a different tack
the sophists used poetry, artful rhetoric, but isn't the intellect still
imvolved in determing the meanings involved?
perhaps the intellect functions in two different ways? analytic and synthetic.
one way dissects and categorises, resulting in facts. and it seems what
constitutes a 'fact' is shaped by the existing paradigm - those that fit with
the predominant worldview are integrated....those that don't fit...these are
often excluded.
*good* science is about these anamolous facts - the ones that don't fit. by
pursuing these facts our picture of the world changes, and is enlarged,
enhanced. sometimes the very assumptions that underpin the existing paradigm
are shown to be in error or inadequate.
this is now the terrain of philosophy. and this is where the synthetic function
of intellect comes into play. by weaving various threads of knowledge and
experience to together, a picture begins to emerge in which the facts cohere
with each other and with experience. pirsig being a prime example.
are most academics, most scientists, involved in pursuing anomalous facts? or
are they beholden to the social structures of which they are part? playing the
role, primarily, of technician
are most philosophers synthesising new and better pictures of reality or are
they caught in the old paradigm (SOM)?
maybe the social control is independent of science per se. rather than science
being social perhaps it is better to say that the institutional nature of its
operation is where the social control comes in...and it is a profound effect.
science in itself is an intellectual pursuit...it was remiss of me not to
remember and state this. science itself begins with the birth of the intellect
(or breakdown of the bicameral mind if you will allow). i guess the immoral
influence of society over the intellectual level is clear and important.
the intellect needs to expose these influences and pursue the higher synthetic
truths in order to maintain that nebulous connection with the teleological
source and goal of its inquiries. this is the moral path.
otherwise we get lost in these interminable and tendentious arguments...losing
sight of the common purpose of the inquiry in the first place....lost in right
and wrong.
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