C.S. Lewis on Answering "Bad Philosophy"

 

Tech Firms Hiring Philosophers

 

Making a living as a philosopher has never been easy. There are limited positions and the competition is fierce. However, the AI boom offers hope. Major tech firms such as Anthropic and Google DeepMind are hiring philosophers to tackle public policy challenges by drawing on their background in epistemology, logic, and ethics.

This trend is especially evident in the US, UK, and Australia where analytic philosophy dominates with its focus on formal logic, philosophy of science, and analytic metaphysics.

Unlike the philosophers of old, the philosopher today is likely to do much of his or her work sitting in front of a computer. They use digital tools to model complex ethical frameworks, analyze vast datasets of text, and structure philosophical arguments.

Encyclopedia of Women Philosophers

 

Martha Nussbaum in 2008

A New Web Site Presents the Contributions of Women Philosophers, from Ancient to Modern

In the research on which Lombrozo reports, studies found that “the biggest drop in the proportion of women in the philosophy pipeline seems to be from enrollment in an introductory philosophy class to becoming a philosophy major. At Georgia State, for example, women make up about 55 percent of Introduction to Philosophy students but only around 33 percent of philosophy majors.” This may have to do with the fact that “readings on the syllabus were overwhelmingly by men (over 89 percent).”

As Georgia State graduate student Morgan Thompson explained at a conference in 2013:

This problem is compounded by the fact that introductory philosophy textbooks have an even worse gender balance; women account for only 6 percent of authors in a number of introductory philosophy textbooks.

In a conversation with Julian Baggini on why there are so few women in academic philosophy, Mary Warnock once noted that “of all the humanities departments in British universities, only philosophy departments have a mere 25% women members.” That number is even lower in the US. “Why should this be?” Warnock asked. She asserted that the problem may lie with the discipline itself. “I think that academic philosophy has become an extraordinarily inward-looking subject,” she said, “If you pick up a professional journal now, you find little nitpicking responses to previous articles. Women tend to get more easily bored with this than men. Philosophy seems to stop being interesting just when it starts to be professional.”

From here: The Encyclopedia of Women Philosophers: Contributions of Women Philosophers, from Ancient to Modern | Open Culture

Related reading: Four Women Revived Metaphysics; The Dearth of Women in Philosophy; Wise Women Throughout the Ages

Two Types of Binary Reasoning

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Recently, I read an article critical of people who were "binary" thinkers, by which the author meant people who tend to classify information in one of two categories: true or false, black or white. He called this binary thinking. Though not the only definition of binary thinking, his is the most common and generally accepted definition.

If one does an internet search using the phrase "binary reasoning" this comes up on Goggle: 

Binary reasoning is a system of logic where information is categorized into only two, mutually exclusive states—typically TRUE (1) or FALSE (0). Used in computer logic and analytical reasoning, it simplifies complex problems by allowing only two, non-overlapping possibilities (e.g., truth-tellers vs. liars). 

According to this definition, binary reasoning has an either-or framework that does not allow for contradiction (only one can be true) or hierarchy (both are true but one has higher authority).

The Goggle definition reflects the Aristotelian logic that dominates Western philosophy. It does not recognize the much older and more complex binary reasoning of the early Hebrew (4000-2000 BCE). Were we to investigate the Hebrew binary reasoning we would discover that it breaks out of the either-or framework by recognizing hierarchy rather than non-contradiction. Binary reasoning is the way humans make sense of features in Nature that signal something beyond. The Semitic way of thinking allows for both-and. It opens an avenue for the exploration of the "and".

Western philosophy recognizes the logic of non-contradiction. However, the original arguments made by Aristotle are not that simple. Aristotle presented three versions of the principle of non-contradiction: an ontological, a doxastic (opinion), and a semantic version. The first version concerns things that exist in the world, the second is about what we believe, and the third relates to assertions about truth.

The binary reasoning that pertains to the ontological are the most significant. These are observations of binary sets in Nature. Here we find hierarchy, that is to say, things exist even when they exist as a trace, to borrow Derrida's term.

It is fascinating that both the Structuralist Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Deconstructionist Jacques Derrida began with binary reasoning.

Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) founded structural anthropology, proposing that universal mental structures or patterns shape human culture. He argued that human thought operates through binary oppositions (e.g., raw/cooked, nature/culture). On the basis of his anthropological research, he argued that the "primitive" mind has the same structures as the "civilized" mind. He believed that myths, kinship, and customs can be decoded to reveal these mental structures. He came to these conclusions based on his 1930s fieldwork among the Bororo and Nambikwara peoples of the Amazon and Matto Grosso. His experiences and structuralist theories were documented in his 1955 memoir, Tristes Tropiques.

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in El-Biar, Algeria. He sought to uncover the underbelly of meaning in myths and texts. He enjoyed making fun of traditional interpretations, yet as he developed his "ontotheology" he concluded that there was something fixed at the metaphysical center. He developed this in his lectures at Villanova University.

Deconstruction reveals a “presence” that has been called by different names throughout history: logos, nous, arche, God, the metaphysical center, etc. However, for Derrida the fixed presence is not a being, but rather a necessary function by which we are able to discover meaning. 

Derrida’s deconstruction reveals great complexity of meaning in written texts, ideas, myths and human customs. He wanted to know what dominates and blocks what seems not to be present. He ascribes to subordinate objects a more substantial existence than the shadow they cast, or their “trace.” Derrida wrote: "Deconstruction cannot limit itself or proceed immediately to neutralization: it must, by means of a double gesture, a double science, a double writing, practice an overturning of the classical opposition, and a general displacement of the system. It is on that condition alone that deconstruction will provide the means of intervening in the field of oppositions it criticizes" (Metaphysics).

Derrida identified binary distinctions, such as dominance and subservience, central and marginalized, and reversals. Each component of the binary set means something, and the relationship of the oppositions means something, and the hierarchy exhibited by the set means something. The reversal of the oppositions also means something. The reversal of the subordinated term of an opposition is a significant aspect of Derrida's strategy. In examining a binary opposition and reversals, deconstruction brings to light traces of meaning that cannot be said to be present, but which have metaphysical presence.

Derrida explores the hidden presence. In so doing, deeper and/or unfamiliar meanings emerge. His method involves neutralizing the shouting voice in order to hear resonances of underlying voices. He looks for Plato behind Aristotle, for mystery behind logic, and for the metaphysical behind the physical. His reversals are a strategic intervention to free western philosophy from the constraints of materialism and the deductive and linear reasoning in ancient Greece. In a true sense, Derrida lifted up a Semitic way of reasoning. (See Jeff Benner on Greek Linear Logic vs. Hebrew Step Logic.)

In summary, there are two distinct types of binary reasoning. The West is heir to both, but the earlier binary reasoning of the biblical Hebrew has been largely ignored and forgotten.

Binary Reasoning of the Biblical Hebrew

The binary reasoning of the early Hebrew involves binary sets of two closely related entities which, when observed empirically, reveal that one of the entities is greater than its partner. Genesis 1:16 speaks of the sun and the moon as a binary set and notes that the sun is the greater of the two. Likewise, in the male-female set, it is universally true that the human male is anatomically larger and stronger than the female.

Not all pairs of opposites are binary sets. Consider that talented-untalented does not represent a binary set because this involves subjective judgement. Tall-short is not a binary set because this is relative to the observer. For example, the tall-short contrast is relative to the observer. I am 5 feet 5 inches tall. Standing beside a Watusi warrior, I would appear to be short. However, were I to stand beside a Pygmy, I would appear to be tall.

The binary reasoning of the Bible is based on the early Hebrew priests' acute observation of patterns in Nature. It prevents the biblical worldview from slipping into dualism, a view in which the two entities of a set are equal in every way.

 

Related reading: Binary Sets in the Ancient World; "Binary" is a Bad Word These Days; Theories of Knowledge Among Archaic Humans; Theories of Knowledge - Bacon and Descartes; Theories of Knowledge - Locke and Hume; Remarks on Bertrand Russell's Theory of Knowledge by Albert Einstein; A Christian Anthropologist Considers Gender in the Bible; Orthodoxy Requires Binary Reasoning

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