Friday, August 03, 2007

GenuinePaganIdolatry!

Guaran-teeeed to scare the F. out of biblethumpin' protestant-salesmen and fraudulent whoresons,everywhere.....

6 comments:

Kassandra Troy said...

Good job! Philosophical order is this deliberately created chaos of ideas! Keep up the good work!
"The Philosophy Nazi".

J said...

Danke, Cass. This is one of the more aesthetic-oriented posts on olde Contingencies. You don't care for the music of Debussy then I take it?

Philosophically, I am to be counted as one of those rogues who believe that Hobbes won that bout against Descartes back in the 1600s, however vulgar his style (broadsword if you like) may seem to some "metaphysicians", and that Hobbes also anticipates much Darwinian thinking (and of course empiricism as whole, including Hume's important, skeptical points). That might be termed "constructive nominalism," in a sense, and that concept has some relation to economic thinking as well, really. Hobbesian materialism (it's not "billiard ball" determinism, as much as a realization of human's bio-dependency, tho' determinism a concern) thus leads to Smith, Ricardo--even Marx (that said, I am not a marxist (or postmod), and think there are grave errors to Marx's writing). SJ Gould respected Hobbes' writing.

Quine, and his pal Goodman worked out a more technical form of con. nominalism (ie an anti-platonic account of logical form), and constructivism is a fairly respected school of mathematical analysis. But I have some problems with some of Quine's "logicism". I believe that Searle is more important than Derrida, if that matters at all.

J said...

(as far as matters theological go, I object to some of the neo-Darwinian's style, but, alas, must grant the power of their arguments, which are not exactly new: Russell had more or less said the same thing as Dawkins has 50+ years ago; and Voltaire did 250 years ago, and again Hobbes had suggested much the same (as had Gallileo and other gents really). That said, I love gothic cathedrals and the music of Bach, and if you can produce a miracle I might suspend my disbelief for a few minutes at least..................

J said...

""""Albert Einstein....react(ed) to this sort of approach: "Do you really think the world is not there, when you're not looking at it?"""""


I like that. Sort of refutes postmodernism, as well as the flakey new-age subjective-idealism that some dupes replace their sunday school religion with. Einstein never doubts that the world exists independently of his own senses, and he never suggests that science depends on some mystical or metaphysical connection to him. But his determinism is a bit dry for most people, religious or not.

Kassandra Troy said...

J., I'm not a deep sort of philosopher any way. I'm more into political philosophy, a quest for truth, discovering everything that may be out there that is of value, per Biblical command. But I do object to blatant nonsense and pernicious agendas (covert or otherwise), manipulation, lies and philosophical parlour tricks. Hope you get my drift. I left a few replies in this vein to your comments on my blog. Thanks your the response.
Cass.

J said...

I share most of your political views, and agree with your insightful critiques of PoMo (and marxists and muslims), but at the same time remain aloof from theology. That perspective may not please many conservatives, but a sort of intelligent, moderate secularism is possible, I believe. It's unfortunate that many moderate and even liberal religious people demand that everyone share their theological views, and that skeptics, agnostics--and atheists--are defined as marxists and heathens, pagans, etc. The central problems are more political I believe, or theo-political. Anyone who values an open, democratic society has reason to be concerned at muslim fundamentalists (or protestant, catholic or jewish fundies). While I respect "apologetics" and the ethical tradition of Catholicism (tradition did not stop the papacy from blessing Mussolini, however), there are obviously still many "problem" priests, as many people around LA realize.

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