From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sun Mar 30 2003 - 17:23:07 BST
Hi David,
> DMB says:
> I'm saying that the line between social and intellect levels is
demonstrated
> in the historic conflict between religion and science. I'm saying that the
> line is too broad, broader than is healthy. The intellect is
dis-associated
> from its parent level and that this alienation is evidence of the line
> between them.
I agree with that. SOM/Modernist thinking is diseased.
> To be a bit more subtle, I wouldn't want to erase the
> distinction, which is think the shrub/tree analogy does. The problem is
one
> of excess. Instead of being independent, as a grown-up level should be,
the
> intellect has become estranged and even hostile to the social level. This
is
> the problem with Modernity and SOM. The distinction between myths as facts
> is one of the benefits of Modernity and we'd do well to keep that bit of
> progress even in these postmodern times. The problem is in dismissing
myths
> as untrue facts rather than seeing them as myths.
We really are quite close on some things. I see the absolute distinction
between 'myths' and 'facts' as part of the problem, but I suspect it's a
question of degree between us.
> DMB says:
> I think that sometimes postmodernism is used as an escape hatch, as an
> ejector seat to be used whenever one is about to crash into the obvious.
Nice image. I think it only applies to 'half-baked' postmodernism though.
(BTW, for Matt, if he's reading this: doesn't Lyotard's 'incredulity towards
metanarratives' commit him to relativism? Just a thought)
> DMB says:
> Extract the kernel? Intellectual analysis of religion is a very good
thing,
> but it can NOT take the place of religious experience.
Yup.
> Indeed, valid
> intellectual analysis of religion is nearly impossible without knowing
first
> what a religious experience is like! Paths up the same mountain? I guess
> that picture is OK, but it probably applies to a willful philosophical
quest
> or vision quest rather than to religions. As I understand it, there's an
> "organic" quality to religions. Not "organic" in the sense of Pirsig's
> biological level, but I mean that they arose and evolved spontaneously,
> naturally, without anybody's conscious control. We didn't create religions
> so much as they created us. Trying to step outside one's culture, the
> religious traditions, the mythology and language that allows you to think
in
> the first place, to go seek the mountain top on your own or on the path
> traveled by those of another culture is more than I can handle. I think
its
> more than almost anybody can handle. They don't call them trappings for
> nothin'!
I'm in full agreement with that.
> DMB says:
> It wouldn't be appropriate or even possible for a philosophical system to
> invent new rituals. That'd be like asking the social level to invent new
> organisms. The MOQ DOES include rituals nevertheless; namely all the
rituals
> in the world. The MOQ puts ritual at the social level of evolution, which
is
> far better than SOM, which puts it in a category called superstitious
> non-sense.
That's alright so far as it goes, but I'm not completely clear that rituals
are wholly socially-driven.
> DMB says:
> Well, if Pirsig paints it rightly, the clash between levels is inevitable
> because they have, or rather ARE, two different sets of values. This must
be
> especially true in the social/intellectual clash because its so new. But I
> think one of the main reasons for the dis-association and alienation, the
> over-doing of the separation is a bit of an historical accident. During
the
> age of scholasticism, Aristotelean physics and cosmology was effectively
> married to Christian theology. (I'm sure you know all about it.) Then
> Galileo sent the whole elaborate system into wack, not by pronouncing some
> radical new doctrine about the nature of God, but because he had a
telescope
> and reported what he saw through it. The clash between religion and
science
> is actually, largely, as clash between ancient and modern astronomy.
If that was the case, why was Galileo a papal court favourite for so long?
Why did things change when his 'sponsor' died. I think that you are drawing
on some inexact information there (although I don't totally disagree).
> Dante's Inferno depicts hell as a series of concentric circles. This is
not
> so different from the ancient cosmology adopted by the church. This same
> cosmology also existed in the cultures that wrote the bible. Instead of
> deeper and deeper levels of hell, the outward cosmological picture was of
a
> series on rotating concentric crystaline spheres on which the stars rode.
> (This is a particular version of the great chain of being, an aspect of
the
> perennial philosophy.) This graded picture of reality worked morally,
> theologically, socially and it even seemed to work in physics. Everything
> had its natural place. Low things in their low places and high things in
> high places. Everything reinforced and supported everything else, which
was
> really great if you were one of the lucky few in high places. Kaboom! The
> attempt to strengthen the church's view with ancient cosmology blew up in
> their papal faces. Galileo's telescope had enormous political consequences
> that changed the face of Europe. It went from Monarchy and feudalism to
> democracy in just a few hundred years. That's only a comic book sketch,
but
> you get the idea.
Yup, no problems with that. (Kingsley was interesting on how the universe
was constructed by Empedocles)
> Finally, I'd like to bring this sketch to bare on an assertion you made
> about the perennial philosophy. You said, "I think the 'perennial
> philosophy' is an illegitimate Enlightenment construct." The Enlightenment
> attack on the Church's cosmology was also an attack on the great chain of
> being in political and theological terms too. The order of everything was
> called into question by new data about the stars precisely because
> everything was so tightly interwoven, as if pulling on one thread
unraveled
> the whole carpet.
Yup.
> The point is not to simply reiterate what if already said,
> but to couch the same idea in terms that show that the perennial
philosophy
> is NOT an "Enlightenment construct", but rather the opposite. It
represented
> the hierarchy they wished to shatter. The Enlightenment seeks to portray
the
> perrennial philosophy as quaint and obsolete, at best.
Can you point to anyone who articulated 'the perennial philosophy' before
the Enlightenment got going?
Sam
"A good objection helps one forward, a shallow objection, even if it is
valid, is wearisome." Wittgenstein
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