Posted on 11/10/2008 11:37:17 AM PST by betty boop
How can such things as "mind," "world," or "reality" be objects for science? How, for instance, can "world" be understood as a concrete object of intention? It's not something you can just lay down on a lab bench and conduct experiments on.
Sure we could say that "Psyche and spirit could be described as part of mind and world and reality." But that would not be a scientific statement. For science deals with direct observables, and neither psyche nor spirit is a direct observable — nor is "mind", "world," or "reality" for that matter. Science cannot be the authority WRT such phenomena, for its method is inapplicable to them.
Dear Betty,
Your response is a surprise. I didn't expect derision from someone like yourself. I do not, and did not, refer to Wikipedia
Your claim that Vöegelin follows the Socratic-Platonic model is faulty on its face. I know that it is popular for Voegelinists to make the claim, but in fact Voegelin owes more to Rousseau than Plato. It is true he didn't develop a system, but that is a failing and not a virtue. When you cite his "30 books" you commit the logical fallacy of appeal to authority.
Thank you Jean. I got so much from the article. 1 John 5 — Who overcomes the world? And how? It surely isn’t by applying a dialectic . . .
My thoughts have run down the same line. When I get an understanding of the root of many modern thinkers and movements panentheism seems to be there. Genesis 1 ignored.
Chesterton wrote about the madman who imagined he was the savior, the Christ: “If we said what we felt, we should say, ‘So you are the Creator and Redeemer of the world: but what a small world it must be! What a little heaven you must inhabit, with angels no bigger than butterflies! How sad it must be to be God, and an inadequate God! . . . How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as down!”
But I don't want to change the subject. Can we get back on track here? In my last to you, I averred that "world" is not a subject matter for science. I have not yet heard your opinion of that. So while I'm waiting, may I elaborate further here?
Science deals with direct observables under controlled conditions. How can "world" be a direct observable, or controlled for? The only way we human beings can view the world, to observe it, is from the "inside," as parts and participants of it. There is no Archimedian point on which anyone can stand wholly "outside" the world so to view it "entire," complete, in all its movements in time, past, present, and future. (We cannot see what hasn't happened yet; and yet presumably the world does have a future, which from our standpoint in time has not yet been realized.) In short, "world" cannot be an object for scientific study. Partial operations in/of the world may be so viewed; but not the world entire.
It is the multiplicity of partial views gained by human experience articulated in language over millennia that gives us our sense of "the world" today, not science. Science has no standing to object to the great hierarchy of being — which turns out to be a constantly articulated framework of understanding of world and man's place in it cross culturally — one is tempted to say universally — regardless of the cultural contacts or lack thereof in widely dispersed geographical regions. Thus the "myth" or "model" of the great hierarchy of being has empirical basis because it is rooted in direct human experience and language.
Because it is rooted in human experience, it is not a "doctrine." A doctrine, if anything, is a substitution for direct experience.
It seems "the hammer of a higher God" is wielded by a psychopath here. For this hammer-wielder seeks to divinize himself as that higher God. And so it helps that the cosmos is "small." That just makes it easier to smash.
Thank you so very much Woebama for your excellent insights, and for the excerpt from Chesterton!
Until my curiosity is satisfied on this point, I will continue to regard your statement as yet another red herring.
As to your question: "Who overcomes the world?" It certainly isn't the Superman, who must end up being destroyed with it. 1 John 5 tells us all we need to know about this "overcoming the world" business. It tells us the only way we can do that.
Good stuff. Really, thank you again. Ayn Rand and Orwell explained the left/totalitarian motivation as the will to power . . . but I was never satisfied with that because of the reality denying nature of their thought. The leftist totalitarian has to live in the nightmare they create as well, even if they are partially in charge of the nightmare. Voegelin’s explanation of it as a psychological phenomenon . . . a turning away from reality that requires others to accept the illusion as well to avoid facing reality rings true to me at a deeper level than just the desire for power. Probably different mixes of the three motivations exist person by person who promote a totalitarian or God denying agenda: protecting a denial of reality, the will to power, and a malignant desire to afflict others with your pain and problems (invitation of them into your hell).
The narrow path . . . or not the narrow path.
It does weston. And thank you.
The problem with the hierarchy of being system is that it reduces each of these domains (God, man, world, society) into separate entities.
What has occurred through history based on this system is gnostic notions of traveling from one domain to another. Thus, we see dualisms arise such that the spiritual (God) is good and all the other domains are bad. The spirit is good and the body is bad. World-fleeing becomes the norm. Grace/Nature dichotomies plague theology. The Scriptures, however, tell us the Creation was good.
Modal philosophies try to incorporate all the domains together so that we understand the way each domain is integrated into the other such that, i.e., the domain of man is not autonomous from God, nature, or society. It provides a more holistic approach to understanding. (A Christian modal philosophy will still maintain the asceity of God while at the same time acknowledging that no man is autonomous from God.)
A Christian modal philosophy avoids the error that man is autonomous in his thinking from God, nature and society. When man believes he is an autonomous domain distinct from God his theoretical thoughts become apostate and lead to antinomies. (The original sin)
Theoretical thought that arises from self-knowledge, dependent on the knowledge of it's origin-God, cognizant of it's relation to the world and society, is less likely to engage in apostate theoretical thought.
Dear Betty,
I am sorry that you saw an ad hominem attack somewhere in my replies. None was intended.
Are you familiar with the work of Willmoore Kendall? I did not claim that Vöegelin and Rousseau were “kindred spirits” but that Vöegelin owed more to Rousseau than Plato in the development of his philosophy. Vöegelin and Kendall were, however, kindred spirits. Their correspondence included references to Rousseau (negative).
I have lurked on FR for years. It was your interesting post that caused me to register. I assure you I am familiar with the subject matter in some depth.
Correlation is not causation.
The classic example: that a bunch of storks appear around the same time a bunch of babies are born does not establish a causal relationship between the two events.
Image the reaction of a caveman faced with a functioning portable television. He might whack the screen and say "aha, the image was made by this area of the box." And he might whack the speakers and attribute the loss of sound to that part of the box. He might think when he killed the box, he killed the sound and the image. To him, the image and sound were "in" the box.
But that caveman knows nothing of information, signal processing, broadcasting. He is quite wrong. Correlation is not causation.
That's the same way I see science constrained by "methodological naturalism" trying to address "mind" "soul" and "spirit." Ditto for "world" and "reality." The domain of science is intentionally and significantly reduced, it does not have the means to discern beyond naturalism.
There are many sciences that deal with the “world” as I believe you mean the word. Cultural anthropology is one of them.
BTW, I do not disagree with Voegelin or you in an absolute sense. You both may be correct. I just don’t see how you could ever know if you are correct or not based on your epistemological methodology.
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
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