Philosophy & The Creation of the Individual

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Philosophy Now
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Philosophy & The Creation of the Individual

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RCSaunders
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Re: Philosophy & The Creation of the Individual

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Philosophy Now wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:21 pm Mark Vernon chronicles a revolution in consciousness.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/138/Ph ... Individual
When you read:
The evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar has been studying ancient mentality to think about the origins of religion.
... you know you are dealing with crackpottery on stilts.

Mencken was right about philosophy:
Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.
This article is a great example.
owl of Minerva
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Re: Philosophy & The Creation of the Individual

Post by owl of Minerva »

Great article. Philosophy as love of wisdom is more relative to analogy than to analysis. The former compares leaving the part, which belongs to the whole, intact. The latter dissects the part to the point that its relationship to the whole is no longer apparent. Still, in an evolution from loss of knowing to again knowing analysis may be a necessary part of the journey. Revelation is rare and belongs to the domain of religion. Philosophy since Aristotle is less a love of wisdom than it is analyzing and systemizing in order to know not just the nature of reality but what our relationship to it should be as individuals.
Nick_A
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Re: Philosophy & The Creation of the Individual

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owl of Minerva wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:46 pm Great article. Philosophy as love of wisdom is more relative to analogy than to analysis. The former compares leaving the part, which belongs to the whole, intact. The latter dissects the part to the point that its relationship to the whole is no longer apparent. Still, in an evolution from loss of knowing to again knowing analysis may be a necessary part of the journey. Revelation is rare and belongs to the domain of religion. Philosophy since Aristotle is less a love of wisdom than it is analyzing and systemizing in order to know not just the nature of reality but what our relationship to it should be as individuals.
Very true. I've learned by experience that the purpose of philosophy is dying. The modern tendency on secularization and its emphasis on analysis assures that the higher intellectual function of noesis will begin to atrophy from lack of use. To make matters worse, this higher intellectual function provokes negative emotions by those who cannot understand the value of wholeness and why a minority appreciate it as the source of "meaning" for Man..

It seems that philosophy should play a part in what Plato called remembrance but it is dying in the same way Nietzsche said that God is dead. What should be the definition of philosophy that would include the analysis of science with the wholeness of remembrance? Can such a definition help to keep the purpose of philosophy alive by producing individuals with understanding of meaning along with practical knowledge?
owl of Minerva
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Re: Philosophy & The Creation of the Individual

Post by owl of Minerva »

Nick_A wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 5:53 pm
owl of Minerva wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:46 pm Great article. Philosophy as love of wisdom is more relative to analogy than to analysis. The former compares leaving the part, which belongs to the whole, intact. The latter dissects the part to the point that its relationship to the whole is no longer apparent. Still, in an evolution from loss of knowing to again knowing analysis may be a necessary part of the journey. Revelation is rare and belongs to the domain of religion. Philosophy since Aristotle is less a love of wisdom than it is analyzing and systemizing in order to know not just the nature of reality but what our relationship to it should be as individuals.
Very true. I've learned by experience that the purpose of philosophy is dying. The modern tendency on secularization and its emphasis on analysis assures that the higher intellectual function of noesis will begin to atrophy from lack of use. To make matters worse, this higher intellectual function provokes negative emotions by those who cannot understand the value of wholeness and why a minority appreciate it as the source of "meaning" for Man..

It seems that philosophy should play a part in what Plato called remembrance but it is dying in the same way Nietzsche said that God is dead. What should be the definition of philosophy that would include the analysis of science with the wholeness of remembrance? Can such a definition help to keep the purpose of philosophy alive by producing individuals with understanding of meaning along with practical knowledge?
It is a major problem today. In some cultures more so than others there appears to be a loss of balance, an overemphasize on the rational and analytic. Whether this is in line with the left brain/right brain theory, where in an individual or in a culture one brain function is dominant while the other is suppressed is, something to be considered. It is a possibility that it is the case.

Being balanced is not easy. Great minds generally are; they can call into play both brain functions as needed, that is the ideal. It would take conscious effort for some to do it, as most people appear to be in one hemisphere or the other; not utilizing both.

It may also be the result of what has happened in time. In ancient philosophers perception appeared to be dominant, we would have a difficult time today comprehending their worldview. The classical period became more analytic but drew for inspiration from their predecessors. In the Dark Ages it all was lost; in the assent out of them it was necessary to look backward to the classical period to get oriented; to understand anything.

Where we are today with technology, in the Information age, is impressive but it requires a counterbalance of the perceptive mindset that appeared endemic to the wisdom of higher cultures.
Nick_A
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Re: Philosophy & The Creation of the Individual

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I'm glad to read that you understand these ideas. I know how much they are rejected by the educators who glorify fragmentation and rely on binary logic.

Basarab Nicolescu is a scientist but also an individual who understands the balance of science and the sacred. Unfortunately these people seem to be exceptions. Yet he has organized a means for intellects, artists, and mechanically inclined who realize they each have a piece of the truth to try and feel whole truth so as to become individuals

http://esoteric.msu.edu/Reviews/NicolescuReview.htm
.......Nicolescu’s raison d’être is to help develop people’s consciousness by means of showing them how to approach things in terms of what he calls “transdisciplinarity.” He seeks to address head on the problem of fragmentation that plagues contemporary life. Nicolescu maintains that binary logic, the logic underlying most all of our social, economic, and political institutions, is not sufficient to encompass or address all human situations. His thinking aids in the unification of the scientific culture and the sacred, something which increasing numbers of persons, will find to be an enormous help, among them wholistic health practitioners seeking to promote the understanding of illness as something arising from the interwoven fabric—body, plus mind, plus spirit—that constitutes the whole human being, and academics frustrated by the increasing pressure to produce only so-called “value-free” material.

Transdisciplinarity “concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline,” and its aim is the unity of knowledge together with the unity of our being: “Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge.” (44) Nicolescu points out the danger of self-destruction caused by modernism and increased technologization and offers alternative ways of approaching them, using a transdisciplinary approach that propels us beyond the either/or thinking that gave rise to the antagonisms that produced the problems in the first place. The logic of the included middle permits “this duality [to be] transgressed by the open unity that encompasses both the universe and the human being.” (56). Thus, approaching problems in a transdisciplinary way enables one to move beyond dichotomized thinking, into the space that lies beyond.........
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