Posted on 12/06/2009 6:12:37 PM PST by TChad
Way back in the depths of time, Greek philosophers ended up with two basic and incompatible ways of looking at the universe. One way was materialism, which says that there is a material universe which behaves in a consistent way, and if you study it you can learn the way it works.
That’s the world view of engineers and scientists — and businessmen, for that matter. It’s the world view of people who understand and use mathematics, and statistics. It is a place where cause leads to effect. It’s the place that game theory studies. It isn’t necessarily inherently atheistic; a lot of religious people live in the materialist world.
But there are people who don’t. A different epistemological view is teleology, which says that the universe is an ideal place.
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One way to compare and contrast those two world views is to consider what they think about socialism. Materialists look at history since Marx and point out that socialism has been tried many times, in many nations, in various forms, and it has always failed. In places where it was fully implemented the result was decline and economic collapse. When it was only partially implemented you got slower decline. It often looks like it’s working in the early stages, but in the longer term it has never succeeded.
So to materialists, it’s apparent that socialism is a nice idea, but one that doesn’t work and shouldn’t be adopted.
To teleologists, none of that matters.
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Why does teleology (in this mutated form) matter? Because right now we have a teleologist as our President.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
Since he shut down USS Clueless, Den Beste has all but stopped writing political commentary. I hope this piece is the first of many he will write for hotair.com.
Excellent article.
Obama be payin may gas. White devil mothuf@cker type yo...
Yes, I have read his work before.
Glad to see something from him again.
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I hope it is just epistemologically challenged idiots in government believing the act of wanting something (that sounds good on paper) will make it happen. The more scary scenario is they are intentionally driving the country into a very serious crisis to justify grabbing more power. In the first case failed policy is unintended and considered failure. In the second case it is intended and considered success.
Yes. If we could listen to Rahm Emanuel's internal dialog, I bet we would find that he welcomes any crisis he can exploit.
A materialist is one who believes the world consists only of matter, and there is no non-material element, i.e., a Creator God. Therefore, man is a free agent to do whatever he pleases.
A teleologist is one who believes the universe was created, designed with a purpose, by a Creator God. Man has a free-will, but it is to be used to chose to align with the "design" of the universe. Of course, man can chose to not do so, but he must be prepared to pay the consequences.
Obviously, it is more complex than that...but that is for another posting.
At least, that’s the distorted form of Teleology that has come down to some of us in the modern era, mainly on the left wing. Aristotle probably wouldn’t recognize his red-headed step child as it exists today, though. Like many philosophically pure ideas adopted into popular culture, it’s gotten mutated nearly beyond recognition and almost all the mutations were negative.
I still think you have a good point.
In all my study, however, I have never heard anyone use those categories that way. i think those are completely novel to this author.
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