• Tom Storm
    9.4k
    West has gone so far with reason.Jack Cummins

    Not sure about that. Is this not a cliche? I would argue the West is largely irrational and emotion driven, like most humanity.

    Remember that reason is the foundational support for classical theism (natural theology). Even today if you were to read David Bentley Hart or other serious philosophers and theological thinkers, they would maintain that reason leads you inevitably to god. St Anselm for instance thought that faith was merely a starting point - the deeper understanding of theism was encountered through reason. I think you'll find that many forms of idealism today (Bernardo Kastrup, for instance), appeal strongly to deductive and inductive reasoning.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.4k

    The issue of how far the West has gone with reason is complicated because it is so variable. In some ways, people have development of reason which is only superficial, almost as pseudo-reason. The ability to reason about the emotions is also important as reason doesn't have to lead back to religion. Psychology may have stepped in where religion left off, especially in the idea of emotional intelligence, or Eric Berne's idea of 'Games People Play'. Social psychology involves the dramas of the social world.

    The understanding of myth which is often adopted in colloquial disciplines is of myth as being about false assumptions. This is bound up with myth being seen as being about the supernatural. That is ignoring the way in which myth operates in every aspect of social and political lives . Thinkers about this may be neglected, not simply as a development of reason but as a split between reason and emotion. Even thinking about religion may involve this split, which may be why some people embrace it and others reject it entirely.
123Next
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.