Posted on 05/16/2007 6:54:51 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Unfortunately, positivism means different things in different areas of expertise. Logical positivism was killed off by Goedel, but historical positivism lives. Positive in this sense is not the opposite of negative but the other, similar-sounding term spelled the same meaning that which is placed or posited. Completely different word even though spelled and pronounced the same, like half our wonderful language.
I disagree with this presupposition, RightWhale. As William James wrote, "Great thinkers have vast premonitory glimpses of schemes of relation between terms, which hardly even as verbal images enter the mind, so rapid is the whole process." We are not speaking at all of "sensation" here. He adds to this statement a footnote:
Mozart describes thus his manner of composing: First bits and crumbs of the piece come and gradually join together in his mind; then the soul getting warmed to the work, the thing grows more and more, "and I spread it out broader and clearer, and at last it gets almost finished in my head, even when it is a long piece, so that I can see the whole of it at a single glance in my mind, as if it were a beautiful painting or a handsome human being; in which way I do not hear it in my imagination at all as a succession -- the way it must come later -- but all at once, as it were. It is a rare feast! All the inventing and making goes on in me as in a beautiful strong dream. But the best of all is the hearing of it all at once. [I added the bolds]Notice that Mozart uses analogies to vision and hearing in his description of the creative process; but there's not a scintilla of "sense impression" going on here. This creative process is entirely internal to the mind.
You wrote: "Of course we create nothing, not even our society (all attempts are doomed), that is the baliwick of the Divine."
Tell that to Mozart!
Hhhmmmmm third-grade level philosophy primer??? Jeepers, I wouldn't know what to recommend! I don't have one of those myself....
If I may offer a suggestion: On the observation that "all of philosophy is but a recapitulation of Plato," I'd recommend reading his dialogues! The beauty of Plato is that he is not a system builder, he does not construct doctrines. He is more interested in the formulation of proper questions than he is in finding answers. His method is not to tell you what to think, but to show you where to look, and bid you to go and see for yourself. My favorites: Timaeus, Apology, Symposium, Gorgias, Critias (which features the Atlantis myth), Republic, and Laws.
There is virtually no issue in philosophy that Plato didn't originally raise in his works. Which explains the statement, "all of philosophy is but a recapitulation of Plato."
And in addition to being a world-class philosopher, Leibniz was also a world-class mathematician who independently developed the calculus.
The reverse is also true. It can be demonstrated that both Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr were students of philosophy, and their philosophical understandings deeply influenced their work as scientists.
I think what Coyoteman is describing when he says that no scientists today pay any attention to philosophy at all simply describes the situation of increasing deculturation that is advancing among many if not most Western intellectuals of our time. The education process is failing in its primary mission: To transmit the culture to the rising generation.
Oh thank you so much for mentioning Wolfhart Pannenberg, professor of systematic theology at Munich. He has been "dialoguing" with scientists of late! I highly recommend his fascinating work, Toward a Theology of Nature, 1993. It's simply a marvelous read!
The measurements of the CMB from the 1960's and myriad other observations since show that space/time is not fixed, indeed does not pre-exist, the universe (space/time) is expanding, there was a beginning of real space and real time.
As a philosophy, it retains merit – but as science, it is debunked.
Modern Cosmology and Process Philosophy
#283: There is virtually no issue in philosophy that Plato didn't originally raise in his works. Which explains the statement, "all of philosophy is but a recapitulation of Plato."
And that is one of the reasons I can't get excited by philosophy. Philosophers are still batting the same ideas around after 2,500 years, and are no closer to any resolution than Plato was. By way of comparison, just look at what science has done in just the last 250 years.
#284: I think what Coyoteman is describing when he says that no scientists today pay any attention to philosophy at all simply describes the situation of increasing deculturation that is advancing among many if not most Western intellectuals of our time. The education process is failing in its primary mission: To transmit the culture to the rising generation.
Deculturation? No. When you are doing many of the technical sciences studying philosophy is simply a colossal waste of time.
The education process is failing in its primary mission: To transmit the culture to the rising generation.
The education establishment has determined that western culture is not worth transmitting to the next generation. Science is increasingly ignoring "educators" as well.
And so sayeth the Curmudgeon.
We'll have to label him with a "handle with care" tag!!! LOL! But then again, people often take Bohr to extremes, and declare him to be an "Eastern thinker." I think Bohr would be surprised by this, were he still around to hear of it.
Thanks so much for writing, my dearest sister in Christ!
It will not do to read about Whitehead. Read Whitehead. Then translate. The problem with most translators is that they either do not know both languages or do not know the subject matter, or both. A handful of translators have done well, Luther being one.
Thank you both - #s 282 and 278 have good stuff for me in them! I’m reading along, hoping what’s bouncing around inside will coalesce and come out again somehow creatively!
Thank you for all of your beautiful posts, dearest sister in Christ!
Fine, but what else is there?
I'm afraid you're right about that, Coyoteman.
Yet culture is the center that must hold if society is not to disintegrate.
You evidently do not appreciate that problems of human existence are what inspire the philosophical questions that are still "open questions" after 2,500 years. 2,500 years hence, they will probably still be "open questions" -- assuming the human race hasn't destroyed itself first.
In short, these are questions that it seems eternally persist, which science has no method to address. Man has always been asking them, and probably always will. The sheer persistency of the questions is evidence in favor of the persistency of human nature as a given thing (i.e., something that doesn't "evolve").
Looks that way to me, too, dearest sister in Christ. The problem of "Second Realities" raises its ugly head.... :^) In the end, they can create nothing useful; but they are very good at destroying the public consensus on which free societies rest.
There is a reason why these questions persist and it is nothing spiritual. These things are vital to survival. We choose on the basis of virtue and virtue means 'strength.' The science or philosophy of choosing is called ethics or morals. Choose well. Choose strongly.
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