Posts Tagged ‘pre-Socratic’
“Knowledge lovers”: Part 2 of this twilight
Posted by: adonis49 on: April 21, 2021
Twilight of “Knowledge lovers”, Part 2
Posted on January 28, 2010
- In: Book Review | engineering/research/experiments | Essays | philosophy | religion/history
- In part 1, I exposed the theme that philosophy was the super-structure of the dominant class in any period of what is now called “Class Ideology”, and that the economical aspect was not included in the philosophical system of reasoning. (Just Not to open the eyes of the educated on the basic aspect of their conditions?)
Man has been asking questions; he has been cultivating doubts.
Every question generated many non-answered questions. Every man is a philosopher once he starts jotting down coherent questions and then realizes that his “universe” is based on doubts.
Most of his questions have no satisfactory resolutions to constitute a perceived “structured comprehensive world” in his brain.
A philosopher sets out to devise a set of structural questions that he thinks are “logically deductive” in nature (it means that it would not be feasible to answer a previous question before resolving several basic questions).
Thus, philosophers have been driven to accept a few fundamental “given” solutions, or “elemental facts,” or principles just to get going in their projects of building structured understanding of man and the universe.
Since Antiquity, philosophy (love of knowledge) was a catch-all term to represent all aspects of knowledge, including metaphysical concepts.
Since sciences were barely founded on facts or empirical experiments (not appreciated within the dominant classes), except during the Islamic Golden Age (9th to 12th century), and after the “what is not measured should be measured” by Galileo in the 17th century, philosophers fundamentally based their structure on abstract premises and deductive logic.
This makes sense: Once knowledge is firmly grounded on empirical facts (assuming the design of the experiment is valid) then philosophy should take secondary place in rational societies.
Sure, the name and meaning of philosophy was lost in the absurd long gestation toward the advance of knowledge.
The mathematician Descartes was the first European who tried to delimit boundaries between sciences and philosophy: Descartes differentiated between invariant primal impressions and secondary perceived variables. It was the period when sciences got ascendance over abstract philosophical structures.
Before the 16th century, Europe’s philosophical systems were towing sciences (principally natural sciences).
Descartes influence stems from differentiating between forms of realities/ “substances”. The first kind of substance is the mind which cannot be subdivided. Examples of such substances are the notions of time, space, and mass with which quantitative properties of an object can be measured.
The second kind of substance or “extensions to the matter” represents the qualitative properties of an object such as color, smell, taste, and the like.
Descartes division in forms and reality is being validated in equations: the right hand side and left hand side in any equation must be compatible with the same dimensions of time, space, and mass (what is known as compatibility in units of measurement). By the way, Descartes was a lousy philosopher but first-rate mathematician.
There are attempts at “refreshing” interest in philosophy by giving new names and labels to ancient philosophical schools and beginning with the prefix “neo-something”. For example, we hear about neo-empiricism, neo-Marxism, neo-Darwinism, neo-materialism, neo-existentialism, analytical philosophy and so forth.
All these new lines of current philosophical structures have historical roots that reach to antiquity and pre-Socratic philosophers.
The new “refreshed” lines of thinking apply current scientific fields (such as anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, or sociology) to ancient philosophical systems to validate their contentions.
For example, current nuclear physicists are fundamentally pre-Socratic in their quest for the elemental matters; they want to be able to offer a satisfactory explanation of “what is matter?” This problem is thus a vital part of their “life’s philosophy”, the “essence” or an answer to the question “what is my nature”?
I conjecture that most universities have branches called “philosophy” or something related to logical processes: students need topics to write thesis and dissertations.
Sciences have taken over: they can extend answers to “what can be answered”.
Sciences are far more efficient than philosophy: faulty answers go unnoticed very effectively.
There are very few practiced scientists, but every man think he is a philosopher: man can feel what’s wrong with a philosophical system, but he refrains to claim knowledge in sciences.
Twilight of “Knowledge lovers”, Part 2
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 28, 2010
Twilight of “Knowledge lovers”: Part 2
In part 1, I exposed the theme that philosophy was the super-structure of the dominant class in any period of what is now called “Class Ideology”, and that the economical aspect was not included in the philosophical system of reasoning.
Man has been asking questions; he has been cultivating doubts.
Every question generated many non-answered questions. Every man is a philosopher once he starts jotting down coherent questions and then realizes that his “universe” is based on doubts.
Most of his questions have no satisfactory resolutions to constitute a perceived “structured comprehensive world” in his brain.
A philosopher sets out to devise a set of structural questions that he thinks are “logically deductive” in nature (it means that it would not be feasible to answer a previous question before resolving several basic questions). Thus, philosophers have been driven to accepting a few fundamental “given” solutions, or “elemental facts,” or principles just to get going in their projects of building structured understanding of man and the universe.
Since Antiquity, philosophy (love of knowledge) was a catch-all term to represent all aspects of knowledge, including metaphysical concepts. Since sciences were barely founded on facts or empirical experiments (not appreciated within the dominant classes), except during the Islamic Golden Age (9th to 12th century) and after Galileo in the 16th century “what is not measured should be measured”, philosophers fundamentally based their structure on abstract premises and deductive logic.
This makes sense: Once knowledge is firmly grounded on empirical facts (assuming the design of the experiment is valid) then philosophy should take secondary place in rational societies.
Sure, the name and meaning of philosophy was lost in the absurd long gestation toward the advance of knowledge. The mathematician Descartes was the first who tried to delimit boundaries between sciences and philosophy: Descartes differentiated between invariant primal impressions and secondary perceived variables. It was the period when sciences got ascendance over abstract philosophical structures.
Before the 16th century, Europe’s philosophical systems were towing sciences (principally natural sciences).
Descartes influence stems from differentiating between forms of realities or “substances”. The first kind of substance is the mind which cannot be subdivided; examples of such substances are the notions of time, space, and mass with which quantitative properties of an object can be measured. The second kind of substance or “extensions to the matter” represents the qualitative properties of an object such as color, smell, taste, and the like. Descartes division in forms of reality is being validated in equations: the right hand side and left hand side in any equation must be compatible with the same dimensions of time, space, and mass (what is known as compatibility in units of measurement). By the way, Descartes was a lousy philosopher but first-rate mathematician.
There are attempts at “refreshing” interest in philosophy by giving new names and labels to ancient philosophical schools and beginning with the prefix “neo-something”. For example, we hear about neo-empiricism, neo-Marxism, neo-Darwinism, neo-materialism, neo-existentialism, analytical philosophy and so forth.
All these new lines of current philosophical structures have historical roots that reach to antiquity and pre-Socratic philosophers. The new “refreshed” lines of thinking apply current scientific fields (such as anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, or sociology) to ancient philosophical systems to validate their contentions.
For example, current nuclear physicists are fundamentally pre-Socratic in their quest for the elemental matters; they want to be able to offer a satisfactory explanation of “what is matter?” This problem is thus a vital part of their “life’s philosophy”, the “essence” or an answer to the question “what is my nature”?
I conjecture that most universities have branches called “philosophy” or something related to logical processes: students need topics to write thesis and dissertations.
Sciences have taken over: they can extend answers to “what can be answered”. Sciences are far more efficient than philosophy: faulty answers go unnoticed very effectively.
There are very few practiced scientists, but every man think he is a philosopher: man can feel what’s wrong with a philosophical system, but he refrains to claim knowledge in sciences.
How have you been “existing”?
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 21, 2010
How have you been “existing”? (Jan. 25, 2010)
The main philosophy of the last century was called “Existentialism” that Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) disseminated after WWII with the cooperation of Simone de Beauvoir who published “The second sex”. What differentiated Sartre’s existentialism from Kierkegaard, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger is that Christianity is no longer a crutch to lean on for processing the concept to its final outcome.
In that philosophy, man and woman have no innate “nature” to fall back on. They just have to create themselves, their “natures” (their “essence”). The feeling of alienation is that mankind was created without his will and yet, he is condemned to be free for taking responsibility of his actions knowing that there are no eternal values or norms for guidance and directions. The individual has to create his set of values and his nature from actions among choices, even default choices.
That Sartre’s existentialism allied to Marxist movement (Sartre never accepted to be a member of a political party) is part of this century struggle for enjoying the freedom that we never asked for; but “man is condemned to be free” in taking responsibility of his actions simply because he is created to be conscious of his existence and his death: mankind is not “in itself” but “for itself” and an individual relies on his existence to be whatever he might otherwise be “his nature”.
For example, Stephen Hawkins, this crippled astrophysicist, grabbed the question of his interest (nature) “How the universe was created”. That Hawkins offered the Big bang theory is irrelevant to the universe or to everyday man is important philosophically. What is most important is that Hawkins must have enjoyed “the meaning of his life”. The Big Bang proposition may be accompanied by all kinds of mathematical formulas it does not make it more believable than a childish storytelling in Bibles that are so funny to kids. For example, why just one Big Bang? Is it because God must be one and only one? Anyway, how many of us seriously engaged on his journey for discovering the meaning of his life existence?
Current nuclear physicists are fundamentally pre-Socratic in their quest for the elemental matters; they want to be able to offer a satisfactory explanation of “what is matter?” This problem is thus a vital part of their “life’s philosophy”, the “essence” or an answer to the question “what is my nature”?
Existentialism was the source of modern style in writings called the “absurd”. For example, when you show the lack of coherence or meaning in life, then the reader or audience is forced to cultivate his “own meaning” of the story.
Things have changed. The world can be felt as reduced to a Town Square; instant audio-visual communications around the world is discouraging people to move out and investigate “his universe”. The Renaissance man had to travel on horses for long distances to educate his curiosity and talents.
Arne Naess disseminated the eco-philosophy which stated that western paradigm line of thinking is taking the wrong direction for a sustainable earth: Man is not in the upper chain of evolution and he has no right to destroy the other living creatures for his perceived universe.
The new wave of occultism, New Age, alternative lifestyle, mysticism, spiritualism, healing, astrology, clairvoyance, and telepathy are consequences of collecting mass “coincidental” happenings among the billion of people and which are relayed instantly on the Internet. These coincidences can be explained rationally, especially if we believe in the power of the subconscious for erratic behaviors.
The worst part is that millions are still brandishing old Books or Bibles claiming every word for “truth”; as if we are in the Dark Ages. Sciences and technologies have done serious empirical attempts to answering most of the dialectical problems in philosophy such as how the universe was started, how knowledge developed and progressed. What is outside the realm of sciences is in the domain of faith which should not be confounded with religious philosophical belief systems.
The “meaning of life” is not a solution: it is the trip, the journey to answering a single definite bothering question, a question that interest you mostly among hundreds of other pretty much non answerable questions. This trip means working toward a resolution to the question “What is my nature?” It is hard work, relentless, and tricky journey but nothing has meaning if we don’t feel the obstacles and hardships.
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