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/ Subject > Death & Rebirth of Philosophy /
/ Newsgroup > alt.philosophy / 01 January 2004 /
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"The past is never definitively fixed except
when it has no future." -- Raymond Aron
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Once upon a time, very long ago, philosophy was thought to be
the queen of the sciences. But then theology came along and
claimed the top spot for itself, relegating philosophy to a
merely supportive role: the 'handmaid of theology'. Now one may
consider such a forced servitude to be contrary to the nature
of philosophy, and perhaps even an abomination, but for many
centuries it was the only way to keep philosophy alive.
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Nor was it entirely barren, for the works of Plato and Aristotle
forced theologians to generate some original thinking of their
own. This tradition doubtless reached a peak with Thomas Aquinas
who built his all-inclusive system on the sure foundation of 'The
Philosopher' (ie. Aristotle). After that there seemed little left
for philosophy to do; yet this was not a flaw within philosophy
herself, but rather the inevitable result of the condition of
slavery imposed upon Her.
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Thus nothing more could be done as long as She was wrapped up
in theological chains. And so more centuries passed by as the
world slowly changed and gradually emerged from out of a static
and timeless dream. And when the time was ripe, a man stepped
forth to break the chains that had held philosophy down for so
long. It was Descartes and his program of radical doubt that
eventually led to the liberation of philosophy. But there was
nowhere for Her to go except back to Her ancient role as the
queen of the sciences.
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But soon Her children, now drunk with freedom, and intoxicated
by their own growing power, became unruly and rebellious. The
sciences declared that they had no need of their Mother. Thus
the Queen was dethroned and promptly decapitated. The sciences
took away from Her all that once belonged exclusively within
her hands. Politics, economics, sociology, psychology, etc etc,
all came of age, and declared their autonomy and independence.
"What need have we of you, Old Woman?", they asked; and not
in a kindly way.
.
And they dared even to laugh upon Her, for now She held
an almost empty bag in Her weak and feeble hands. Logic,
epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and precious little else
were all that remained of philosophy. And these subjects were
of no interest to anyone, surely. Thus the cost of Her freedom
seemed absurdly high. Theology and Science both went their
separate ways, and had no use for Philosophy whatsoever.
And so it was, even unto this very day!
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But wait! This is not the end of the story of philosophy,
because this is not the whole story. For behind the scenes of
this sad spectacle of philosophy's public ridicule and ruin,
another smaller story was quietly playing out, unnoticed by all
but a few hardy and tenacious souls. It took place within the
story of the development of History.
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Now the story of History is even longer than that of Philosophy,
and it too suffered through many and various growing pains over
the centuries. When philosophy was infected by the lethal virus
of positivism and empiricism, History was similarly affected.
Some historians, in their zeal, even dared to declare that
History itself was a science; but the futility of this idea
eventually became apparent to those few philosophers and
historians who rigorously thought the matter through.
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All this criticism-of-history raised a serious question: What
is History? Is it Art? Is it Science? Is it both, or neither?
Or is it something else again? In the opening decades of the
twentieth century an Italian philosopher, Benedetto Croce
proposed that History should be placed under the category of
Art, for it is more similar to art than it is to science. For
example, science deals with universals, whereas art and history
deal with particulars. And since history does make use of science
as well, it is both art and science at the same time. But even
more important than this is Croce's strange assertion than
philosophy and history are one.
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It would appear, then, that History is the new queen of
humankind's intellectual enterprise, inasmuch as art, science,
and philosophy are all contained (as it were) within her far-
reaching grasp. But what does it mean to say that philosophy
and history are one? Basically it means that philosophy is the
method of history, whereas art and science are its necessary
tools and prerequisites. But again, what does it mean to say
that philosophy is the method of history?
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Think of it this way. Philosophy consists of five essential
pillars upon which everything else is built. These pillars are
logic, reasoning, judgment, imagination, and interpretation. The
important thing to note about these is that in practice these
five things are not separate and distinct elements, nor do they
follow one after another in an orderly sequence, but they are
always thoroughly mixed together. Rational thinking involves
logic and judgment, valid interpretation requires good judgment
and sound reasoning, and so forth.
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Now art and science are also built upon these same foundations,
to be sure, but not in quite the same way as history, and not to
the same degree. Thus science is mainly concerned with the facts,
and a proper understanding of these facts, but for history the
facts alone are not nearly enough. For without the mind of the
historian to illuminate them, the facts are dead and empty, and
incapable of rendering historical knowledge.
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Philosophy, therefore, is NOT dead, but has found new life in
the embrace of history, just as history has found its freedom
from the shackles of science by standing upon philosophy. This
is why Croce could say that history should be written only by
philosophers, and philosophy only by historians!
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- one who proclaims the necessity of both - cybrwurm ;>
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P.S. "History is a dialogue between the past and the present in
which the present takes and keeps the initiative." -- R. Aron
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/ Subject > Re: Death & Rebirth of Philosophy /
/ Newsgroup > alt.philosophy / 06 January 2004 /
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>> On Jan1 John Jones sayeth: Thats too long.
>> Summarise it. Now. -- JJ
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cybrwurm replies: Hi, JJ. Believe it or not, that IS the
summarized version! The UNsummarized version runs to some 22
and a half pages. So count your blessings instead of offering
us unjustified criticisms. I printed out the above posting,
and it fits nicely on just TWO pages. Hardly enough to cause
anyone a strain on the brain. However, if I inadvertently
caused you to sprain your noodle, I sincerely apologize,
as I would never want to be accused of causing anyone any
unnecessary thinking. :D
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>>> wurm previously say: P.S. "History is a dialogue between
>>> the past and the present in which the present takes and
>>> keeps the initiative." -- R. Aron
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> On Jan1 Sir Frederick wrote: History in the form of
> anthropology, I agree.
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Aron means History in general, I'm sure. Why you should
single out anthropology for special treatment, I'm NOT sure.
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> Another valid present source of philosophy is neuroscience.
> Consider "neuroanthropology". -- Best, Frederick M. McNeill
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To me these statements fairly reek of nonsense. But I under-
stand why you make them. You, Sir Frederick, are an idolater.
You worship the false-god called Science. You suppose (wrongly)
that Science can explain anything and everything!
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Now I know that nothing I can say will ever convince you of the
grievous error of your ways (as you have thoroughly soaked your
soul in it, as it were), BUT I do hope that the following quote
will at least cause some head-scratching among those others who
are living in bondage under the false philosophies of positivism
and empiricism (and all their bastard offspring):
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"Scientistic imperialism presupposes that, as scientists go
on discovering increasingly general laws, it should one day be
possible to construct so rich and complete a system of concepts
that all reality could be deduced from it. But those who hold
this view forget that a concept is by nature selective, and that
the sum total of concepts - in other words, of selections - can
never equal the sum total of reality. The infinite is not an
accumulation of finite things, to say nothing of the fact that
generalization cannot recapture the particular, having ignored
it in the course of its operations." -- from 'The Sociology of
Max Weber' by Julien Freund, p.43
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Philosophy is *logically* prior to History, but in practice
History is prior to both Philosophy AND Science. Thus the
scientist builds upon the previous efforts of his predecessors
every bit as much as the philosopher does. Without History
knowledge in general would be impossible! :O
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- the almost semi-infamous one - cybrwuurm ;>
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/ 6 March 2004 /
/ Philosophy Forums > Philosophy > Philosophy of the Arts /
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Democracy In Action
[or: The Tyranny of Mediocrity]
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The 19th century German philosopher GWF Hegel is considered to
be one of the greatest philosophers of all time, and rightly
so, but his convoluted reasoning occasionally led him to some
bizarre declarations. For example, Hegel said that any human
being becomes a person only to the extent that he gives up his
claim to individual uniqueness so as to become an aspect of the
larger social whole to which he belongs.
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Now this is just the sort of Hegelianism that incensed Soren
Kierkegaard, for it seemed to him that there is no reality more
concrete (and necessary) than the unique individual. And on this
important matter my sympathies, naturally, lie entirely with
friend-Soren. The problem is not that society is irrelevant or
meaningless to the individual. Far from it.
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The problem, rather, is the nature or *character* of the society
in which the individual resides. Suppose the individual happens
to live in a city where most of the people are baboons. Should
the individual then forgo his uniqueness, and become a baboon,
so as to be a better and happier citizen?
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For example, a lot of people, when they jump into their car and
drive around, like to turn on the radio and listen to music while
they rush about from place to place. And I'm no different from
others in this regard. But now a problem. It just so happens that
my car's radio doesn't get the FM channels, and so I'm limited
to the AM band. Now I've been up and down the dial many times,
looking for a station that plays good music; but guess what,
there aren't any!
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The best I can find is a station called 'Cool 880' that plays
popular oldies from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, or what I like to
call 'sissy-pop' (ie. soothing sappy sounds for sissies). Once
in a while I'll listen to this station because they do, on rare
occasion, play a half-decent song; maybe one song in ten (eg.
'Sunglasses at Night'). But most of the time the radio just
stays off, because I much prefer the noise of traffic to the
crap that AM radio offers.
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So a funny thing happened just last week. One day I turned on
the radio, and to my shock and amazement, I actually heard some
quality sounds! So I continued to listen, and the story gradually
unfolded. It seems that the format was changed such that the DJs
could play anything they wanted. And with this freedom for the
DJs came a new name, Joe 880, or some such nonsense. In any case,
I was finally getting some great tunes that I haven't heard in
ages (eg. 'Eyes of a Stranger', 'Owner of a Lonely Heart', etc).
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The only fly in the ointment was that they would air some of
the comments they received by phone from the listeners regarding
the new format. Some of these were positive, but many more were
negative, and some excessively critical (I thought). I just
said, "To hell with them!"
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And so a few days later I got into my broken-down rust-bucket
and immediately turned on the radio expecting some great tunes
to come blaring forth out of the speakers. To my extreme horror
what I got was sissy-pop (eg. anything by Foreigner (whom I doth
loath to the max))! It seems that over the night 'Joe' got the
boot, and Cool-880 was back with a vengeance.
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No explanation for this disaster was forthcoming, but it's not
hard to figure out what happened. The vast majority of callers
wanted the old format back, and the station, knowing which side
of the bread held their butter, gave it to them.
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O woe is me! For a few short days there I actually liked AM
radio. But now it's back to the songs of traffic for me. Never
mind that there are indeed some few people with good taste out
there. As far as western culture goes, it's 'majority rules'
all the way. This is a clear example of the fruits of democracy
in action; a good illustration of the tyranny of absolute
mediocrity. The greatest good for the greatest number indeed!
JS Mill would be proud.
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In this matter, as in so many other things besides, the unique
individual is stripped of his liberty and forced to conform to
the wishes, fears, and absolutist demands of the ignorant and
childish majority. Our society seems deliberately designed to
provide the masses with an endless stream of shallow entertain-
ments and pointless diversions such that they won't notice
that the greedy and heartless corporations are busy destroying
the planet, and our collective future along with it, so as to
benefit a few self-serving swine who already have far far more
than they deserve.
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And *this* is the society of baboons into which I was "thrown".
This is the larger social order that Hegel would have me give up
my uniqueness for. I have only two words to say to Hegel about
all this: Bite me!
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- the musically deprived one - cybrwurmm ;>
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P.S. Cool 880 sucks!
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/ Topic > Re: Democracy In Action / 7 March 2004 /
/ Philosophy Forums > Philosophy > Philosophy of the Arts /
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> Baron Max replied: Could you not immigrate to Iraq or
> Iran or Saudi Arabia?
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wurm say: No, it's simply not possible for me to just get up
and go live in some other country. Why? Because such a move
requires vast quantities of money ... Of which I have NONE!
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But if I *could* move to another country, I surely would.
And I'm sure I could pick a better country than those crappy
ones you just named. :)
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> They have FM radio stations ... and lots of music, too.
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We have FM stations here too, Max. Canada is NOT a third
world country after all. It's my busted car-radio that is
unable to get them. You might say that I could just buy a
new radio for my car, but that too requires vast sums of
money ... Of which I have NONE!
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> And, as an added bonus, they all stop work five times a
> day and rest their weary foreheads on the ground!
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No blood-sucking, ungrateful corporation here in America
would tolerate such a thing, that's fer sure. Wut? Stop
working in order to praise God? How illogical is that?
Working for money is how all Americans worship the supreme,
almighty, absolute Dollar-God. Not working is blasphemy!
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> Why do you feel forced to stay in a society that you
> don't like or want?
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Because that's the way it is. I am Canuk: hear me squeal! :)
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> (I'm assuming that Edmunton is that city in Canada, right?)
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Roger that, Max.
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> Why can't you move, leave, find another society in which
> to live?
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Because such a move requires vast quantities of money.
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... Of which I have NONE!
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> (Or is bitchin' n' moanin' more fun for you?) -- Baron Max
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"bitchin' n' moanin'" is what being a Canadian philosopher
is all about! ... Bloody arrogant Americans! :(
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- the incredibly impoverished one - cybbrwurm ;>
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P.S. "Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence.
It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a
fearful master." -- George Washington
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