Johnnie Walker Black!

Adieu for now.

Indeed.

So we are largely in agreement, I think. I don’t in fact take the positivist view of reason as an accurate description; and so I don’t reject `reason’ in the name of faith. FWIW, I simply believe that building up faith and reason is one and the same project. As a fan of Aquinas and Maimonides you presumably sympathize. This reflects my awareness of the centrality of paradox: no matter how much thinking through a problem, sooner or later I am going to have to make a fateful (non)decision, and it helps to have a certain faith in humanity, in our origins and history, when doing so; or, experience suggests, I will fall into the iron cage of depression (thatís how we got started on this). Reason is to help one see the paradox as best one can; faith emerges with this vision to keep one moving without fear of paradox and least bad choices.

Where we might differ is your notion of going back to classical roots though of course I’m not sure what this means to you. I am certainly in favor of seeking self-knowledge by seeing ourselves as products of history, to which we must respond in our own time. But if the term weren’t now ruined by its recent politicization, I might say conservatives (those generally intolerant of privileging or even distinguishing means from ends) should favor neoconservatism over paleo ideas that morality and reason has all been lost in our times. Not that I am calling you a paleo. Do you take any labels?

I think it is never enough to go back to the future, if this implies valuing some classical, or any, idealized methodology over the usually banal, but least bad, outcomes of an ever freer market system. I certainly donít like all the crappy products of the postmodern market, from unthinking academic pc to pop music. But I respect the market system enough to know it is our best hope, not some idealized polis or esthetic discipline.

Nonetheless, this implies the need for yet greater reason and faith. The market system is just going to fuel ever more resentments and the culture of the future is going to have to be smarter, at least in some areas, if it is going to show us a path to peace and love and not war and self-destruction. This implies the need for advances in both anthropological and historical self-understanding which would entail both a greater reason and faith. We can be sure in a faith that human knowledge of human origins and their unfolding implications for history is one thing that clearly progresses over time; this progress must be sought and valued. In short, I am sympathetic to your accenting the verbal, but I wonder if you are thinking about a method, an end itself, or something else. Adieu for now.

The strain of Enlightenment thought you’re discussing was that which redefined the rational (if I was a consultant I’d say “repurposed”) as something along the lines of: “Scientific and mathematical propositions are defensible, while everything else – metaphysics and ethics and all that – is just guesswork”. This is the “ghettoizing” of reason that I talked about earlier, which winds up as the positivist view of Russell and early Wittgenstein. They claim to be strengthening reason, while actually cramming it into a dusty corner far from the daily work of real living.

I hold the classical view of reason – the broader view of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Maimonedes and that whole crowd, plus in our time Rand, Blandshard, Adler, and a few others: that reason is a largely verbal affair; that it may not have the exactness of mathematics, but then again why should it; that it has plenty to say about ethics and aesthetics, as well as matters scientific; and so on. (Randall’s book on Aristotle outlines my POV very elegantly.)

Becuase of this, I hold the positivist view of reason to be a sham, a strawman, an imposter unworthy of the name. And consequently I say the twentieth century was a time of reason’s retreat.

You, on the other hand, seem to take the positivist view of reason as an accurate description. Reason is indeed a crabbed and abstruse view of things, a mere totting up of factoids and figures and Ps and Qs which may be well and good for science, but has nothing to say about the spiritual side of man. And thus, reason is of dubious use, and the twentieth century was a demonstration of reason’s inadequacy.

In short: You say the positivist view of reason is true, and therefore reason is inadequate; I say the positivist view of reason is false, and therefore reason has plenty of fight left in it, if only the ref would let it back the ring.

We both think positivist reason is screwy and useless and bankrupt – and why wouldn’t we? – but you think that because of this reason must give way to faith, while I say it must return to its roots and regroup along classical lines.

How did we wind up talking about this anyway?

In other words, the present terms of discussion are too simplified: the most sophisticated faith depends on the most sophisticated reason; it is only the anachronistic `Enlightenment’ mind that opposes the two. The problem with Chomskyian reason is that it is not delighted and immersed in paradox like the later Wittgenstein. It does not recognize the interdependence of faith and reason.

We are at the end of approximately two centuries in which reason was perverted (Descartes, Hegel), scorned (Kant, Hume, Marx), ghettoized (Russell, early Wittgenstein), and finally abandoned altogether (the Analysts and the Pomo crowd), leading ultimately to Chomsky and his “bafflegab”. (Love that term, by the way, and intend to steal it.)

We should be saying “the loss of faith in reason leads to Chomsky”.

Perhaps we’re defining terms differently?

I do agree that liberals today seem to be anti-reason and anti-science except where they can see a direct benefit to themselves, for example medical science.

I speculate that Progessivism provides a ready rational for their central illusion, their grandiose self image. Thus Progrssivism both attracts people who wave a strong narcissistic bent to begin with, and encourages that bent.

And amoung the narcissistic traints is pessimisim.

To quote:

Narcissists are generally contemptuous of others. This seems to spring, at base, from their general lack of empathy, and it comes out as (at best) a dismissive attitude towards other people’s feelings, wishes, needs, concerns, standards, property, work, etc. It is also connected to their overall negative outlook on life.

… Narcissists are noted for their negative, pessimistic, cynical, or gloomy outlook on life. Sarcasm seems to be a narcissistic specialty, not to mention spite. Lacking love and pleasure, they don’t have a good reason for anything they do and they think everyone else is just like them, except they’re honest and the rest of us are hypocrites. Nothing real is ever perfect enough to satisfy them, so are they are constantly complaining and criticizing — to the point of verbal abuse and insult.

… Narcissists are envious and competitive in ways that are hard to understand. … They are constantly comparing themselves (and whatever they feel belongs to them, such as their children and furniture) to other people. Narcissists feel that, unless they are better than anyone else, they are worse than everybody in the whole world.

… Narcissists are totally and inflexibly authoritarian . In other words, they are suck-ups. They want to be authority figures and, short of that, they want to be associated with authority figures. …

I speculate that Progessivism provides a ready rational for their central illusion, their grandiose self image. Thus Progrssivism both attracts people who wave a strong narcissistic bent to begin with, and encourages that bent.

And amoung the narcissistic traints is pessimisim.

To quote:

Narcissists are generally contemptuous of others. This seems to spring, at base, from their general lack of empathy, and it comes out as (at best) a dismissive attitude towards other people’s feelings, wishes, needs, concerns, standards, property, work, etc. It is also connected to their overall negative outlook on life.

… Narcissists are noted for their negative, pessimistic, cynical, or gloomy outlook on life. Sarcasm seems to be a narcissistic specialty, not to mention spite. Lacking love and pleasure, they don’t have a good reason for anything they do and they think everyone else is just like them, except they’re honest and the rest of us are hypocrites. Nothing real is ever perfect enough to satisfy them, so are they are constantly complaining and criticizing — to the point of verbal abuse and insult.

… Narcissists are envious and competitive in ways that are hard to understand. … They are constantly comparing themselves (and whatever they feel belongs to them, such as their children and furniture) to other people. Narcissists feel that, unless they are better than anyone else, they are worse than everybody in the whole world.

… Narcissists are totally and inflexibly authoritarian . In other words, they are suck-ups. They want to be authority figures and, short of that, they want to be associated with authority figures. …

Back to the mundane. Computer Science is a fine example of my principle.

How many computer scientists are their (by title)? I’m one. You’re one. There are zillions.

But what are we really?

I’m an engineer. I use various principles to build things related to computers (hardware and mostly software). No science there.

Some computer scientists are really mathematicians. These are the folks with the abstract algebras – off playing with formal linguistics, etc.

While it is possible to do science in the realm of computers, Computer Science rarely has anything to do with it.