Second Enlightenment (S1,S2)
Georges Metanomski
Reminder:
The present thread is destined to discuss the rationality of the
Second Enlightenment as well as to inquire into the sources of
the irrational manipulation of masses and to look for remediation.
Its basic structure is:
X1. Scientific Revolution
X2. Ontology
X3. Ideology
X4. Social awareness
X5. Establishment
with X=F/S respectively for the first/second enlightenment.
We start by the first enlightenment as guidance to the formulation
of the second and warning of errors to be avoided.
============ =
Originally the thread was meant as a chain of posts, but proved much
too voluminous and I upload it progressively to my site.
The so far uploaded sections are:
F1.Scientific Revolution and F2.Ontology of the first enlightenment
in
http://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_F1_F2.html
F3.Ideology of the first enlightenment
in
http://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_F3.html
F4.Social awareness and F5.Establishment of the first enlightenment
in
http://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_F4_F5.html
S1.Scientific Revolution and S2.Ontology of the second enlightenment
in
http://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_S1_S2.html
Georges.
chazwin
It's all very interesting but was there any such thing as a first
enlightenment?
On Dec 30 2009, 6:21 pm, Georges Metanomski <zg...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> ==========
> Reminder:
>
> The present thread is destined to discuss the rationality of the
> Second Enlightenment as well as to inquire into the sources of
> the irrational manipulation of masses and to look for remediation.
> Its basic structure is:
>
> X1. Scientific Revolution
> X2. Ontology
> X3. Ideology
> X4. Social awareness
> X5. Establishment
>
> with X=F/S respectively for the first/second enlightenment.
> We start by the first enlightenment as guidance to the formulation
> of the second and warning of errors to be avoided.
> ============ =
> Originally the thread was meant as a chain of posts, but proved much
> too voluminous and I upload it progressively to my site.
> The so far uploaded sections are:
> F1.Scientific Revolution and F2.Ontology of the first enlightenment
> inhttp://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_F1_F...
> F3.Ideology of the first enlightenment
> inhttp://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_F3.html
> F4.Social awareness and F5.Establishment of the first enlightenment
> inhttp://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_F4_F...
> S1.Scientific Revolution and S2.Ontology of the second enlightenment
> inhttp://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/second_enlightenment_S1_S...
>
> Georges.
archytas
chazwin
The E is a pain in the academic butt!
Its a clear example of the theoretical tail waging the historical dog.
What was once a "war on religion" has become a cosy political correct
relativism club that lets in the Christians.
It's a bit of a sore point at the moment as I have to finish 5,000
words by Monday on it.
Serenity Smiles
life" me Serenity Smiles, I always said the Caths want me dead and side with
there behind looking creation!!! the (green emerald jewel on the cover, was
a visualisation that belongs to me).
--------------------------------------------------
From: "chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 8:13 PM
To: "Epistemology" <episte...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [epistemology 11184] Re: Second Enlightenment (S1,S2)
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>
>
>
chazwin
Sorry - I didn't get a word of that.
On Jan 15, 8:03 pm, "Serenity Smiles" <gentle.esse...@hotmail.co.uk>
wrote:
> I have an antidote perhaps, hit them with the sims computer game "mess with
> life" me Serenity Smiles, I always said the Caths want me dead and side with
> there behind looking creation!!! the (green emerald jewel on the cover, was
> a visualisation that belongs to me).
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "chazwin" <chazwy...@yahoo.com>
archytas
paper. I end up like a character from Orwell who can only swear in
disgust at the Double and News-speak PC crap. Insistence on generic
frames of reference is legion and there is no bottom to it.
chazwin
If I were to play the anti-relativist card on this one, it would be
like dropping a heliocentric bomb into the vatican.
I might go down the enlightenment is a discursive formation - a
retrospective re-grouping of a set of values by which academicians
reassure themselves as to their own importance. But Foucault seems to
play the Enlightenment game too.
It seems the Uni has offered everyone and extra week due to the snow.
I can't believe my luck - but can't believe the legalese email they
sent me which is totally ambiguous, either!
On Jan 16, 4:42 am, archytas <archy...@live.co.uk> wrote:
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/is a good general
archytas
the stuff and wait 400 years for a muted apology? Argument always
seems to lead to a demand for evidence from power and power's
differing ability to evade demonstration. My first quibble with the
frames of reference stuff was that, more or less, any intellectual
tradition was OK, but they all cut out massive amounts of 'evidence'
being used in interpretation and gave 'status' to the intellectual he
or she has no right to other than in an undisclosed set of 'manners'
not much different from advertising or dinner parties. In short, we
educate ourselves to a point at which we can get into a one-way gaze
with respect for others, superior to inferior, and forget reasoning
can (and should) be viewed as defeasible. Strong relativism is
useless, other than in imaginary fantasies, but my guess is the real
enemy is the 'objective voice' that pretends it is arguing, but is
really asserting control. Much of the deception lies unsaid and is
very violent.
On 16 Jan, 13:02, chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> If I were to play the anti-relativist card on this one, it would be
> like dropping a heliocentric bomb into the vatican.
> I might go down the enlightenment is a discursive formation - a
> retrospective re-grouping of a set of values by which academicians
> reassure themselves as to their own importance. But Foucault seems to
> play the Enlightenment game too.
>
> It seems the Uni has offered everyone and extra week due to the snow.
> I can't believe my luck - but can't believe the legalese email they
> sent me which is totally ambiguous, either!
>
> On Jan 16, 4:42 am, archytas <archy...@live.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> >http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/isa good general
chazwin
On Jan 16, 5:13 pm, archytas <archy...@live.co.uk> wrote:
> No doubt it's relativist snow too! What can you do other than write
> the stuff and wait 400 years for a muted apology? Argument always
> seems to lead to a demand for evidence from power and power's
> differing ability to evade demonstration. My first quibble with the
> frames of reference stuff was that, more or less, any intellectual
> tradition was OK, but they all cut out massive amounts of 'evidence'
> being used in interpretation and gave 'status' to the intellectual he
> or she has no right to other than in an undisclosed set of 'manners'
> not much different from advertising or dinner parties. In short, we
> educate ourselves to a point at which we can get into a one-way gaze
> with respect for others, superior to inferior, and forget reasoning
> can (and should) be viewed as defeasible. Strong relativism is
> useless, other than in imaginary fantasies, but my guess is the real
> enemy is the 'objective voice' that pretends it is arguing, but is
> really asserting control. Much of the deception lies unsaid and is
> very violent.
And of course that is exactly what Derrida was banging on about.
I suppose the trouble is that he ended up doing the anti-
totalitarianism of objectivity schtick with as much authority as those
he was denouncing. So he and Foucault et al ended up in a dominant
position.
But maybe we are all have a little more freedom to say what we think.
Maybe the result is just the same: our masters tend to act like the
inquisition and you tend to have to agree with them, whatever you
might be saying, but now it is harder to know what is right and what
is simply pure bullshit. Being wrong though can be 'agreeing too much'
and invading an academic space which is already filled.
Despite all this, few people I know would use the word objective, and
would never claim to be holding the trump card in this respect. In the
new discipline of my choice the 'I know better than thou' card is
based on a mountain of evidence - which you have to respect to a
degree. What I am up against is a mountain made of minutiae, against
which Foucault's broad brushes in to Intellectual History such as D+P,
or H of M are starting to look like imagination, which is a shame as I
think they have good insights.
Anyway - I'm rambling.
One thing that did really piss me off is the way the Uni announced the
cold weather essay extensions: in a fucking email that looked like it
was written by a Eurocrat that had swallowed a legalese dictionary,
ambiguous and officious: why?
Why not "we are please to announce, and sorry for not getting our shit
together until the end of week one" I'll complain but I guess I'll get
an automated response:" owing to the large volume of complaints about
out style and automated system..."
>
> On 16 Jan, 13:02, chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > If I were to play the anti-relativist card on this one, it would be
> > like dropping a heliocentric bomb into the vatican.
> > I might go down the enlightenment is a discursive formation - a
> > retrospective re-grouping of a set of values by which academicians
> > reassure themselves as to their own importance. But Foucault seems to
> > play the Enlightenment game too.
>
> > It seems the Uni has offered everyone and extra week due to the snow.
> > I can't believe my luck - but can't believe the legalese email they
> > sent me which is totally ambiguous, either!
>
> > On Jan 16, 4:42 am, archytas <archy...@live.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > >http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/isagood general
jonbenn
haven't followed the recent posts, but thought I might just dive in
here and as the obvious epistemological question-how do you know? How
do you know anything at all? Once you answer that question then you
can as whether or not there was such a thin as the enlightenment, and
other questions. First, how do you know.
The fact that there was once believed to be an enlightenment, and the
fact that it is questioned today, is because we have changed our
epistemology, as well as our metaphysics. But the very fact that we
now question the existence of the enlightenment, or of any age, or
absolute knowledge of any fact, is a direct result from the
epistemology that was ushered in by the enlightenment.
Jon
> > Georges.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
archytas
have the problem of the 'criterion' (Sextus Empiricus as I remember).
Some even regard epistemology as a mistake arising in the philosophy
of Locke. Truth is a mistake because history shows we never achieve
it and probably wouldn't know it if we had it (modern American
pragmatism). Dirac managed to be a genius with almost no ability as a
'mannered human being' (in the sense of that slimey Blair).
Relativism always seems to miss its own questions and hide what needs
talking about under a guise of a tolerance that is not examined. It
is quite clear that academic work is mannered, follows very similar
format and so on. I doubt it has much diversity at all.
chazwin
The question of the Enlightenment is not so much how do we know but
what the hell do we think it is.
On Jan 17, 4:07 am, jonbenn <jonb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I haven' responded to this list in years, it got to hostile. And I
> haven't followed the recent posts, but thought I might just dive in
> here and as the obvious epistemological question-how do you know? How
> do you know anything at all? Once you answer that question then you
> can as whether or not there was such a thin as the enlightenment, and
> other questions. First, how do you know.
>
> The fact that there was once believed to be an enlightenment, and the
> fact that it is questioned today, is because we have changed our
> epistemology, as well as our metaphysics. But the very fact that we
> now question the existence of the enlightenment, or of any age, or
> absolute knowledge of any fact, is a direct result from the
> epistemology that was ushered in by the enlightenment.
Err, well - nope! Diderot was consciously unmasking 1200 years of
darkness, to a time when
he considered that restriction on thinking was much less. Whatever the
E is, it did not usher in anything new.
What E is usually caricatured as is part of a revolution of Science,
this was Baconian, Newtonian, but also Epicurean and Stoical.
But that is only true oif you have a 50 year old conception of the E.
The real difficulty is that the E is now so many things that it has
lost coherence.
There is a Christian E now, and even an English one; its a period of
time, its a process, its an event, its a set of values ad nauseum.
I'm trying to put 5000 words together and I've opened up a can of
worms.
Georges Metanomski
twig the slightest of it, and kindly change the "subject" under which
you dump your drivel.
Respectfully
Georges.
--- On Sun, 1/17/10, chazwin <chaz...@yahoo.com> wrote:
archytas
quite interesting with a guy doing dissection as Aristotle did.
Wittering about the soul now (zzz) but back on track again with some
attempt to get into the eternalist view and how A missed fossils and
thinking without the next 23 centuries. Good to see a great mind
being treated in a 'getting it wrong' context and how evidence, even
from detailed examinations can lead us the wrong way.
Georges - round the corner, a set of nerds are behaving in a very
unenlightened manner towards an Asian family. My grandson is being
bullied because he plays with their kids. There is no need for your
tone.
On 17 Jan, 21:01, Georges Metanomski <zg...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Would you kindly, gentlemen, fuck off from this thread, as you don't
> twig the slightest of it, and kindly change the "subject" under which
> you dump your drivel.
> Respectfully
> Georges.
>
> --- On Sun, 1/17/10, chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com> wrote:
archytas
amongst those seeking to retain more religion than I like. He was
influenced by several of his predecessors, notably, in Germany,
Grotius and Pufendorf and, in England, Hobbes and Locke, and he
appropriated those aspects of their theories that he found conducive
to his overall aim: the spread of the Enlightenment ethos, understood
here as the project of ensuring a healthy reason, one that can
discover truth, that can lay open contradictions and fight
prejudices. I can put up with some godswank amongst his empiricism.
What mattered to Thomasius is the enlightenment optimism that truth is
possible and, moreover, accessible to everyone. Even the Scottish E
includes too many figures to mention - Francis Hutcheson, David Hume,
Adam Smith, Thomas Reid and Adam Ferguson,Gershom Carmichael, George
Turnbull, George Campbell, James Beattie, Alexander Gerard, Henry Home
(Lord Kames) and Dugald Stewart. Many Jews were involved. Maimon
(known only to me as a critic of Kant) entered the circles of the
Haskala (the Jewish Enlightenment movement) in Berlin. Maimon shared
with this circle the idea that there is a need to propagate the
enlightenment and scientific education among traditional Jews but he
had a very different understanding of what E is. While for the Berlin
Haskala, ‘E’ was primarily the attempt to acculturate the Jewish
masses in order to allow their acceptance into modern German society,
Maimon's idea of Enlightenment was that of propagating science and
philosophy.
Critical theory treats E as explanatory, practical, and normative, all
at the same time. That is, it must explain what is wrong with current
social reality, identify the actors to change it, and provide both
clear norms for criticism and achievable practical goals for social
transformation. Human beings are producers of their own historical
form of life, and the practical goal that of identifying and
overcoming all the circumstances that limit human freedom, the
explanatory goal could be furthered only through interdisciplinary
research that includes psychological, cultural, and social dimensions,
as well as institutional forms of domination. The aim is to transform
contemporary capitalism into a consensual form of social life, by
becoming more democratic, to make it such that “all conditions of
social life that are controllable by human beings depend on real
consensus” in a rational society. The transformation of capitalism
into a “real democracy” in which such control could be exercised.
There are striking similarities between Critical Theory and American
pragmatism.
We could go on and on. Richard Rorty has it that truth is not part of
any of this and we wouldn't know what it is if it came with a wet fish
to slap us in the face with. I suspect the term whoever is using it.
chazwin
I've recorded it - I'll catch up on it later. Big issue is that the
history of science has tended to look at the success as it leads to a
teleological history of the modern day.
New h of S tends to be more interesting. Like Galileo being a damn
sight more interested in Astrology and the fact that he named his
discovery of the moons of Jupiter "medicean stars" as they legitimated
his patrons who claimed descent from Jupiter.; Newton was really a
magician and theologican that took time off to do his hobby of looking
at stars - most of Newtonian physics is nothing of the sort , being
completely transformed from its original conception.
As for Aristotle being the father of science? WHy the fuck did he not
look inside any mouths to verify his misconception that men and women
had different numbers of teeth??
I've noticed that George M has got pissed off that we are not talking
about his 2nd Enlightenment!!
chazwin
contributed 15 of the 17 postings - that kinda means that it belongs
to us.
On Jan 17, 9:01 pm, Georges Metanomski <zg...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Would you kindly, gentlemen, fuck off from this thread, as you don't
> twig the slightest of it, and kindly change the "subject" under which
> you dump your drivel.
> Respectfully
> Georges.
>
> --- On Sun, 1/17/10, chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > From: chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com>
archytas
dissections are as messy as mine, which lent him some cred to me. On
a slightly different tack, there is stuff on animal learning. I
always remember Imo - some monkey that started to wash her food in the
sea, with the others soon catching on. In another area, I had to read
mounds on management strategies, and couldn't conclude much other than
they were all retrospective 'successes'. The general standard is
incompetence, which we rarely investigate. In all history, there is a
tendency to create existential heroes who don't stand real scrutiny.
archytas
This chapter is concerned with some implications of how time, space,
and social change have been powerfully retheorized under the impetus
of poststructuralism. Social science has steadily jettisoned long-
standing teleological conceptions of social structure and change that
pervaded Marxist and Weberian accounts. Inspired by structuration
theory and philosophical realism, disciplines such as geography and
sociology have increasingly come to emphasize the contingent nature of
social reality, that is, the manner in which it could be different. As
part of this transformation, poststructural theorizations have focused
on the rejection of simplistic dichotomies such as individual/society,
culture/economy, nature/society, objective/subjective, global/local,
and time/space, all of which thwart their effective integration.
I assert that the theorization of social and spatial life necessarily
involves the rejection of an additional dichotomy, that between the
real and the imaginary, the actual and the possible, the ontological
and the epistemological. If what is defined as the “real” is not
simply equated with the observed, the definition of “reality” broadens
to include not only what is, but what might be, and the lines between
the real and the possible become blurred in productive and imaginative
ways. Poststructuralism elevates unmaterialized possibilities to the
level of ontology. In other words, what is taken to be real is not
simply what is observable or actual but forms one outcome secreted
from a broader universe of possibilities. Social reality includes
events that never happened in fact, but could have happened plausibly
as defined by theory. Thus, the distinction between what did happen
and what could happen is not obvious or unproblematic. History and
geography are the understanding of not only why things happen, but why
they do not.
Barney Warf
Email: bw...@ku.edu
jonbenn
http://www.scrye.com/~station/dissertation.html
There was a definite change in the world view, in the outlook of the
West, starting with Kant, of course. This was picked up and amplified
in different ways but to the same general effect by Hegel, and the
other German Idealists, and Schopenhauer.
So its pretty clear that one general trend of thought, effecting the
whole of western culture, was replaced by another with the Kantian
revolution. There was a progression of world views from the 17th
century forward from Christian Theism, to Deism, to every kind of
atheism, and pagan, or naturalistic religions. Quite simple there was
a deification of nature that occurred with the rise and fall of the
Enl.
While the Enl grew out of Christian theism, and its belief in
revealed truth, over and above reason, this changed with Locke who saw
reason as primary. The modern world then came into being on the cusp
of two ages. And each age, and its metaphyscial outlook and its
epistemological stance, grew directly out of its theology-on it
understanding of God, even when God was denied.
This is especiall apparent when you look at Hegel and the other
Idealists, who were all trained theologians and intentionally set out
to define a new relationship between the infinite and the finite, the
Creator and the creation. Every thing else that has come since, has
been the result of this new orientation in philosophy which was
founded on a new undertstanding of theology, and the relationship of
the Creator to the creation.
Derrida, Focault, Godel, the pragmatists, you name em. They all issued
from this great historical re-alignment from a dualistic world view
based on Judea-Christian thought, to a monistic world view based on
Greek neo-paganism, neo-platonists, and from Schopenhauer to
Nietzsche, and even Heidegger, a world view based on Hinduism, eastern
thought, the Vedas and the Upanishads.
But the point is that the Enlightenment, the basis for it was
origially the Bible. Hegel thought he was rationalizing, or
demytholigizing, the Bible. Rendering its content and insight, and
revelation in rational terms. And this is where we see the transition
from Christian theism, and a Biblically based metaphysics, (which was
dualistic), to an pagan/eastern/naturalistic metaphisics which was
monistic. And this later eastern view deified nature, and obscured the
boundaries between the Creator and the creation, and all the other
categories of thought on which it depended.
Here's another link that may be of interest for future discussions.
http://www.gaiamind.com/Tarnas.html
Jon
> > > > > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en.- Hide quoted text -
archytas
enlightenment arguments. I've read quite a bit in the area out of
boredom with my own teaching field and what passes for literature and
entertainment. I was an academic too long to have much respect for
the academy. It's often struck me that most people going back 2,000
years by time-machine would be useless because they have no knowledge
to take back. The majority are hardly enlightened now and never have
been. I can't explain this well, but I feel fashion has a lot to do
with it all, and how boring is fashion to the non-vapid? Plagiarism
rides along somewhere in all this 'fortunate class crap'. Why are
most of us such nerks that we don't escape our myth of origin
cultures? Who gets to claim to be enlightened and how? Both links
touch a bit to my disorganised questioning.
A current BBC documentary on 'Chaos' (BBC iPlayer is the easiest
access on BBC4) is better than most of its science programmes and hits
at some E questions indirectly. Chaos is for once explained in terms
of self-organisation and we get a hint of thinking that might just be
turning a lot over. I was taught most of it as an undergrad around
1970 and was shamefully incapable with it all, despite being much
better then at maths than I am now. There is a certain 'E' in
realisng one has been a fatuous adolescent git and somehow 'developed'
into an old fart! I can see now that much I took as science was not
up to the mark because I was rejecting much of the lying authority
around me (church, parents, peer groups etc.). I knew I was not up to
the mark when I started postgrad work, but was good enough technically
to survive. Some people had things going on in their heads that I
don't experience, abilities with numbers, spatial super-impositions
and stuff - a long way different from piss-wittering postmodern text
engines. One poor sod used to tell me he didn't see what all the fuss
about light was because he saw black lines in it - he was cabbaged by
25, but was so good at some of the stuff we did I suspect maybe he did
see this reality (light is not what we see of it, has 'holes' and can
be 'knotted'). Nash said his loony tune moments came from the same
place as his maths.
Thanks for the links and your piece above John - it's encouraging and
has me 'off on one' (hence the disjointed stuff above). I can say I
think it's a mistake to think we have rejected religion (not 'cos I
want any of the vile stuff) but because of its likely continuing
influence in screwing up what we can think and maybe because the
godspot could have some sensory use to us if it was just part of being
controlled or rendered insane?
On 19 Jan, 02:57, jonbenn <jonb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I though this link may add a little light to the subject.http://www.scrye.com/~station/dissertation.html
> Here's another link that may be of interest for future discussions.http://www.gaiamind.com/Tarnas.html
> ...
>
> read more »
einseele
A good post of you here, thank you.
The word enlightenment is may be the point here
I somehow distrust the expression, as like hearing Talibans or sort of
sacred radicals who own the ultimate Truth.
Enlightenment and Truth in capitals are related to intolerance, in
the end to narcissism. The of love of the self.
To hear about enlightenment is as well to hear about narcissism.
Schopenhauer should tell us a lot about this.
Also Descartes, for whom the "I" part of the cogito is of no doubt,
I'm not a religious person, much on the contrary I'm not a science
follower as well :-)
My fellow countryman J.L. Borges, an atheist, said: God really knows
about alchemy, He transformed dust into gold.
I dont believe in God, but even if there is no light in there, no
enlightenment, I can see the statement is true, how can that be
Carlos
On 19 jan, 00:57, jonbenn <jonb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I though this link may add a little light to the subject.http://www.scrye.com/~station/dissertation.html
> Here's another link that may be of interest for future discussions.http://www.gaiamind.com/Tarnas.html
> ...
>
> mais »
chazwin
On Jan 19, 2:57 am, jonbenn <jonb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I though this link may add a little light to the subject.http://www.scrye.com/~station/dissertation.html
>
> There was a definite change in the world view, in the outlook of the
> West, starting with Kant, of course. This was picked up and amplified
> in different ways but to the same general effect by Hegel, and the
> other German Idealists, and Schopenhauer.
That is Post Enlgithenment.
Kant was the terminator of the E.
E is usually characterised with Bacon and Newton inspiring the French
philosophes to write their Encyclopadie.
Kant enjoys a brief regin of enlightened despotism of Frederick the
Great beefore WIlliam Fred II snuffs out the Aufklarung.
Kant thinks you should speak out but OBEY! - Hardly the attitude that
fostered the French revolution!
>
> So its pretty clear that one general trend of thought, effecting the
> whole of western culture, was replaced by another with the Kantian
> revolution. There was a progression of world views from the 17th
> century forward from Christian Theism, to Deism, to every kind of
> atheism, and pagan, or naturalistic religions. Quite simple there was
> a deification of nature that occurred with the rise and fall of the
> Enl.
Simplistic nonsense! Hey presto and with one giant wave of a magic
wang the Zeitgeist transforms from a horrid dwarf into a beautiful
fairy!
>
> While the Enl grew out of Christian theism, and its belief in
> revealed truth, over and above reason, this changed with Locke who saw
> reason as primary. The modern world then came into being on the cusp
> of two ages. And each age, and its metaphyscial outlook and its
> epistemological stance, grew directly out of its theology-on it
> understanding of God, even when God was denied.
Descartes predates Locke in this respect. There is no "modern world"
and there is no "cusp", these are just retrospective re-groupins by
which periodizing historians reassure themselves as to their own
existence, worth and in doing so they create metaphysical propositions
by which
they can sell more books on their fantasies.
If God was denied by the Enlightenment then how do you account for the
Christian Enlightenment?
>
> This is especiall apparent when you look at Hegel and the other
> Idealists, who were all trained theologians and intentionally set out
> to define a new relationship between the infinite and the finite, the
> Creator and the creation. Every thing else that has come since, has
> been the result of this new orientation in philosophy which was
> founded on a new undertstanding of theology, and the relationship of
> the Creator to the creation.
What other Idealists. But since you mention Hegel - he was the one
responsible for such anti-Enlightenment thinking as the mystical
Geistgesische.
THis is part of the problem why people like Cassirer gave us the
bloody "enlightenment" in the first place - a 20th Century invention.
>
> Derrida, Focault, Godel, the pragmatists, you name em.
ROFL. I've never heard of Derrida being a pragmatiist before?!?!?
I'd love to name a few - but I'm not sure where you want to go with
this?
They all issued
> from this great historical re-alignment from a dualistic world view
> based on Judea-Christian thought, to a monistic world view based on
> Greek neo-paganism, neo-platonists, and from Schopenhauer to
> Nietzsche, and even Heidegger, a world view based on Hinduism, eastern
> thought, the Vedas and the Upanishads.
Oooh. I think you might need 200,000 words to establish this position.
You do like your abstractions don't you?
There is no doubt that Shop was highly and explicitly involved in
eastern philosophy - but then so was Plato - there is no telling which
came first though.
I don't think you need to base monism on Greek neo=paganism - whatever
the hell that is!
There were none more dualistic than the greeks, and I don't really see
much evidence in monism in paganism - not even neo-paganism which you
have not defined.
>
> But the point is that the Enlightenment, the basis for it was
> origially the Bible.
Ha - yeah exactly like D-Day was based on Hitler's invasion of
Europe!!!
According to Peter Gay, Collingwood, Paul Hazard and most other
historians of the mid 20th C called the E a "war on religion".
So, er , yeah The E was based on the Bible, just like anti-semitism is
based on the Jews.
Hegel thought he was rationalizing, or
> demytholigizing, the Bible. Rendering its content and insight, and
> revelation in rational terms. And this is where we see the transition
> from Christian theism, and a Biblically based metaphysics, (which was
> dualistic), to an pagan/eastern/naturalistic metaphisics which was
> monistic. And this later eastern view deified nature, and obscured the
> boundaries between the Creator and the creation, and all the other
> categories of thought on which it depended.
But the thing with Hegel and other Romantics that followed him he was
counter - auklarung, not pro-..
>
> Here's another link that may be of interest for future discussions.http://www.gaiamind.com/Tarnas.html
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chazwin
I saw Jim Al-Kalili on Chaos. Like most mathematicians they tend to
valorise, even mythologise the ability of maths to explain the
universe, when it seems more clear to me that
what they are actually doing is modelling it -describing it by
applying the a priori to the a posteriori. There is another TV
mathematician, that also seem to keep overplaying his hand as if maths
is a universal language of reality - I don't see it. In this they
cross a conceptual divide from an induction to a set of hypothetical
metaphysical propositions. This is no different from Aristotle and
Eudoxus putting all the planets in a nest of crystal spheres because
they don't see how they can move without being in contact with each
other. They were filing up the gaps between the numbers as AL-khalili
filled up the unknown with an overarching and universal explanation of
"self organising matter". It's like "gravity" did it!! It is commonly
(and I mean commonly ) accepted that gravity is the "cause" of
falling bodies, when we all know that gravity is what we call the
phenomenon of the tendency for bodies to fall - What are the
boundaries between explanation and description - is science anything
but description?
However I did enjoy the programme and it freaked me out a bit. I was
taken back to 1980 when I used to watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos - normally
high on Pot. Those were the days!
I thought his picture in a picture, in a picture with unpredictable
patterns was nothing more than an indication of unpredictable but
determinable factors - wholly determined by the equipment and the
parameters of light but only unpredictable because no one has actually
taken the trouble to do the maths - the possibility of which in the
earlier part of the program was demonstrated by the Turring stuff. He
was doing a bit of smoke and mirrors to wow the crowd - a cheap trick
I thought!!
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archytas
in equations. I don't know why they harped on about Newton and the
end was well over-played. Relating the weather to oscillations in a
petri-dish was OTT! The more you plug into the philosophy, the more
you turn up possibilities like Duns Scotus and even Ockham being
'deconstructive'. Like Carlos, I don't like the word enlightenment.
All sorts claim it, just more and more complexity and cascades of
action.
I used to wonder, doing chemistry and biology, what more there was. I
haven't found anything. Frank Zappa said they'd keep funding the
illusion of freedom until it wasn't profitable, then the set and seats
would disappear and we'd see the brick wall at the back. I just end
up with conditions for existence. Everything has some kind of
convention in it, but this doesn't put all arguments on the same
footing. This leads me to suspect argument itself. We need something
more practical.
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chazwin
I suppose that something more practical is science. The trouble seems
to come when (and it always does) it bursts out of its little physical
box and wanders into the realm of the metaphysic.
That's one thing the Foucault looky-likey Armand Marie Leroi mentioned
with Aristiotle with some ironic pleasantry only gently mocking
Aristotle's mistakes not being able to "believe" in petrified trees
because of the need to believe in an immutable universe, but I bet
when it comes to escaping his own scientific cage he also will not see
the wood for the trees too.
Leroi also did a good programme on Darwin last year, and almost
managed to avoid the teleology - nearly completely. But you could
still feel the immense presence of Dawkinsian universal Dawinism
ratttling its science cage to spew its metaphysical crap all over the
TV screen.
Science is good when it stays in its cage, but it is easily lured
outside by a tasty tidbit of metaphysical hypothesiszing and then what
do you get? -- selfish genes, and intentionality from inanimate
objects - purpose from the purposeless. Well it attracts more funding
from government don't it? if it were too sciencey it would not WOW the
funding bodies.
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archytas
find formal languages in it that would ensure we could talk about what
matters, maybe even like Georges. I was never up to it though and now
I'm not up for it either. I found this recently whilst looking into a
guy called Prichard, as I have some sense of an independent world of
knowledge. It's corny, but hits a few nails on argument:
"Wittgenstein came to speak in Oxford in 1947, just before Prichard's
death. He had said he did not want to read a paper, but was willing to
respond to a paper given by some agreeable student. O. P. Wood, who
was still an undergraduate (at Corpus Christi) was set up as the fall
guy, and read a paper on the Cogito. Wittgenstein, using the paper as
a springboard for his own ideas, responded at length. Prichard made
several interventions, on each occasion very deliberately
mispronouncing Wittgenstein's name as Whittgensteen. Finally he rose
again and said, in his high reedy voice ‘Mr. Whittgensteen, Mr.
Whittgensteen, you have not answered the question. Cogito ergo sum — I
think therefore I am. Is it true, Mr Whittgensteen, is it true — I
think therefore I am?’. Wittgenstein, exasperated, turned very icy and
replied ‘I think this is a very foolish old man; so I am — what?’.
(This story comes to me from Peter Hacker, who heard it from two
people who were there, J. O. Urmson and H. L. A. Hart. Hart thought
that Wittgenstein's reply was brilliant repartee; Urmson thought it
unforgivably rude.)" (from a Stanford EP article)
Prichard (Harold Arthur) left some room for people to do some decent
things and be valued in moral action. In a way, I see enlightenment
as as about valuing people in some practical way and not getting
consumed by totalities and lack of humility. I just think something
like this is all we can cope with for now, and of course that we
aren't coping. Most people I know can't cope with academic or
scientific argument. What would be more practical for me is some kind
of forum that prevents the worst of what we do through our politics
and religious madness. In the sense of this we need tor recognise
democracy is just another form of human resource management and find a
more acceptable form of control in which representation protects
rather than dominates through representatives. The technology is
lying around through which to build something transparent enough.
Most people can't build cars, but they can learn to drive them - that
sort of level.
I read Lyotard long ago. The phrase everyone regurgitates,
'postmodernism is incredulity towards metanarratives' is preceded by
'over-simplifying to the extreme'. I just notice no one ever knows
what a metanarrative is, let alone what the dominating ones are. I
suspect, that rather than being linguistic, they are more genetic - as
seen in packs where only the alphas shag, perhaps especially in those
fish where the alpha male and female shag and if that alpha female
dies, the alpha male becomes female and another of the subjects
becomes the alpha male. I suspect, as Lyotard did, that we have a
libidinous economy, but as you know, this will only lead some to think
I believe people are fish. Good points as ever above, though I note
some current students are describing their work as about how bacteria
think. They must be seeing too much of me. I must say, the little
bastards (insert student or bacteria to taste) are brighter than I
thought. They are trying to interfere with bacteria communication
systems to cure disease. My last words, taken literally by one, were
about GPO gene-therapy.
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