Re: Criticism
Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:55 am
JeffreyW wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:54 amI have evaded Steiner, but perhaps I should look into him. One of my graduate advisors, Saul Bellow, was almost obsessed with him. There might be something to the notion that the preconscious mind works prior to our sensibilities of space and time and is directly entangled with the elemental universe. That would allow for such things.AshvinP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:47 amJeffreyW wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:36 am I’m more of the opinion that reason, which as I use it is a unifying process according to the principle of sufficient reason and the identity principle, loses all explanatory power the more we know and the wider our frame of reference. Poincare, Wigner, Rovelli, and Penrose have solidly convinced me of that.
Instead, I see a shift of what we consider to be knowledge, which will be less about about facts and more about esthetic exploration of who we are in the world, and how we live. This is the exact opposite of now, when we are lost as humans but very successful in objectification of the world in order to dominate the environment. It has gotten us certain material gains, which is fine, but we lost so much more in the process. It’s about finding a balance through this new thinking of knowledge.
Yeah, I think we are just arguing over whether there is at least some ability for Reason to bring us to the doorsteps of esthetic exploration (imaginative cognition), which I feel is absolutely necessary because the reasoned conceptual foundation will be like a map when entering into unexplored territory. What I really want to know is about after you get a chance to read Steiner (or maybe you already have), and how you feel about the possibility that others have already developed esthetic cognition to the extent that they can give us very concrete and precise illustrations (remembering they are always mere analogies for a Reality which cannot be repreesnted in spatiotemporal concepts) of what is found in this unexplored territory of our subconscious. One such person participates on this forum (Cleric), but you guys haven't had a chance to interact yet. You may want to a browse a few of his essays here, like Beyond the Flat MAL (critique of BK's idealism which also puts forth another idealist perspective).
Wow, that's one hell of an advisor to have... and I am excited to hear he was almost obsessed with Steiner. Now I will need to actually read his novels!
Yes, if you are open to that possibility in bold, then I think you will greatly appreciate Steiner's PoF. I think he has even you beat for sheer distaste of abstract analytic philosophy (and psychology and religion). Even if he resonated with the underlying ideas, he knew that was not the direction of thought we should align ourselves with. Although one of my favorite quotes from him is the one which follows, because it really highlights how all of these views, from hardcore materialism-atheism to Kantian idealism and dualist religious fundamentalism, have something to offer us IF we understand how they are functioning in a more holistic evolutionary context. Through this higher knowledge we can turn what is supremely distasteful and annoying in philosophical thought into a great instructive tool for ourselves and others.
If one wants an exact nomenclature, one can call the formations of the intellect “concepts” and the creations of reason “ideas.” And one sees that the path of science is to lift oneself through the concept to the idea. And here is the place where the subjective and the objective element of our knowing differentiates itself for us in the clearest way. It is plain to see that the separation has only a subjective existence, that it is only created by our intellect. It cannot hinder me from dividing one and the same objective unity into thought-configurations that are different from those of a fellow human being; this does not hinder my reason, in its connecting activity, from attaining the same objective unity again from which we both, in fact, have taken our start. Let us represent symbolically a unified configuration of reality (figure 1). I divide it intellectually thus (figure 2); another person divides it differently (figure 3). We bring it together in accordance with reason and obtain the same configuration.
This makes it explainable to us how people can have such different concepts, such different views of reality, in spite of the fact that reality can, after all, only be one. The difference lies in the difference between our intellectual worlds. This sheds light for us upon the development of the different scientific standpoints. We understand where the many philosophical standpoints originate, and do not need to bestow the palm of truth exclusively upon one of them. We also know which standpoint we ourselves have to take with respect to the multiplicity of human views. We will not ask exclusively: What is true, what is false? We will always investigate how the intellectual world of a thinker goes forth from the world harmony; we will seek to understand and not to judge negatively and regard at once as error that which does not correspond with our own view. Another source of differentiation between our scientific standpoints is added to this one through the fact that every individual person has a different field of experience. Each person is indeed confronted, as it were, by one section of the whole of reality. His intellect works upon this and is his mediator on the way to the idea. But even though we all do therefore perceive the same idea, still we always do this from different places. Therefore, only the end result to which we come can be the same; our paths, however, can be different. It absolutely does not matter at all whether the individual judgments and concepts of which our knowing consists correspond to each other or not; the only thing that matters is that they ultimately lead us to the point that we are swimming in the main channel of the idea.
