In the book we're using as a template for our discussion of philosophical nonstarters, it touches on the scientific revolution and Isaac Newton. Of course, in Newton's day, philosophy and science had not yet undergone their messy divorce.
Come to think of it, Newton was no atheist, rather, a bit of a religious nut with some peculiar ideas about God. At any rate, subsequent developments were more of a trivorce: just as both Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism emerged out of the matrix of temple Judaism, modern science was only gradually differentiated from the religion and philosophy that gave birth to it.
Now that these three are trivorced and living separate lives, people like to... what's the word, Jeeves? Backread? Yes, that will do -- backread subsequent developments that were not present at the time. It's one of those historical fallacies falling under the heading of anachronism, i.e.,
a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type of anachronism is an object misplaced in time, but it may be a verbal expression, a technology, a philosophical idea, [etc.], or anything else associated with a particular period that is placed outside its proper temporal domain.
In the deeper context, perhaps Newton's religiosity -- and he is arguably the GOAT of science -- was fundamental to his whole approach to the world.
For example, my son is taking a philosophy course, and on the first day the professor said something to the effect that the development of modern science would have been impossible absent the ancient Greeks. I don't disagree, and yet, the Greeks did not develop science in our sense of the word. Rather, as in the case of all non-Christian cultures, science was stillborn.
Therefore, we can say that the Greeks met some of the necessary conditions for the development of science, but were weak on the sufficient ones -- the "conditions with which." Which conditions might those be?
Magee doesn't get into them, so I guess it's down to me.
More generally, my hobby is fooling around with seeming irreconcilables. My mind sees connections everywhere, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Just built that way, I guess.
But if religion, philosophy, and theology were once united, who's to say we can't do it again, albeit at a deeper level of harmony and integration?
Besides, it's fun, and if I have to choose between an amusing metaphysic and an unamusing one, all else being equal, I'm going with the former. Like Alan Watts, I'm a philosophical entertainer, beginning with myself. Obviously I blog to amuse myself, and only hope that others get the jokes. For it is written: my jokes are easy, my words enlight.
With good humor and pessimism it is possible to be neither wrong nor bored.
And I am never bored.
Two contradictory philosophical theses complete each other, but only God knows how.
I believe more in God's smile than His wrath.
I frankly don't believe in the latter at all, this being but an understandable human projection. True, God hates evil, but not in an emotional way. It's just that he prefers (and cannot not prefer) the Good. Of course it sounds presumptuous to pretend to read the mind of God, but
To speak of God is presumptuous; not to speak of God is imbecilic.
So in reality, we're simply doing our best to not be imbeciles.
There's a world of difference between a tautology and a self-evident truth, and it is not tautologous to affirm that
The sole proof of the existence of God is His existence.
For it is a binary question: either God does or does not exist. And if he doesn't, then -- among other inconveniences -- we lose the very ground of reason itself, AKA the Logos. I like the orthoparadoxical way Rodney Bomford puts it: "If God does not exist, only He knows it." And if He doesn't, then only man could not know it. Absurd?
Man calls "absurd" his secret pretensions to omnipotence.
Thus, the real absurdity is pretending to a knowledge that only God could possess. He does, but thankfully, we participate in it, which is precisely how and why we have access to truth at all. Unless you think we don't, in which case you are dismissed. To the outer darkness. With no inside. If you can imagine such a state.
I can. Yes, I myself dabbled in nihilism. For
God allows man to raise barricades against the invasion of grace.
A key point here is that grace takes many forms, the light of truth being just one of them. Beauty, of course, is another, and not for nothing is mathematics so full of beautiful equations. More generally,
God does not ask for the submission of intelligence, but rather an intelligent submission,
This being in contrast to, say, Islam, which means submission, full stop. The unintelligent kind. But Islam is scarcely alone on this score, another being submission to our deeply anti-intellectual educational establishment.
Why is it so stupid? Many reasons. These reasons extend all the way back to the mythognoetry of Genesis 3, but that's a rather vague and general explanation that takes any number of forms, one of the most consequential being nominalism.
Coincidentally, I just read an essay on the subject, called The Complications of (Bad) Philosophy. It only skims the surface, but it will do until I haul out the heavy hitters:
Who could have predicted that Ockham’s rejection of universals (nominalism) and emphasis on God’s supreme omnipotence at the expense of the divine intellect (voluntarism) -- esoteric philosophical concepts if ever there were ones -- would provoke such censure, even centuries after his death?
Not only is this not esoteric, it is the very soul of common sense, for if we can't know universals, then truly truly, we can't claim to know anything -- anything beyond the raw perceptions furnished by the senses. Thus, nominalism is the principle of no principles -- "the most perennially pernicious of philosophical assumptions,"
a “universal acid” that “disintegrates the coherence of philosophy in every area: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics.”
For it
assumes that there is no objective order in creation. It reflects not a wonder or awe at cosmic goodness but rather a pessimistic doubt about reality that demands that people impose order on an otherwise unintelligible creation. This entails that the concepts of truth and goodness are ultimately arbitrary constructs the philosopher creates to prescribe an order for a fractious world.
The outer darkness referenced above:
if there are no forms, there are no universal natures such as humanity -- every single being is a radically unique individual not limited by human nature. (Sound familiar?)
Yes. Yes it does sound distressingly familiar. Nor is it fun, to put it mildly. These people are at war with comedy, with irony, and with good natured self-deprecation, which is -- in my book -- a sin against the Ho-Ho-Holy Spirit.
[It] dramatically limits our ability to know reality, because without necessary causal relations, we can never understand what is behind our sense experience. There is no rational inference, only the mathematical analysis of material bodies. Everything else is pure speculation.
Now, we never speculate.
Either God or chance; all other terms are disguises for one or the other.
Irrational? Hardly:
For example, Gödel responded to the shouting by proving that nothing can be more irrational than a rationalism that encloses man in his own ideas and thereby consigns him to the outer darkness. That is stupid, nor is it funny, except unintentionally."Irrationalist" is shouted at the reason that does not keep quiet about the vices of rationalism.
4 comments:
Now that these three are trivorced and living separate lives, people like to... what's the word, Jeeves? Backread? Yes, that will do -- backread subsequent developments that were not present at the time.
Much like how people look at certain types of historical accounts and claim that everyone - particularly anyone of historical significance - was actually gay.
and yet, the Greeks did not develop science in our sense of the word. Rather, as in the case of all non-Christian cultures, science was stillborn.
They had enough egg to make a scramble, but without the vertilizing seed of of Christianity it wasn't enough to make a chicken.
I remember reading that another reason was the widespread slavery. The smart folks not only had a disregard for changing matter, but for working with their hands. But you can discover a lot of things about the world by working with your hands. Which is one reason why there was so much prescientific technological development in the so-called dark ages.
"There's a world of difference between a tautology and a self-evident truth..."
Yes !
Go to the head of (your) class, Bob.
Many supposedly important philosophers did not know this. There's those that did--Thomas and especially Thomas Reid--and then there are the rest of them, take your pick.
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