Between Continental and Analytic Philosophers

 

Naturalism emphasizes science as the primary source of knowledge about the physical universe, humans, and the natural order. It can go to such extremes as to deny mystery and reject all supernatural beliefs. When this happens if nods toward Logical Positivism. Logical Positivism held two key beliefs: (1) absolute confidence in empirical experience as the only source of knowledge; and (2) logical analysis performed with the help of symbolic logic is the single method for solving philosophical problems.

A more moderate naturalism, such as that of the late Loren C. Eiseley, allows room for mystery. Eiseley was an American philosopher and naturalist whose published works over 2 decades influenced many young science writers. 

Walter Veit Ph.D., wrote, "While naturalist philosophy is often strawmanned as a naive scientism, I hope to encourage my readers to seriously consider it as a different and more pluralistic way of seeing philosophy altogether, one that draws on the plurality of the sciences, rather than the traditionally restrictive, a priori toolkit of analytic philosophy." 

He adds, "Naturalist philosophers are excited about the progress made on old philosophical problems with the aid of the sciences—the mind, the nature of life, or the structure of reality."

To make philosophy prosper once more in universities and the public, we must ask it to return to a state it was once in: a part of natural philosophy continuous with the sciences.

Veit states, "Anecdotally, I have never felt more enthusiastic about the future of philosophy, then when I was able to work together with scientists, such as Nicola Clayton’s lab, to bring us closer to answering what it is like to be a crow, my work with biologists at Oxford in measuring biological complexity, or my ongoing work on several projects together with animal welfare scientists. Young philosophers in search of a shared and progressing paradigm won’t have far to look. It is not all doom and gloom."

Read it all here: A Third Kind of Philosophy | Psychology Today

Related reading: Ethics Forum: Chinese Sages on Natural Law; The Reality of Human Exceptionalism; Movements Toward Post Modernism

Tolstoy on the Church

 

"Lev Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana" (1908) the first color photo portrait in Russia. 

Wikimedia Commons

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

"Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ founded anything like what churchmen understand by the Church."

In reality, what we refer to as "the Church" is a Tradition that the early followers of Jesus Messiah received from their Hebrew ancestors (4000-2000 BC). That Messianic Tradition is what shapes the Church. Without it, the Church would not exist.

Before Judaism emerged as a world religion there was a Messianic Tradition among Abraham's Hebrew ancestors. The early Hebrew were a ruler-priest caste that believed in God Father and God Son. The "son" was called HR in Proto-Egyptian, meaning "Most High One" or "Hidden One".  

The Horite and Sethite Hebrew dispersed throughout the Ancient Near East and into central Africa. The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship is Nekhen, an ancient city that stretched for two miles along the Nile. Votive offerings at the Nekhen temple were ten times larger than the normal mace heads and bowls found elsewhere, suggesting that this was a very prestigious shrine. Horite Hebrew priests placed invocations and prayers to Re (Father) and HR (Hur/Heru/Hor/Horus) at the summit of the fortress as the sun rose. For the early Hebrew, the sun was the symbol of God Father and the co-equal Son. They viewed the solar arc as God's path through the heavens.

The Son was also called Y-Shu, which is the basis of the name Yeshua, translated "Jesus in English Bibles. According to the early Nilotic Hebrew, the first act of the Creator at the beginning was šw (Shu), meaning light. This is not the light of day. It is the eternal, uncreated light associated with the High God's son Y-shu (Yeshua), as proclaimed in John's Prologue.

What has been taught concerning the Church's foundation has been inadequate because it assumes that Christianity was a Jewish sect. Creedal Christianity represents the holy Tradition received from Abraham and his Hebrew ancestors long before Judaism existed.

Related Reading:  What Abraham Discovered on Mt. Moriah; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant; Why the Name Jesus?; They Believed in a Messiah 6000 Years Ago; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: The Hebrew were a Caste

An Interview with Hannah Arendt

 

Hannah Arendt in 1957 (Wikipedia)

Johannah “Hannah” Arendt (1906 – 1975) was a Jewish philosopher who left Nazi Germany. She lived in nearby European countries before finally settling in the United States. Her thoughts were shaped by experiences of two world wars.

She was a political philosopher who felt she didn't belong to the "circle" of professional philosophers. Listen to her story and unique perspective.

Related reading: Big Thinker: Who was Hannah Arendt? - The Ethics Centre; The philosophy of violence: Hannah Arendt and the banality of brutality - AOAV

Philosophy Actively Seeks Logical Clarity

 

Ludwig Wittgenstein, an Austrian-British philosopher, was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. His work contributed to various movements in analytic and linguistic philosophy. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge with Bertrand Russell. As colleagues, Russell and Wittgenstein developed their view called “logical atomism.”

Russell inspired Wittgenstein to consider the nature of thought itself. Russell was famous for statements like these:

“Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible. Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.”

“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”

Reaad more here: Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951)

Aristotle's Prime Mover

 

Aristotle, marble portrait bust, Roman copy of a Greek original (c. 325 BC) in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome, Italy.

This is for all who love to explore Aristotle's cosmology and his understanding of the Divine. The Prime Mover is above all other movers. The notion of an immaterial High Deity was not uncommon among populations of the Ancient World. 

Excerpt:

In On The Heavens, Aristotle describes ether as the nearest element to the divine due to its perfect and eternal natural motion. Unlike the rectilinear motion of the sublunar elements, the natural motion of ether is circular.

Circular motion is continuous and eternal because a circle, unlike a line, has neither a beginning nor an end. Hence, everything in the supralunary region is eternal, changeless, ungenerated, and imperishable. For all these reasons, Aristotle considered the supralunary region more perfect than the sublunar domain.

The question yet to be answered is what causes the motion of the supralunary region? Given that every movement needs a mover and the Aristotelian cosmos is spatially finite, the series of movers-moved cannot indefinitely extend. As a result, all the series of motion must start with a first mover that is itself unmoved. The Prime Mover is the divine, metaphysical, and immaterial unmoved mover that is the original source of motion in the entire cosmos.

Aristotle argues, however, that the intricate motion of the celestial spheres cannot all be explained by the movement of the sphere of the fixed stars. Hence, in Metaphysics, he proposes that, in addition to the Prime Mover, there are multiple unmoved movers that cause each motion in the supralunary region that the motion of the fixed stars doesn’t account for. As Botteri and Casazza explain in The Astronomical System of Aristotle, these unmoved movers are finite in number, each associated with a celestial sphere. Like the Prime Mover, the unmoved movers are divine, metaphysical, and immaterial. However, they are subordinate to the Prime Mover because they are not responsible for the motion of the entire cosmos, but only partially responsible for the motion of the celestial spheres.

 

Read more here: What Is Aristotle’s Divine Blueprint for the Cosmos? | TheCollector

On the Lighter Side

 

Friedrich von Hayek: Free Market Advocate

 

Friedrich A. Hayek (1899–1992) was an important economist and political philosopher of the twentieth century. He is widely regarded as the principal intellectual force behind the triumph of global capitalism, an 'anti-Marx' who elucidated the theoretical foundations of the free market economy. His account of the role played by market prices in transmitting economic knowledge constituted a devastating critique of the socialist ideal of central economic planning, and his famous book The Road to Serfdom was a prophetic statement of the dangers which socialism posed to a free and open society. 

Hayek noted that complex social systems arise organically from the interactions of individuals rather than through design. He drew inspiration from Adam Smith's "invisible hand" idea that markets coordinate actions without a central plan. Anthropologists also have noted this principal when studying complex social structures.

Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, warned against the dangers of collectivism and argued that centralized economic control could lead to totalitarianism.

Hayek also made significant contributions to fields as diverse as the philosophy of law, the theory of complex systems, and cognitive science. 

The essays in this volume, by an international team of contributors, provide a critical introduction to all aspects of Hayek's thought.

Related reading: Commanding Heights: Friedrich von Hayek