On Debate and Existence: Excerpts from Voegelin

The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Vol. 12 ^ | 1990 | Erice Voegelin

[William Terrell]

A little levity is a relief on these parched philosophy threads, nicht whar?

[betty boop]

A little levity is a relief on these parched philosophy threads, nicht whar?

"Parched????" LOL, WT! Well, it can't hurt!

[Diamond]

In the legal field, I know what you mean by the "it is immaterial", but isn't that notion itself dependent upon a notion of trancendence of thought, and therefore of the intelligence thinking the thought? In other words, a tree may fall, but it takes an intelligent being to be aware of the materiality (or the immateriality) of the tree fall. So how can the trancendence of the being thinking the thought, "It is immaterial if any being was aware of the 'sound' of the fall.", be immaterial?

cordially

[tpaine]

'Levity' is part of my point.

Intellectually pretentious baloons were made to be punctured & provide amusement.

[William Terrell]

& provide amusement.

Or a belly laugh. Sorry, didn't mean to upset you.

[William Terrell]

"Parched????"

Well, as opposed to juicy, like a National Enquirer thread.

[tpaine]

'Levity' is part of my point.
Intellectually pretentious balloons were made to be punctured & provide amusement.
184 - tpaine

Or a belly laugh. Sorry, didn't mean to upset you.
185 - WT

Upset? How-so?
It's even amusing, in a way, -- that you're trying to claim I'm 'upset'.

[tpaine]

To: betty boop; logos

A tree falls.
It is immaterial if any being was aware of the 'sound' of the fall. The tree fell. -- End of story.
You've been 'had' betty. Logos "great insight" is just more absurd sophistry.
167 - tpaine

In the legal field, I know what you mean by the "it is immaterial", but isn't that notion itself dependent upon a notion of trancendence of thought, and therefore of the intelligence thinking the thought?

Not if you believe, as I, that trees in fact, - do fall.

In other words, a tree may fall, but it takes an intelligent being to be aware of the materiality (or the immateriality) of the tree fall.

Not at all. An unintelligent being or object affected by the trees fall is also materially influenced.

So how can the trancendence of the being thinking the thought, "It is immaterial if any being was aware of the 'sound' of the fall.", be immaterial?

Because the fall did in fact occur, and in doing so, influenced other objects/beings.

Its fall, unobserved by intelligent beings, still affects reality. Thus, it is immaterial to reality if the fall is observed.

[William Terrell]

Proud to have provided the entertainment for the thread. Who shall I send the invoice to?

[tpaine]

Send your itemized bill to:

The Eric Voegelin Institute
Address:http://www.ericvoegelin.org/bettyboop

[William Terrell]

And they'll remit along about the time Hell freezes over, right? Typical client.

[logos]

And who knew you'd have a real-life example come along to prove Voegelin's point, eh? ;^)

[tpaine]

Coy little comment logos. [nice smiley too]
- But it lacks any reasoning to show that either you, or Voegelin, have even made a point.
- Which in V's case, was the question behind my initial post to BB. -- How can anyone understand the mans gibberish, -- even with the aid of that silly:
Dictionary of Voegelinian Terminology
Address:http://home.salamander.com/~wmcclain/ev-dictionary.html

[cornelis]

Will drossy thoughts sparkle diamonds?

[cornelis]

[Dr. Johson] communicated to me the following particulars upon the subject of his religious progress. "I fell into an inattention to religion, or an indifference about it, in my ninth year. The church at Lichfield, in which we had a seat, wanted reparation, so I was to go find a seat in other churches; and having bad eyes, and being awkward about this, I sued to go and read in the fields on Sunday. This habit continued till my fourteenth year; and still I find a great reluctance to go to church. I then became a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not much think against it; and this lasted till I went to Oxford, where it would not be suffered.. --Boswell.

[cornelis]

sued used

[beckett]

I would say that abandoning the idea that reason is something that all men can grasp is a kind of nihilism; if different groups have different kinds of reason...

Voegelin is not saying that different groups have different kinds of reason. He is presenting an argument in which what he calls a "Second Reality," an outgrowth of scientific materialism, has, in effect, substituted reductionism for a "noetic" apperception of reality. You may disagree with the argument if you like, but you cannot claim that it is nihilism, i.e., the viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless.

Sophistical argumentation, i.e., the clever manipulation, for ultimately deceitful purposes, of the facts contained in the subject under discussion, couldn't more inaccurately describe Voegelin, a man who is ernest to a fault.

BB has ably outlined the progression of his thought in post #163, which, I believe, was addressed to you.

Voegelin is a very difficult philosopher. You won't get any argument from me on that score. But to dismiss out-of-hand so serious a thinker, on the basis of a brief encounter, is itself an act of sophistry.

[betty boop]

Well tpaine, Voegelin's not exactly everybody's cup of tea. But if he's "gibberish," then I seem to have a very strange attraction to gibberish, and have spent enormous amounts of time and effort decocting/decoding it. ;^) (Actually, this gibberish makes sense to me.) Different strokes for different folks -- I hope we can agree to disagree without being disagreeable! All my best, bb.

[maro]

Excerpts from V. that began this thread:

"The universe of rational discourse collapses, we may say, when the common ground of existence in reality has disappeared."

"'Debate' in this form is hardly a matter of reasoning (though it remains one of the Intellect), but rather of the analysis of existence preceding rational constructions; it is medical in character in that it has to diagnose the syndromes of untrue existence and by their noetic structure to initiate, if possible, a healing process."

I don't think my accusations contra V. are unfounded. You want to water down what he is saying so that it is palatable. But the man appears to be saying something stronger. If he is not, he is only saying the obvious--that people who have radically different assumptions from me will tend to reach very different conclusions. As for BB's excellent and useful summary, see my reply at post 170. I have no difficulty struggling with difficult philosophers--I have been trying for years to make sense of Hegel. But when someone appears to be a fraud, I won't be shy to say so. I could be wrong; I haven't read anything by V. but what BB has brought to attention and what I read on a website. If I am, show me what deep thoughts this allegedly great philosopher had. (Unless you take the position that all the good stuff is secret, because of the esoteric/exoteric distinction that the Straussians like to go off on; I've always been suspicious of that position.)

[betty boop]

The Sophists, after all, were the university professors of their time.

Your analogy may be even more apt than you realize, maro.

Voegelin is, as beckett said, a rather difficult read. I can certainly attest to the truth of that! I've been studying EV since 1985, the year of his death at age 84. He died on January 27th, at about 8 a.m. But he was still working the night before, feverishly trying to complete the essay "Quod Deus Dicitur," having left notes for his still-unfinished volume 5 of Order and History: The Search for Order on his desk. Both were eventually published posthumously, in unfinished form, thanks to his devoted friend and assistant, Paul Caringella, and his wife, Lisse.

I was only half-joking when I told a friend recently that I didn't understand Voegelin for the first 15 years I'd been reading him. But I stayed with him, because I sensed the truth of his method and his analysis. You know what they say: "No pain, no gain!"

BTW, he didn't have much use for Heidegger (He excoriates him as an intellectual collaborator of Hitler's Third Reich in his essay on the German University.) And if you'd like to see an absolutely fascinating analysis of Hegel, see "Wisdom and the Magic of the Extreme" and "Hegel" -- all three essays can be found in Volume 12 of his published works, available at amazon.com. ("Quod Deus Dicitur" is in there, too....)