I guess I should caveat that claim by pointing out the scientism actually seeym to have a few sectarian rifts itself, and the common argument to hurl at heretics is that there version is "unscientific."



This leaves the question of: "why do we expect science to progress, such that I trust a physics or biology textbook from 2020 more than one from 1880," but the same thing doesn't apply to other human institutions?

It seems to me that science progresses through a progress akin to natural selection. Theories that jive less with reality eventually get selected against due to their inability to predict or explain all observations. That said, some theories also survive and thrive for other reasons (e.g., because they are elegant and aesthetically pleasing, easier to teach, are politically relevant, etc.).

But why shouldn't the traits of states also undergo this sort evolution? Perhaps there is an attractor within the chaotic systems of possible state systems that causes states to converge on a better outcome. Certainly, one finding in political science is that developed states tend to become more similar over time in many ways.

Anyhow, the claim that things are "just as bad as ever," certainly has its detractors, who can muster a lot of empirical evidence to support their claims of progress. % of deaths due to homicide have been trending down throughout history.

Oxford, a wealthier town, had a homicide rate of 110 per 100,000 in the 1340s, 3.3 times over Honduras' current rate and higher than some war zones today. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/23/us/historical-study-of-homicide-and-cities-surprises-the-experts.html

Studies of extant hunter gatherers and forensic anthropology converge on incredibly high homicide rates for humans in a "state of nature," at around 2,000 per 100,000. This is 44.5 times higher than the highest nations today, higher than the total death tolls of many major wars. However, a homicide rate of 1.8-2% isn't particularly at odds with what we see for the species from which we descended, so perhaps it isn't that surprising. Slavery, rape, and cannibalism are ubiquitous in human history and only slowly became anathema.https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19758

Wars have also been becoming less deadly. Several single day battles in the ancient and medieval world have more fatalities than the leaked figures for the Russo-Ukrainian War occuring over several hours. The Thirty Years War killed 2.5 times more of Germany's population than both World Wars combined. The Huguenot Wars in France killed 11-14 times the share of the population as World War I. If Syria were to experience loss of live on a level with that conflict it would be around 10 times a deadly. Most members of the Wermacht and Red Army survived the Second World War, whereas fatality rates for Latin Crusaders in the First Crusade, an exceptionally large army for the period, were around 66-80+% despite their victory.

US history follows a similar pattern. Fatalities as a share of the population follow an almost reverse chronological order, with the exception being the American Civil War being the highest, although if one includes the small pox epidemic made much worse by the Revolutionary War that conflict remains on top.

Now, this trend could very well reverse in the event of a war where nuclear weapons are used against civilian targets in large numbers, but for now it is a trend that's held across centuries. Obviously it's a trend in a chaotic system though, trending down in the long term but jumping around in a self-similar power law distribution on shorter scales.

Biology also suggests this progress may be taking place. Modern humans retain far more juvenile features into adulthood than their pre-agricultural ancestors. Human beings appear to have undergone a process akin to domestication over time.

Then, on the economic front, we have the fact that the share of human beings living in extreme poverty or bondage (slavery or serfdom) has rapidly declined.

There are certainly arguments against progress, but this is a tough set of trends to explain away entirely. It can't easily be reduced to "just technology," either, as there is ample evidence to support the claim that more open societies and greater economic freedom produces more rapid technological developments and scientific progress. Indeed, this was the whole reason Deng embraced a move to a market economy, because such a system is essential to national power. Thus, we can also see how a move towards greater freedom might be selected for in that it helps states survive conflicts.

Of course, the first philosophers of progress I am aware of, the Patristics, Eusbius, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret of Cyprus, all tied their conception of progress to the Pax Romana as leading to the eventual fruition of Isiah 2, "they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks," and Psalm 46 "He shall make wars cease unto the ends of the Earth," and towards economic prosperity and freedom (Psalm 72), and then the Empire collapsed. So, we'll see...

I greatly admire Dorothy Day, and find her writings of great value, particularly: The Long Loneliness (autobiography), Loaves and Fishes (about the Catholic Worker Movement), The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, and All the Way to Heaven is Heaven: selected letters of Dorothy Day. She was a pretty tough woman. She will probably be sainted someday--over her dead body! "Don't make me a saint -- I don't want to be dismissed that easily."

She modeled what following Christ means in the 20th (21st) century. — BC

She was amazing!

Studies of extant hunter gatherers and forensic anthropology converge on incredibly high homicide rates for humans in a "state of nature," at around 2,000 per 100,000. This is 44.5 times higher than the highest nations today, higher than the total death tolls of many major wars. However, a homicide rate of 1.8-2% isn't particularly at odds with what we see for the species from which we descended, so perhaps it isn't that surprising. Slavery, rape, and cannibalism are ubiquitous in human history and only slowly became anathema.https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19758 — Count Timothy von Icarus

One of the theories for why we have twice as many female ancestors as male is that ancient warfare was the norm. It seems like the remains of ancient humans they find are always covered in brutal injuries. Life was tough.

Biology also suggests this progress may be taking place. Modern humans retain far more juvenile features into adulthood than their pre-agricultural ancestors. Human beings appear to have undergone a process akin to domestication over time. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I thought all the members of the homo genus display neoteny. Did it progress even more in our species?

In a video asking the question What is Philosophy Good For, philosopher Hans-Georg Moeller gives an answer: questioning religion. He even suggests that it’s part of a good definition of philosophy, but at the very least he’s saying that questioning religion is historically one of the things that philosophy has done well, and is one of the most valuable things it does. — Jamal

I would disagree that "questioning religion" should be part of a good definition of philosophy, no more than questioning atheism should be part of a good definition of philosophy. Philosophy questions everything, and nothing should be off the table. In fact, there should be more questioning of much of the academic thinking in our culture, and the cultures around the world.

I agree that metaphysics has taken up much of philosophy, especially when it comes to religious beliefs, but that's because it's so pervasive. The questioning of metaphysical beliefs is a good thing, and the questioning of physicalism or materialism is also a good thing, both play an important role in trying to sort out what's factual. It's true that any belief that is as pervasive as religious belief will take up a large portion of philosophical thinking, but that doesn't mean that part of the definition should include "questioning religion." Part of the definition of philosophy is a critical analysis any belief.

Philosophy, for me, is any critical analysis, using philosophical principles (reason, epistemology, etc), that analyzes any belief or system of beliefs. My definition is much broader in scope than academic philosophy, and it includes the man on the street questioning his neighbors beliefs. Obviously most people are not trained in philosophy, but we're all philosophers to one degree or another. There are just not many that are very good at it.

It's a process that appears to have occured in many cycles. You have evidence of a process of self-domestication within other members of the homo genus going way back, but also evidence for further rounds of rapid self-domestication occuring after the existence of homosapiens.

Anatomically modern humans emerged around 300,000 years ago, while behaviorally modern humans emerged just 150,000-60,000 years ago. Within the latter period you also have another period of rapid neotenization occuring between 40,000-25,000 years ago. This period saw dramatic changes in skull morphology, sexual dimorphism, lower brain volume, and the introduction of genetic disorders associated with domestication that appear to be absent from earlier humans.

The expansion of glaciation also had a major impact on humans, making the species significantly smaller. Wealthy countries are just now reaching the peak average height for males. Agriculture may have been a further blow to average height, but there seems to be less consensus on this.

The big question is how and how much the emergence of civilization (agriculture and later states) affected human evolution. On the face of it, such a huge enviornmental shift seems sure to produce changes in the species over time. At the same time, it's an incredibly difficult question to answer due to the shorter time period and very dynamic nature of how various groups transitioned from hunter gatherer life styles to either pastoralism or agriculture, to full fledged state systems with formal legal systems, organized religions, etc.

IMO, it's impossible to get a valid typology to use in analysis when considering levels of development and we don't have widespread state formation until very recently, which compresses the record, since increases in complexity didn't occur in a linear fashion. Plus, as you get closer to the modern era, the topic gets increasingly politically charged.

But an interesting point that avoids this set of questions is the claim that, over time, culture became more important to human evolution than genes. Culture represents a way to encode information about the enviornment that is able to shift with enviornmental changes much more rapidly than genetic evolution. Such a trend might suggest that humans are on a road to becoming more and more a communal species (e.g., ants and bees being premier examples). This might explain why the nature versus nurture debate has so much life in it. Humans may have adapted to be increasingly malleable to cultural influences, nature causing us to rely more and more on nurture.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210602170624.htm

There is also a lot of evidence that autocracies are not good at spurring scientific progress, and technology is a key determinant in warfare. Market economies tend to out perform command economies in terms of innovation and growth. Autocracies also tend to preform worse militarily for a host of well documented reasons relating to incentives, while on the other hand we have the observed phenomena that democratic states don't tend to go to war with one another (although they tend to have even longer wars when they do get into them with their non-democratic rivals). All this opens up the possibility of freedom being promoted because states that don't promote the freedom and well being of their people are more likely to be destroyed or radically altered by internal or external conflicts.

It's at least a positive idea. The problem is that most reforms seem to only come when a crisis point is reached. For example, I don't see anything like the UN having actual teeth, power akin to the EU or US federal government, until some combination of global warming, global inequality, and migration spur on a world shaking crisis. It would be nice to do more reforms BEFORE things go to shit...

Still, there’s something about it that makes me suspicious. The idea that philosophy is an independent ever-expanding toolbox, ready to apply to whatever exists—this is surely a fantasy. Philosophy is itself always historically situated, and part of what it does is to apply its tools to itself, even to its own tools, depending on the social conditions. — Jamal

Yes, but the pragmatist/quietist approach would certainly include among philosophy's purposes the application of its tools to itself. And if reason, critical analysis and the careful use of language are among those tools, pragmatists and quietists have been doing just that. Successfully, I think.

What's to be considered, I think, is whether we want such tools to be applied in and to philosophy. If they are, then philosophy probably wouldn't involve much in the way of proclamations regarding Truth, the Meaning of Life, Being (a la Heidegger and others), the Good, the Beautiful, Reality, God and other traditional philosophical concerns, because such proclamations require the creation and imposition of a system of ideas, and the application of the tools I refer to generally precludes the formation of a system that purports to resolve those traditional concerns.

When they're not applied, I think what results is mostly an expression of the wishes, intuitions, feelings and preferences of certain individuals, which may be inspiring and thought-provoking, which appeal to the wishes, intuitions, feelings and preferences of others. Perhaps that's what philosophy is, really.

The critical aspect of philosophy in regard to religion, and in general, has been helpful but to what end? I think ancient philosophies had a more general purpose- to live well. I'm reminded of Hadot's What Is Ancient Philosophy? The idea that the primary function of philosophy is its function to critique is an anemic one. But I do think much contemporary philosophy works under that assumption. At least, critique is part and parcel of the refining of arguments that is so much of the literature (in the analytic branch, at any rate). If the primary function of philosophy is not to help us live well, then it should be. Critics are a dime a dozen. How many of them know how to live?

*This post tends toward self-referential incoherence.

But an interesting point that avoids this set of questions is the claim that, over time, culture became more important to human evolution than genes. Culture represents a way to encode information about the enviornment that is able to shift with enviornmental changes much more rapidly than genetic evolution. — Count Timothy von Icarus

All fascinating! Do you think that what we call religion is one of ways we carry information about the environment without having to physically adapt? I'm thinking of priests whose jobs were to hold the secrets to appeasing the gods, signaling when it's time to plant, and received wisdom about medicine.

If this was true, then to the extent that philosophy creates a vantage point on religion, it's maybe a reaction to an increased pace of change where religion isn't evolving fast enough.

It would be nice to do more reforms BEFORE things go to shit... — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think it's possible that the human species won't hang together long term. I think it will branch, with some branches retaining technology and others reverting to a stone age existence. An H.G. Wells sort of thing.

Generalizing even further, philosophy is—or is part of—enlightenment, a means by which humans are freed from domination, whether by nature, myth, religion, governments, whatever it happens to be:
I don’t have a specific question except: what do you think? — Jamal

I agree. But I might suggest that we broaden Moeller's definition from just formal "religions" to more general "dogmas". Dogmas -- authoritarian convictions -- arise in all phases of human belief, including Politics and Science. Ironically, some TPF posters are inclined to make dogmatic scientific assertions (e.g. Scientism) in cases where uncertainty is inherent (e.g. quantum physics). The role of modern Philosophy is indeed to shine light on dogmatic beliefs, but not to counter one dogma with another. :smile:


Dogmatism is defined as avoidance from accepting others' beliefs, ideas and behaviors. Dogmatic individuals have many problems in understanding new ideas. They cannot accept reasonable ideas instead of their incorrect ideas. They do not cooperate with others with different ideas.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5395528/

In living memory there were genocides and famines, and despite having a really cool philosophical toolbox, humanity is as stupid as ever (QAnon, white supremacy, nationalism, and so on and on). — Jamal

I think that these are the result of either not listening to philosophers, misinterpreting them, or outright ignoring them in combination with enforcing the very problems that philosophy is a tool against. I.e these things emerges out of the chaos of non-philosophical approaches to questions that arrises in history.

If philosophy is such a great mental technology, as you imply, wouldn’t we expect society to have become more rational over time, just as it has become more technological? Why hasn’t that happened?

The view I'm sympathetic to, from Adorno & Horkheimer, is that societies have become more rational, but only instrumentally so; the very concept of reason has been impoverished. You echo this state of affairs in describing philosophy as an instrument. — Jamal

I think history flows in waves and tides, going back and forth between enlightenment and stupidity. After a time of great achievements and enlightenment, people fall into apathy, the knowledge gets boring, people seek new meaning and crave differences, without the necessary work to change things carefully. Right now we live in a time when intellectuals aren't popular, where stupidity and apathy reigns once again. And just like earlier times in history this will lead to a form of collapse. The collapse might be seen in things like the things you mentioned, Qanon, white supremacy, nationalism, but also the Ukraine war and changing global politics and of course the big one, failure to fix climate change.

Such times usually follows an intellectual enlightenment era, in which knowledge once again becomes popular and stupidity and apathy start to be considered embarrassing traits. Such times lead to rapid progress in both technology, science and philosophy. We might see a surge in new thinkers in a few decades, a minor renaissance, like the enlightenment era, post-war era etc.

So I think it's less about society just slightly becoming more rational over time, and more that we historically live in a low tide right now, which feels like we're stuck in progress. As institutional religion keeps falling in popularity, I think rationality will keep on growing. And I think philosophy is a good tool for the mind of anyone living in a society which functions on rationality and reason, but even more so for fighting back stupidity and apathy.

And the tides seem to keep going back and forth faster and faster.

So we have the instrumental reason in science and technology that leads to vaccines, dentistry, washing machines, Zyklon B and weapons of mass descruction. This is based on the use of tools from out of the philosophical toolbox that you describe. So philosophy is there to "guide thoughts and ideas through a forest of confusion" towards ... genocide? — Jamal

The forest of confusion is what leads to genocide, meaning, failure at philosophy leads to genocide. We can invent anything, but only philosophy as a tool can keep our biases and destructive emotions at bay and make us more morally capable of understanding the practical use of technology without it leading to genocide.

For example, how do we keep developing AI safely? Without it leading to destructive outcomes? Philosophy can help us break down consequences, build up scenarios, inform laws and regulations. We see the difference right now, some are confused, act out in anger at the development, and some act out dangerous concepts without any thought as to what it could lead to. But some are rational and calm. They use reason to evaluate the use and outcome of certain AI systems, they keep forming thought-experiment scenarios and possible positive uses, while informing politicians of rational laws and regulations that keep the good aspects of AI and stop the bad.

Philosophy becomes a backbone tool that helps managing problem solving for things that are new in society. It keeps people rational and levelheaded when there are no rules of conduct in place. It's a force against the chaos that occurs when we face the unknown.

To me it follows that philosophy, as eminently critical, has to step in and say wait a minute, do we really want to be doing that? Philosophy often doesn't do that, I realize. I guess I'm emphasizing and celebrating the times when it does, thereby saying it ought to do more of it. This amounts to an attempt to form a richer notion of rationality than the one we have.

All of that's not so much a rejection of your position as an addition to it. — Jamal

Yes, I agree with that. Like I said about the tides of history, it's philosophy that keeps people afloat, especially in darkness. And I think the anti-bias aspect of philosophy as a tool of the mind makes people better at solving problems without those solutions leading to wars, genocide and more darkness. It keeps us constantly making better choices, while ignoring the tool makes us clash with the world, casting it in darkness.

I think it's the job of everyone of us who recognizes the value of philosophy and who understands the positive function it can have, to show others the value of such a tool and how it can be applied in practice. It lets us understand how we think, so that we can think better, morally and in reasoning.

I might have an overly positive perspective on philosophy, but I think that all negatives throughout history mostly shows a deep failure at actual philosophy. A misunderstanding of some philosophical concept or an intentional misrepresentation of it. Many people in power who understands philosophy, but act dishonest towards its foundation, use the lack of philosophical knowledge in people to their own advantage. Like how Hitler skewed Nietzsche's philosophy into a warped mythology for a gullible population, craving for meaning.

Philosophy should detach us from ourselves, so that we can examine our own thinking in relation to the world and other people.

Quick one-liner, or so…..what did you get out of The Eclipse of Reason? What is it the author wants to say, bottom line kinda thing? — Mww

It's about the instrumentalisation, and relativising, of reason - that reason used to be understood as an objective reality (although I think the world 'objective' is problematic in the context) but anyway, something which steered the world and which man could discern. Whereas it has become increasingly internalised, subjectivised, relativised. Also had insightful comments into the philosophical implications of Darwinism:

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, 10-11

'Regarding reason as a natural organ' is a profound shift in philosophy. This is tied to the rejection of platonic realism in mathematics, and the so-called 'naturalisation of reason' which was a major thrust of much 20th century English-language philosophy. It's all well beyond my education and skills to articulate in any detail but I see evidence for it in many places.

I think that these are the result of either not listening to philosophers, misinterpreting them, or outright ignoring them in combination with enforcing the very problems that philosophy is a tool against. I.e these things emerges out of the chaos of non-philosophical approaches to questions that arrises in history. — Christoffer

The forest of confusion is what leads to genocide, meaning, failure at philosophy leads to genocide. We can invent anything, but only philosophy as a tool can keep our biases and destructive emotions at bay and make us more morally capable of understanding the practical use of technology without it leading to genocide. — Christoffer

Interesting comments. I'm not going to argue that you are wrong, but my take is that fear and our tendency towards dualistic thinking may lie behind most problems like this. People are frightened and are easily galvanized by scapegoating, quick fixes, sloganeering and appeals to tribal identity (white nationalism, etc). The notion that you are either for us or against us becomes a kind of touch stone for social discourse.

I should think that in times of uncertainty, where fear is brewing and readily activated as a motivating energy (largely thanks to Murdoch in the West) we see people embracing glib answers which promise deliverance and perverse forms of solidarity.

I'm not sure that philosophy as such plays a key role here, but certainly ideas do.

Ok, I’ll go along with that. In the video, Moeller actually identifies three things that philosophy is for: questioning religion, coining concepts, and giving jobs to failed poets (continental philosophers) and failed mathematicians (analytic philosophers). — Jamal

Interesting...I'd broaden the 'questioning' part to questioning tradition and established values, including religion. Also, identifying unexamined assumptions driving thought (most of which probably derive from cultural, including religious, indoctrination).

I'm familiar with the 'creating new concepts' idea from Deleuze (see What is Philosophy co-authored with Guattari). I like the snarky reference to the anals and the incontinentals as failed poets and mathematicians respectively. Anyway, I should find the time to watch the video.

but it’s ranty, dated, and often shallow — Jamal

Yes, a study for a curmudgeon...

I'm worse than that. If I see people queuing for something, I'm immediately suspicious of it. — Tom Storm

Yeah, that's the misanthropic aspect of critical thinking. It might easily become a source of alienation, hence not for children.

The idea that philosophy is an independent ever-expanding toolbox, — Jamal

Did you notice The Philosophical Toolkit? There was a bit of discussion around it. Several tools are listed.

I suspect that the (self-conscious?) use of such heuristics is more common amongst the failed mathematicians than amongst the failed writers. That might just be my bias, which is towards critique rather than making shit up.

Against the common view that philosophy is a two-thousand-year-old failing enterprise, a body of thought that has produced no knowledge, couldn’t we say that philosophy has in fact done pretty well in bringing dominant beliefs into question, revealing their incoherence or baselessness, or just submitting them to rational enquiry? — Jamal

Yes. The common view is mostly bogus, although I’m sympathetic to the backlash to modern “philosophy” in the same way as that of some modern art.

Questioning things is essential. Socrates/Plato set quite the tone, and fit very well in what you described — and that should be the legacy.

Interesting...I'd broaden the 'questioning' part to questioning tradition and established values — Janus

Yes, that’s what I did in the OP and have been doing in the discussion since. The video made me think, and the resulting thoughts diverged from anything in the video.

I'm familiar with the 'creating new concepts' idea from Deleuze (see What is Philosophy co-authored with Guattari). — Janus

I thought about that too, but in the video Moeller mentions Hegel rather than Deleuze.

Did you notice The Philosophical Toolkit? There was a bit of discussion around it. Several tools are listed.

I suspect that the (self-conscious?) use of such heuristics is more common amongst the failed mathematicians than amongst the failed writers. That might just be my bias, which is towards critique rather than making shit up. — Banno

I just read it. Fell asleep. I doubt those heuristics are self-consciously used by either. Continentals might say they’re trivial and obvious at best, rigid and constraining at worst.

What I think philosophers do self-consciously use are concepts such as those described in a nice little book called Philosophical Devices: Proofs, Probabilities, Possibilities, and Sets by David Papineau.

Part I: Sets and Numbers
1. Naive Sets and Russell's Paradox
2. Infinite Sets
3. Orders of Infinity

Part II: Analyticity, a prioricity, and necessity
4. Kinds of Truths
5. Possible Worlds
6. Naming and Necessity

Part III: The Nature and Uses of Probability
7. Kinds of Probability
8. Constraints on Credence
9. Correlations and Causes

Part IV: Logics and Theories
10. Syntax and Semantics
11. Soundness and Completeness
12. Theories and Godel's Theorem — Table of Contents

That might just be my bias, which is towards critique rather than making shit up — Banno

By “making shit up” I’m guessing you don’t mean anything like the “coining of concepts” proposed by Moeller in the video as one of the things philosophy is for?

Fell asleep. — Jamal

We could easily find examples of the use of those heuristics hereabouts. It was their misapplication that was more widely discussed, see for example How (And When) To Think Like A Philosopher. it's short, you might be able to stay awake.

“coining of concepts” — Jamal

In part. Thinking in terms of Bernard Gert's "I'm a philosopher, so I don't know anything you don't know", a good rule of thumb might be that notions that are peculiar to philosophies must be treated as dubious. If doing philosophy is like plumbing, then it probably should avoid any pretensions of making discoveries.

Industrialism puts pressure even upon the philosophers to conceive their work in terms of the processes of producing standardized cutlery. — Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason

If doing philosophy is like plumbing, then it probably should avoid any pretensions of making discoveries. — Banno

Family resemblances, language games, alienation, positive and negative freedom, sense and reference. These concepts are at least useful. I happen to think they allow us to make discoveries too.

Quick one-liner, or so…..what did you get out of The Eclipse of Reason? What is it the author wants to say, bottom line kinda thing? — Mww

The bottom line is that reason can become merely instrumental, such that rationality leads to outcomes that are irrational when viewed under a richer notion of reason. For example, it was instrumentally rational for the US and the USSR to each create nuclear weapons, but irrational in terms of the interests of human beings in general.

Reason as the mere domination of nature entails the domination of people by other people.

Each is as much a better way of saying something differently as of saying something new.

They’re the same thing.

The critical aspect of philosophy in regard to religion, and in general, has been helpful but to what end? I think ancient philosophies had a more general purpose- to live well. I'm reminded of Hadot's What Is Ancient Philosophy? The idea that the primary function of philosophy is its function to critique is an anemic one. But I do think much contemporary philosophy works under that assumption. At least, critique is part and parcel of the refining of arguments that is so much of the literature (in the analytic branch, at any rate). If the primary function of philosophy is not to help us live well, then it should be. Critics are a dime a dozen. How many of them know how to live? — public hermit

It’s curious that both you and @Banno associate critique with analytic philosophy, because until now (and probably still, not sure yet) I’ve been thinking of other kinds of philosophy as critical, and analytic much less so.

We might be using the word differently. What I mean by “critical” has more in common with ancient philosophy than it does with the anemic approach. In fact, I almost used the word “anemic” in reply to @Ciceronianus, the sensible no-nonsense pragmatist, but decided it was too rude.

Critique and the philosophy of living well are bound together in Socrates and Plato, also I would argue in Nietzsche and Marx. To ask how best we should live is to criticize how we do live, which in turn is to question beliefs that usually go unquestioned.

Last night I happened upon this comment from a lecture by Adorno. It seems relevant to the (anemic) philosophy-as-toolkit idea:

I might point out here that the widespread positivist notion of a neutral form of thought, in contrast to one supposedly based on more or less arbitrary value systems and particular standpoints, is itself an illusion, that there is no such thing as so-called neutral thought, that generally speaking this alleged neutrality of thought with regard to its subject matter tends to perform an apologetic function for the existent precisely through its mere formality, through the form of its unified, method­ological and systematic nature, and thus possesses an intrinsically apologetic or - if you like - an inherently conservative character. It is therefore just as necessary, I would say, to submit the concept of the absolute neutrality of thought to thorough critical reflection […] — Adorno, Introduction to Dialectics

EDIT: I think what it comes down to is that I’ve often been talking about social critique, whereas others are talking about the critique of the philosophical concepts, systems, and arguments of other philosophers. I think I want to bring both of these under my idea of critique, as part of the same pre-eminent function of philosophy. (Although I don’t really like the word “function” here)

Yes, that’s what I did in the OP and have been doing in the discussion since. The video made me think, and the resulting thoughts diverged from anything in the video. — Jamal

Right. I probably haven't read the thread thoroughly enough.

I thought about that too, but in the video Moeller mentions Hegel rather than Deleuze. — Jamal

I've since watched the video, and he does mention Hegel in that connection. I have to say I'm a bit skeptical about Hegel's notion of thinking one's time, as though historical moments are monolithic and pure. In any case it needn't be a self-conscious thinking of the times if it is true that our thinking is inevitably constrained by the historical "moment" we find ourselves in.

Right. I probably haven't read the thread thoroughly enough. — Janus

You are forgiven.

I've since watched the video — Janus

Incidentally, did you notice that he mentioned woke politics? That's possibly a clue to his motivation: he sees "wokeism" as a civil religion, and since he questions it, he's questioning religion and is therefore a great philosopher.

I have to say I'm a bit skeptical about Hegel's notion of thinking one's time, as though historical moments are monolithic and pure. In any case it needn't be a self-conscious thinking of the times if it is true that our thinking is inevitably constrained by the historical "moment" we find ourselves in. — Janus

I find this topic difficult so I won't get deep into it. I will say that if it's true that philosophers cannot start from a neutral transcendent foundation, that their thinking is conditioned by their time, then it might help to be aware of it. Those philosophers who were not aware of it imagined they were building up from an eternally valid ground and producing knowledge applicable for all time, and they produced systems that were fundamentally in error partly for this reason. Kant, for instance, though self-consciously critical and non-dogmatic, in some ways did not take his attack on metaphysics far enough, and ended up with his own elaborate system, dogmatically rationalist in its own way (not to mention quintessentially Enlightenment and bourgeois).

Ever since then, philosophers have been acutely aware of human finitude, our inability to transcend our time, culture, point of view, and so on. This would include phenomenology, post-structuralism, Wittgenstein and much else. Incidentally, this century some philosophers got fed up with all that and started doing what has been called speculative realism, which says, among other things, that we can get access to things in themselves after all.

I doubt that Hegel's notion of thinking one's time entails a view of historical moments as monolithic and pure, since the whole point of his philosophy is to see things in their dynamic, historical, conflictual context, rather than as fixed.

That's a good summary of the Pinkerian arguments for progress, but I'm not going to get into it here, since that would take things way off-topic. All I will say is that when progressive Enlightenment leads to the transformation, in just a few years, of a country of high culture and learning into a racist war machine that goes on to kill millions, there is something very wrong which cannot be dismissed with your statistics (which have in any case been heavily criticized) or even with the claim that "oh, that was just an unfortunate backward step".

I said I wasn't going to get into it and then I kind of got into it. Never mind.

Thanks, and respect, to both

Reason as an organ, vis a vis, heart, lung, liver? Reason as an instrument, vis a vis, o’scope, meter, spectrograph?

Things progress or die, sometimes one is the other. Philosophy progresses, terms and conditions are given new meanings, in attempts to say something nobody else has, tantamount to mere academic oneupmanship.

Can’t do anything about it, but also don’t have to like it.