Thomas Lunde wrote:
>
> Brad McCormick corrected me correctly - my apologies for memory
> infallibility. On looking up my resource for that statement, I find that I
> should have named Descartes rather than Rousseau.
>
[snip]
> The point I was trying to make, was that much of what we consider knowledge,
> statistics, mathematical proof came from a view of the universe which is
> under serious challenge by systems thinking. If this challenge is valid,
> many of the truths we are so sure give us the "right" answer may be found to
> be based on a false model.
I think the point I made (which I may have made "off line" to Tom...) is
that there may be other, even better, alternatives besides *both*
"Cartesian" and "system" thinking (I believe Habermas does a pretty good
job or criticizing systems thinking in at
least some of its more "rigorous" forms...).
Specifically, Stephen Toulmin, in his (in my opinion) remarkable
book: _Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity_ (Chicago, 1990),
offers the speculation that another path to modernity was and may still
be possible: a path through the humane and humanistic -- but nonetheless
rigorously self-critical, debunking and
demythologizing -- work of such "luminaries"
as Erasmus and Rabelais (The quotation marks around the word
"luminaries"
refers, among other things, to the *lantern* leitmotif in Book V of
_Pantagruel_).
Rabelais' image of the Abbey of Theleme, in my opinion, is far more
appealing
as a place where it might be good to
live: a *eu*topia, than any of the generally repressive (ref.: Freud)
nowheres
(*u*topias) that the tradition has otherwise come up with, starting
with Plato.
\brad mccormick (would-be-Thelem-ite)
--
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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