The Dark Side of the Enlightenment

The Wall Street Journal ^ | April 7, 2018 | Yoram Hazony

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

What, then, was “the Enlightenment”? This term was promoted, first and foremost, by the late-18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant . . . [who declared] that only reason allows human beings to emerge from their “self-incurred immaturity” by casting aside the “dogmas and formulas” of authority and tradition. For Kant, reason is universal, infallible and a priori—meaning independent of experience. As far as reason is concerned, there is one eternally valid, unassailably correct answer to every question in science, morality and politics . . .

This astonishing arrogance is based on a powerful idea: that mathematics can produce universal truths by beginning with self-evident premises . . . and then proceeding by means of infallible deductions to . . . “apodictic certainty.” Since this method worked in mathematics, Descartes had insisted, it could be applied to all other disciplines. The idea was subsequently taken up and refined by Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke and Rousseau as well as Kant.

This view of “reason”—and of its power, freed from the shackles of history, tradition and experience—is what Kant called “Enlightenment.” It is completely wrong. Human reason is incapable of reaching universally valid, unassailably correct answers to the problems of science, morality and politics by applying the methods of mathematics.

The first warning of this was Descartes’s 1644 magnum opus, “The Prnciples of Philosophy,” which claimed to reach a final determination of the nature of the universe by moving from self-evident premises through infallible deductions. This voluminous work is so scandalously absurd that no unabridged English version is in print today. Yet Descartes’s masterpiece took Europe by storm and for decades was the main textbook of the Cartesian school of science. Kant followed this dubious example . . . [by claiming] to have deduced Newton’s laws of motion using pure reason, without empirical evidence.

[Moonman62]

Another simplification is this:

This sentence is false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox#G%C3%B6del’s_first_incompleteness_theorem

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The Righteous Mind:

Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

proposes that there are six moral pillars of conservatism:

Care        Liberty      Fairness    Loyalty    Authority      Sanctity

vs.

harm     oppression     cheating    betrayal   subversion    degradation

. . . and notes that “liberals” focus first on “care vs. harm,” less on “liberty vs. oppression” and “fairness vs. cheating” - and not at all on "Loyalty vs. betrayal," “Authority vs. subversion," or “Sanctity vs degradation.” Conservatives can only view neglect of those latter three “pillars” as cynicism. People who neglect those pillars entirely cannot encompass the totality of human concerns with whatever mathematics they may employ.

[Zeneta]

FWIW.

All historical efforts to “reform” human nature have failed miserably.

Capitalism is the purist expression of human nature ever devised.

Morality is NOT subjective.

Only ones Self is sovereign.

All “groups” have leaders which results in compromise.

I will never compromise my sovereignty.

[PGalt]

An interesting article and more interesting posts. Thanks, c_I_c...and thanks to every poster.