tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631954868579892426.post8513949714556897357..comments2024-02-07T05:29:42.988-08:00Comments on Nicht Diese Töne: Scientism and HumanityPaul Franzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10454463015164323230noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631954868579892426.post-46174296685542620142009-09-28T18:30:56.012-07:002009-09-28T18:30:56.012-07:00To be fair, we were laughing in a much more sophis...To be fair, we were laughing in a much more sophisticated and haughty way. Right? Isn't that how it works? I'm still not quite up on this Straussian esotericism stuff...Paul Franzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10454463015164323230noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631954868579892426.post-12027848573264329262009-09-28T15:42:11.772-07:002009-09-28T15:42:11.772-07:00Having too much free time I now just finished Slou...Having too much free time I now just finished Slouka's article which was pretty awesome. Maybe it's because of my Waldorf Education, but I was fairly convinced by this essay by Bertrand Russell www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/22898/ . He argues, some 70+ years ago, that the sciences are neglected in liberal education. Paraphrasing his essay in contrast to Slouka's, he suggests that the sciences are democratic, because everyone who participates, even the lab grunt, adds to the overall growth of the science and human knowledge. This is untrue of the humanities where only the rarest of talents add a lasting effect to the subject.<br /><br />The humanities are aristocratic as nearly everyone who is involved with them stands in the shadows of the giants who came before. In science, however, we stand on thier shoulders. Science requires massive collaborations and the collective work and intelligence of everyone involved. Each breakthrough is brought about from thousands of experimental results and inadequate hypotheses. Lots of scientific work is misguided, but each experiment produces some result which might be important to future breakthroughs, or, at the least, it has ruled out one correlation. Sometimes new theories are composed out of the decaying pieces of old ones, and nearly every effort in the scientific community finds a way to make itself useful.<br /><br />More philosophically, the work of science is about shunning dogma, working with a community, contributing to something beneficial for all humanity, and, above all, an impassioned desire for knowledge (philo-sofia that's right I just did that. Eat it philosophy professor Slouka). These sentiments can give people who work in science a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, and even happiness. People who promote the humanities often falsely claim exclusive rights to making fully developed men.<br /><br />I am biased on the subject, and I don't mean to knock the humanities or deny that they are undervalued today. I would, however, say that the article is too obsessed with the humanities, and sees the scientific outlook as something not nearly as useful as he should. <br />My point, put simply, is that the pursuit of science and scientific theory contains what Slouka only sees in the humanities, and, in addition, he seems to associate the scientific mindset with the underlying problem of capitalism in America. They are different.<br /><br />Now i'm just ranting. I guess i need my own blog. I'm going to stop wasting time and start being productive (see what i did there?.)Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14393672184728226355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631954868579892426.post-31496407654357139592009-09-28T13:32:30.649-07:002009-09-28T13:32:30.649-07:00Not to contradict you, but we laughed at a whole b...Not to contradict you, but we laughed at a whole bunch of classes including our seminars on the Republic, Husserl and mocked Descartes tirelessly for years. Just sayin'. Also, maybe because i just made my students read it, but your post reminds me alot of that awesome essay, "Music and Fractal Landscapes" from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Read it again, you'll see it. Keep up the posts, they're keeping me quite entertained. You even made it onto my Opera speed dial page.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14393672184728226355noreply@blogger.com