction held in common by your friendship pair. If your friend has an
independence view of friendship whether you do or not, the new information is not likely to reduce the
quality of your friendship. This broader, divergent view of friendship gives the relationship some
immunity to differences of satisfaction. There must be some convergence but total convergence is not
required. There can be differences of satisfaction i.e. there can be situations that lead to satisfaction
to either member of the pair without degeneration of the friendship. We could consider that friendship
based on divergent-independent grounds is tolerant to differences and disagreement-indifferent in
that the denial of friendship is not brought about by their occurrence. Under this concept the limits of
friendship are wider.

We could characterise the view so far taken of the situation as one of constructing a static evaluation
in which we undertake to identify the logical constraints the concept of friendship places on the
satisfactions owned by the individuals concerned. Within this view of friendship the first model could
be considered as reducing or restrictive and the second model as opening/dilating or permitting.

We can take another view of the logical effects of friendship which we could characterise as a
dynamic evaluation in which we see friendship as an operator for change on the satisfaction states of
the affected individuals. Just as we can identify the two main dimensions of satisfaction and
non-satisfaction and the third derivative dimension of indifference within the static view we can also
identify two dimensions or fields of thought within the dynamic perspective. We could typify friendship
as a relationship that at its best has the effect of changing things for the better for one or both parties.
Friendship as an agent of change can be considered to always have promissory value and rarely
threat value for the individuals within its scope. We can understand the meaning of this when we
connect the dynamic viewpoint to the static viewpoint and look at friendship as an agent of minor
promissory value in that its occurrence will produce or increase satisfaction without necessarily
having any effect on the involved individuals dissatisfactions.

So how could viewing friendship as having the logical characteristics I have described offer
something to the situation that initiated this response? The originating question can be understood to
be a request for guidance on making a decision: to tell or not to tell, to tell some or to tell all and
implicitly, would such an action lead to diminishing or strengthening the friendship?

We could argue that if 'telling' as an agent of change reduced friendship then telling is not an act of
friendship, since friendship acts do not diminish friendship. Therefore the advice would be not to tell.

We could also argue that if 'telling' as an agent of change increased satisfaction then it is an act of
friendship since friendship acts increase satisfaction, therefore tell. We also have to consider the
possibility of the act of not-telling. If not-telling reduces satisfaction then it is not an act of friendship,
therefore don't tell. If on the other hand not-telling increases satisfaction then it is an act of friendship,
so tell.

We also need to consider the interaction of these outcomes against the two models of friendship
discussed earlier, first of convergence-reduction-prohibition and second of
divergence-dilation-permission. Looking at the consequences of the act of telling or not telling under
the convergent model of friendship you could not be sure what outcome would follow your action.
This may not matter to you. It may be that you want to create some uncertainty in the friendship. If,
however you want to maintain stability in your friendship it would be require that at least one of the
friends has an independence model of friendship and since it is you that is proposing to act, to
guarantee a stability maintaining outcome you should acquire an independence model of friendship if
you don't have one already.

All this may seem a long-winded approach to an emotionally charged issue, but the delaying effect
may be a good aspect of practical philosophical analysis. Golman (Emotional Intelligence) suggests
that the emotional drives of the 'neural circuitry of fear' are those that can lead us into impulsive and
damaging actions.

If you need a quick response to emotional impulses that will provide you with breathing space while
you reason out the balance of values that could follow an action impulse then the approach outlined
can still help.</P.

Ask the question, "is the proposed action likely to produce a change for the worse". If you don't want
this outcome then don't act while you think of an alternative. This question essentially identifies the
possible threat value of the proposed action. In terms of the question, to tell or not, the uncertainty
implies the possibility of damage to your friendship is a concern therefore don't act, i.e. don't tell while
you work out other possibilities or the situation changes.

The previous deeper analysis identifies more delicate possibilities including those that could bring
about changes for the better, those that have promissory value, in particular it would almost certainly
require the revision of your concept of friendship, even if it is not expressed in the way it has been in
the analysis in the body of this reply. It may be for example that you are led to look critically at the
particular satisfactions that go to make up your concept of friendship and not the formal connections
that have concentrated on in the previous discussion. You may for example include in your 'core
belief' (Beck) set of friendship satisfactions the universal propositions that friendship always requires
truth telling, or that friends always share knowledge. The question you have raised is clearly not a
simple one.

Readings:

Emotional Intelligence D. Golman, Bloomsbury 1996

Cognitive Therapy, Basics & BeyondJ. Beck, Guilford, 1995

Neil Buckland