Jay Hanson wrote:
>
> Richard Mochelle:
>
> >Is it possible, as Ed suggests, to develop a shared understanding of the
> >'real' world from an ideologically uncontaminated viewpoint? Is it
> >possible to do so within the terms of the ideologically-saturated and
> >contaminated language which we have inherited?
>
> It's really a tough problem. IMHO, the only possible way to
> establish a "shared understanding of the real world" is through
> empiricism and the language of science.
I would put it this way: The only possible (or at least the most
auspicious) way to establish a shared understandiing of the real
world is through the shared, mutually respectful / dialogical
social praxis of the community of scientists (e.g., thru refereed
journals
and symposia).
> Science is as close
> to a universal language and shared understanding as humans can
> come.
Joseph Needham, in his _Science and Civilization in China_ (Vol 3)
put it this way: The Jesuits went ot China thinking to convert the
heathen to "The True Faith" -- and they proposed that Galilean
natural science was a kind of fringe benefit of accepting Jesus Christ
as one's Savior.... The Chinese perceived the Christianity the Jesuits
brought as just another [my word:] ethnic belief system, like
the 50 or so they already tolerated (yin and yang, etc.), which
was valid only for the people who believed in it. *On the other
hand*, the Chinese perceived the Galilean natural science as sometihng
*genuinely new*, because it was true for any person who chose to
study and learn it (again, my words: it was critically verifiable).
It's a short distance from here to Edmund Husserl's _Crisis..._ texts,
which (again IMO) epitomize the notion of a Universal Culture, which
arose *in* the West but is not specifically "Western" (as, e.g.,
keeping America beautiful by getting a heircut{sic...) is....).
[snip]
> The human animal is entering a radically new period in its history:
> a period of absolute global resource scarcity.
As an undergraduate at Yale, I had a classically trained German
philosophy professor, who began a course on Hegel's
_Phenomenology..._ with the assertion that: "Man eats, and a dog eats,
but they thereby do different things." (since the man chooses
to eat, while the dog follows instinct -- this position may be unfair to
dogs, but
it is definitely admonitory for self-styled natural-scientific students
of the realm of human existence, AKA the "Geisteswissenschaften"....
Husserl reflected on what the -- albeit perhaps
limited -- "lifeworld"s of animals might be like....)
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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