Posted on 10/28/2006 3:22:14 PM PDT by betty boop
Hayek points out that modern science fought against the old analogies to replace them with relations that go beyond mere appearances.
Take the stars, for example. They make patterns easily discernible to a child, but what is that to science? A real star for science is found in relations that are not sensuous but mathematical. Superceding the classification based on the senses, the new method of the natural sciences claimed greater precision and universal consent in their focus on quantitative relations. The question will be whether the definition of science is complete once it has thoroughly eclipsed the qualitative relations. In other words, must the prejudice of the old analogies against science become the prejudice of science against the traditional analogies in order to be science?
Hayek writes,
Nor is Science as such interested in the relation of man to things, in the way in which man's existing view of the world leads him to act. . . When the scientist stresses that he tries to study things independently of what men think or do about them. The views people hold about the external world are to him always a stage to be overcome.
You have suggested a sort of detente through compatibility or complementariness. What appears contradictory should not be considered exclusive if we allow the point of view. The the strictures of the logical mode of thought--especially the principle of non-contradiction--may block us from considering the integrated, but disparate categories or levels of phenomena which in and of themselves still exhibit analogical relations.
Suggesting a complementariness is but the beginning of a long and arduous task toward understanding it. You know how the Greeks pushed to find the underlying principle. I am willing to pony up my cautionary conjecture. The nature of the kinds of compatibility is likely to be multitudinous.
I'll add a second in the form of a question. Our noetic ability to acknowledge disparate relations as being simultaneous--can that faculty be mistaken as the principle of complementariness? I think an answer to that is important, especially when we have had Logos to be a running candidate.
Mathematics enters into knowledge of the stars very early. Primitive societies needed to understand the seasons and to know when to plant and when to harvest. Therefore you early develop a four-quarter calendar, with solstices and equinoxes.
Astronomy grows out of astrology. Astrologers needed mathetmatics to calculate stellar and planetary affects. In the Renaissance, Tycho Brahe was an astrologer, as I recall, and developed the math that led to the theory of eliptical orbits in his efforts to pin down astrological calculations more accurately.
Modern astronomers still use the constellations for reference, as well as measurements in degrees, because it makes it easier to locate something with the human eye. So the change from viewing stars and planets as gods or as celestial objects set in crystaline spheres inhabited by spiritual beings to objects made of the modern elements moving by gravity was not a sudden switch but something gradual.
As C. S. Lewis often notes, and plays with in his trilogy beginning with Out of the Silent Planet, the universe changed from something filled with light, life, and spirit into something dark, empty, and lifeless, but a good part of the change is more a matter of attitude than of scientific advancement.
In its origins, science was intimately connected with magic, because both are concerned not only with knowledge, but with a desire for power and control over nature and other people. Skeptical modern scientists tend to confuse science with religion, thinking both are superstitious. But religion is the desire to do what God wants and to do right toward others; magic is the desire to displace God and gain power for oneself. In that regard, magic and superstition are closer to science than to true religion.
P.S., I don't have Hayek here in the house, but I suspect he has more of the traditional modern view of what analogy means. But I suspect that analogy can be much deeper and truer than what we think it was.
Actually, McInerny argues that when Thomas Cardinal Cajetan, the first great Thomist interpeter, explained what Aquinas meant by analogy, he got it wrong, and for that reason it tended to be misunderstood from that point on. Quite a large claim to make, but I think McInerny makes a convincing case, and it's his third book or so on Aquinas.
As McInerny puts it, with his detective-story style interrupting his philosophical style, “[E]tiam Homerus dormitat and when Cajetan nodded, his head hit the table” (p. ix). That's why I would recommend his book, because I think he rescues analogy from its weaker senses.
Yes, there are kinds. Can you share?
Why is it you have to pray that God will change my heart?
Just give me facts, and if they are convincing facts, I will change my mind.
If you have to reach out to God to change my heart and mind, it tells me that you don't have much of an argument.
Science is based on the physical, repeatable, and inductive, it is not Philisophical as you guys are attempting to claim.
If you feel the need to believe that God created the universe, then please do so. Just because you feel this way, does not make it necassary for science to make itself useless so that you will be philisophically comfortable with it.
Not sure exactly what you mean, but I'll give it a quick effort.
I don't seem to be able to put my finger on McInterny's book at the moment, which is pretty hard to summarize anyway (that quotation above is from a review I once wrote of it), but he moves toward the view that analogy is the best way to understand the relation between God and the creation, or eternity and time, or the eternal forms and their phenomenal shadows (probably not a very accurate way of putting it).
To take an instance, can you say that "God is good," using the word "good" in any human sense? God is completely other, and therefore human goodness really is not properly descriptive of Him. But you can't say that "God is not good" either, nor does it make much sense to say that "God is super good." Perhaps it is better to say that God is real goodness, and that whatever goodness we see in this world is a pale shadow or analogy of that divine goodness. So God is not like our goodness, but our goodness is like God.
Similarly, one could ask, what is truth. The Thomistic answer, following Aristotle, is that truth is that which is most real, that which IS. But that which is most real is God. "I AM that I AM." So, if science is the pursuit of truth, of that which is, rather than something else, then how can science leave God out of the equation, if He is the most real of all? Maritain makes a good case that Thomas went a step further than Aristotle in defining the nature of reality as a kind of verb, to be.
The relation of the created world to God, Who is ultimate Truth or Reality, is analogical.
I'm afraid that's a very brief and rough account of some ideas that require a book full of philosophical development to tease out, and even that is only a start.
Thanks. I asked because you attributed something about a modern view to Hayek and I wanted to know what you recognized as different.
The mind of the flesh is hostile against God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.Aquinas put it this way:
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.If I present a case that provides a over welling preponderance of evidence supporting intelligent design, it is impossible for you to understand until your presuppositions are changed first. This is not because you are intellectually stupid--in fact I believe just the opposite, I believe that you have a cunning wit and are very intelligent and have a great deal of respect for you as you were created in the image of God. However, the perspective of the heart is fundamental to what the observer can see and is capable of understanding.
Sorry, but DNA evidence is rather convincing, and it is repeatable.
Fossil evidence, is rather convincing, and it is also repeatable, because the fact is, that if you find a fossil in a certain strata, most likely, you will find another of the same sort, and age in that same strata.
Abiogenesis is not evolution, it is not even a theory at this point, it is a convenient noun for a possible theory of the future, that explains how life came from nonlife, and do not give me Pasteur, you should know better, it is a logical fallacy to use such a silly argument when it comes o abiogenesis. Just because we don't know how scientifically yet, does not mean that it is impossible.
If we went to a completely faith based society, we would be living in grass huts, and hunting and gathering, because science in such a society would be useless.
Science is the how, religion is the why, if you feel that religion also answers the how, then feel free, but get off your computer, because that evil science created that machine you are sitting at.
If someone had looked at electricity and said, well, God did it, we would still be looking at the pretty lightning, and not have a clue how to create lightbulbs, heater elements etc.
Science has brought many things, due to the fact that it is physical, and is limited to the physical word.
As some people say, "god did it", is an excuse in science, and to use such an excuse makes science useless.
Evolution is one of the most rock solid scientific theories there is, and you can whine about how it is impossible to recreate history, but, history is not all that supports it.
The amount of evidence that supports the Theory of Evolution would take literally Terrabytes of space on a computer, and would take up a library the size of the capitol building to hold it all.
To just brush off that much evidence as a marxist plot, or as unscientific, is not only foolish, it's just plain ridiculous. It is ignoring the reality, because your faith won't allow you to deal with the reality.
I am a realist, science, is science, religion is religion, and they are 2 separate entities that have nothing to do with the other.
BTW, ust because I understand that evolution is the most rock soild scientific theories there is, does not make me areligious.
I have religion, it just isn't your religion, and my religion sure as heck is not scientific nor science.
Oh. I didn't mean that Hayek favored a modern view, but that he probably shared the somewhat diminished view of analogy assumed by just about everyone this side of the middle ages, even by those sympathetic to the earlier worldviews. I grew up with analogy as rhetorical theory and poetic method, and never thought of it in real philosophical terms until much later, even after having read fairly extensively in earlier literatures and having had a pretty good exposure to ancient thought in school and college.
Hold that thought, Cicero, because we'll be returning to it shortly.
Meanwhile, attitude and atmospherics seem to be what's driving the public discourse these days. (Forget reason.) And it is a very thin gruel.... One cannot be nourished from it.
Thank you for another beautiful essay post!
Oh what a tantalizing question, cornelis! I'm all over it, like flies on honey. Please give me the time I need to gather my sources and reflect, so as to make an articulate reply. At the very least, this is a question I need to "sleep on."
Be speaking with you soon. Thank you so very much for writing!
"The rise of freedom in the west owed something to liberal philosophy, but its solid foundations were laid by Christianity over the course of the middle ages."
And what follows your excellent opening quoted above is a summation of the ethics involved which is worthy of the men who struggled with those issues. Pity we don't see closer attention paid to them today. Thanks for your contribution; I won't remark on what you say because I don't see where I could improve it any.
And vive la difference! As it plays out in the human soul and, beyond that, into human communities, I mean.
Thank you for the insight, Cicero. Be speaking with you again soon.
Sounds exactly right to me, Cicero!
Thank you for another beautiful essay/post!
"This architect contrived a new method for building houses by starting at the roof and working down and establishing a foundation at the end of the project. The architect pointed out that among the obvious advantages of this method is that once the roof was in place the workers could toil in the shade of the hot sun and at other times be protected from rain and snow. Thus, inclement weather would not delay the progress of the construction. The Grand Academy of Lagado had approved this proposal by peer review, but the architect had not yet put it into practice at the time of Captain Gulliver's visit."
Don't you just love it??? :^)
Very appropriate passage to share here, thanks! I've never read Gulliver's Travels... sounds like a book to add to the "to-do" list... thanks betty boop!
What ignorance is this, Jaguarbhzrd? Specifically.
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