Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
but then, 'the heart has its reasons, that reason does not know'!
I think it is in reality more like, 'the heart has its reasons, that reason
does not admit'.
perhaps, but i like the original version (pascal?) since it brings out
the incompleteness of knowledge
Pascal's Pensees, Sec IV. para 277.
--- ravi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
but then, 'the heart has its reasons, that reason
does not know'!
I think it is in reality more like, 'the heart has
its reasons, that reason
does not admit'.
perhaps, but i like the
ravi wrote:
perhaps, but i like the original version (pascal?) since it brings out
the incompleteness of knowledge arrived at through reasoning alone (and
thats not just incompleteness in a mathematical sense, but even
incompleteness in the sense of certainty required to act).
From my own
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 5:13 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Western rationality
Pascal's Pensees, Sec IV. para 277.
--- ravi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
but then, 'the heart has its reasons, that reason
does not know'!
I
Carrol Cox wrote:
ravi wrote:
perhaps, but i like the original version (pascal?) since it brings out
the incompleteness of knowledge arrived at through reasoning alone (and
thats not just incompleteness in a mathematical sense, but even
incompleteness in the sense of certainty required to act).
From my own reading in contemporary neuroscience, I would say
that there
is no such thing as reasoning alone. Separate parts of the brain are
in action, but they cannot operate without each other. Hence
neither the
heart nor the reason has reasons of its own. Without the
intervention of
Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
Originally Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point -
i.e.
the heart has its reasons of which reason doesn't see the relevance or
in
which reason sees no point, i.e. the rational intellect can understand
the
reasons of the heart (affective impulses,
Originally Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point - i.e.
the heart has its reasons of which reason doesn't see the relevance or in
which reason sees no point
This is not a correct translation. The construction *ne...point*
means not at all, thus much stronger than *ne...pas*,
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point
I think Pascal's assertion has more to do with the limitations of reason than with the powers or nature of the more ambiguous coeur. In other words, it's difficult to say whether by heart Pascal means heart/feeling or heart/love.
I see
Agreedand great quote:
To be Greek, one must have no clothes.
To be Medieval, one must have no body.
To be Modern, one must have no soul (Oscar Wilde)
Joanna
Shane Mage wrote:
Originally Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît
Perhaps the idea of reason underpinning this contrast [between ratio and
sentio] is mistaken. That, I think, is the claim made by Hegel and Marx.
But it is not clear what the mistake is. If a doctor is to perform surgery
on a patient, he must separate his feelings from the patient in order to
Hi Shane,
I agree it is not a correct translation, but literally it would be the
heart has its reasons which reason knows not at all. The question that then
arises is why or how is it possible that reason cannot know this ? This is
the mystique.
Since our rational faculties can never understand
Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
But it is not clear what the mistake is. If a doctor is to perform
surgery
on a patient, he must separate his feelings from the patient in order
to
perform the surgery in some way, and the way in which he does so, is
important. But this way can often be grasped only
- Original Message -
From: Ted Winslow [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In Husserl's phenomenology, grasping something phenomenologically means
grasping it without distortion, as it is in itself.
Ted
==
And then there was Wilfrid Sellars.:-
The quest for *grasping* is a futile
The feeling that reason is impaired by all feeling may itself be a sign
of such impairment.
Yes, I think this is the substance of Sabri's critique. Psychologically or
neurologically we may reason from at least four different standpoints:
subjectively, intersubjectively, objectively, and in a
Carrol wrote:
the concept of stealing a girlfriend turns the girlfriend into portable
property.
The same applies to men. Indeed, these days a problem for some busy men is
how you can get other men to screw the women under their care. But the
concept of stealing is ill-defined, as shown by the
At 8:29 PM +0100 11/11/03, Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
I agree it is not a correct translation, but literally it would be the
heart has its reasons which reason knows not at all. The question that then
arises is why or how is it possible that reason cannot know this?
If the Roman Catholic faith is
If the Roman Catholic faith is incomprehensible to reason, that's not
reason's fault. :-
Imagine there's no heaving,
It ain't easy if we lie,
No Shell below us,
Above us only why,
Imagine all the pee pals
Shifting for a day ...
Imagine there's no countries,
It's pretty hard to do,
No thing to
No, you already won, you've got the spouse, I haven't. I am not trying to be
competitive with you, as far as I am concerned, you're a friend of mine. It
is just that the notion of Western rationality gets pressed into the service
of the foreign policy of many a Western country, and therefore, we
Jurriaan:
Winning arguments is only an aim if it's against the
political opposition. But let's not get confused about
whose side we are on.
I second that.
Sabri
Sabri Oncu wrote:
Hey! This is not an insult but a great praise. I take pride in
being irrational. I don't think heart and reason are separable.
but then, 'the heart has its reasons, that reason does not know'!
--ravi
but then, 'the heart has its reasons, that reason does not know'!
I think it is in reality more like, 'the heart has its reasons, that reason
does not admit'.
J.
Hi Sabri --
I didn't respond to this because I wanted to give it a lot of thought.
And try to separate out layers of influence in my own opinions. Maybe
I've just been westernized as you sort of imply.
(Plus, Jurriaan did a rather good job in dealing with the concept of
western rationality
Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
However, once it is admitted that human
beings are part of the material world and connected with it all the time
through conscious practical activity, most philosophical problems about our
ability to know the world disappear and become practical, experiential
questions.
That was beautifully and clearly said...
Well thanks. In Britain or California they can always say it so much better
than I can, I mean, I can think it but I might not be able to say it, that
was a problem all my life really. But I am working on it. When language gets
hard, I know I've got
Jurriaan:
I think what Sabri really has in mind by Western
rationality is the dualism and fetishes generated
by commercial activity, but Ibn Khaldun already
described that these processes were also occurring
in the East.
Ken and Jurriaan,
I don't have the time to respond to this at length
Sabri wrote:
I never claimed that western rationality is a western
phenomenon. I use it as a name only. And at times I use it
intentionally to give the word western a derogatory meaning to
take revenge from you westerners. Any objections to that?
No objections, go ahead, it's just that you
Sabri Oncu wrote:
Back to work, that is, homework and I tell you, you don't want to
do this at my age.
Yeah, work is bad enoughbut at least there, I can slog through it
while repeating to myself: I get paid $$/hour to do this; I get paid
$$/hour to do this; Hard to do that in school. By
. I never claimed that western rationality is
a western
phenomenon. I use it as a name only. And at times I
use it
intentionally to give the word western a
derogatory meaning to
take revenge from you westerners. Any objections to
that?
Sure, all you Orientals are irrational, we wouldn't
why don't we call it capitalist rationality?
JD
-Original Message-
From: Sabri Oncu [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sun 11/9/2003 12:03 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc:
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Western rationality
why don't we call it capitalist rationality?
JD
Well as you know, I never disagree with you.
J.
children are slaughtered
Some of you mothers ought to lock up your daughters
Who's protecting the innocenti
Heap big trouble in the land of plenty
Tell me how we're gonna do what's best
You guess once upon a time in the west
Once upon a time in the west...
(is western rationality like a western saddle
Sure, all you Orientals are irrational, we wouldn't
expect anything better.
jks
Hey! This is not an insult but a great praise. I take pride in
being irrational. I don't think heart and reason are separable.
By the way, jks's reaction also demonstrates how good I am at
touching the peoples
A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator.
- Paul Valery
Ken:
I had originally thought it was about the proportion
of onion, green pepper and ham in an omelets.
What you originally thought was right. It doesn't have anything
to do with east or west but as I said in my previous post, it is
about that heart and mind are not separable. In reason there
Jurriaan:
A Turkish guy I lived with in New Zealand later
accused me of trying to steal his girlfriend but
it was bullshit, she didn't even fancy me either.
Hey! I don't know about other Turkish guys but most of the time I
had been the one who was accused of trying to steal other guys'
Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
Hey! I don't know about other Turkish guys but most of the time I
had been the one who was accused of trying to steal other guys'
girlfriends. Those girlfriends usually fancied me without me
doing anything about it but I never ever stole girlfriends of
other
to conclusions, and
if you are going to have your Turkish revenge against Western
rationality I think you are jumping to conclusions.
Look Jurriaan,
You are demonstrating a westernly rational behaviour. You are
playing this game to win. That is, with your arguments and
reason, you are trying to defeat me
All Right!
Sabri writes, progressively:
You are demonstrating a westernly rational behaviour.
It is slipping from an adjective to... well... a lesser adjective. Not
western now westernly.
Soon it will be a not eastern.
Also, I never said that I want to take revenge from western
rationality
Ken:
It is slipping from an adjective to... well... a
lesser adjective. Not western now westernly.
What was I supposed to write Ken in order not to slip to a lesser
adjective?
Western rationally behaviour? Westeronoid rational behaviour?
Western rationalesque behaviour? Or would it have been
I like this one:
Westeronoid rational behaviour?
After that, you can loot the fucking tradition. :)
Ken.
--
Fall out of the window with confetti in my hair.
-- Tom Waits
Hi Sabri,
I think I know where you are coming from.
As I told Jurriaan once in private, in my view, western
rationality is about horse trading, since it reduces human
interactions to deals and bargaining. When you adhere to western
rationality, you design mechanisms to induce others to do
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/02/03 8:37 AM
1) The West does not exist culturally, it is an ideological fiction or
geographic reference, an ideological concept which hides the reality of
imperialist accumulation. In order to understand this, you should study
the history of geographical mapping, the
As you may remember, I had kept bringing this over and over. To
better understand what I meant, just look at the peoples of Iraq.
Their behavior is hardly westernly rational. No Von
Neuman-Morgenstein utility function can explain their behavior
and their strategy is definitely not a Nash
You're talking waaay over my head. They're defending their country against
a foreign aggressor. As one Iraqui man put it We can't take this colonial
stuff anymore.
The pundits may need jargon; do we? What the Iraquis are doing seems
absolutely rational as was the behavior of the Russians at
You're talking waaay over my head. They're defending
their country against a foreign aggressor. As one
Iraqui man put it We can't take this colonial stuff
anymore.
The pundits may need jargon; do we? What the Iraquis
are doing seems absolutely rational as was the behavior
of the Russians
At 8:01 PM -0700 10/13/02, Sabri Oncu wrote:
I should reiterate that the reason why western rationality
is in quotation marks is because it is not the same thing as
scientific thinking.
Exactly. This is why I had western rationality in quotation
marks in my post that started
At 08:01 PM 10/13/2002 -0700, you wrote:
To put it differently, is there a unique order relation that
partially orders the universal set?
Yes. They call it Nature. And, as Aristotle said, Nature IS order.
The guiding question in science has been How do you read/interpret that
order? The answer
Joanna wrote:
To put it differently, is there a unique order relation
that partially orders the universal set?
Yes. They call it Nature. And, as Aristotle said, Nature
IS order.
No objection to that Joanna, nor to almost anything else you
said. But, yours is a different concept of order. I
To put it differently, is there a unique order relation that
partially orders the universal set?
Money.
--
Yoshie
Now Yoshie, I will show that you are wrong by establishing a
contradiction:
Clearly, money defines an order relation that partially orders
the universal set. Suppose now that
--- joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
At 08:01 PM 10/13/2002 -0700, you wrote:
To put it differently, is there a unique order
relation that
partially orders the universal set?
Yes. They call it Nature. And, as Aristotle
said, Nature IS order.
The guiding question in science has
From: Sabri Oncu [EMAIL PROTECTED]
... (western) rationality is that human behaviour,
possibly emerged in Europe some centuries ago, which attemps to
impose a complete order on an infinite dimensional set, that is,
a continuum, that I call life. Life as a continuum can at best be
a partially
At 03:47 AM 10/12/2002 +, you wrote:
The sheer complexity of modern technologies requires that RD be a team
effort; no one individual acting alone can supply the expertise needed to
advance the state of the art. If you have a team effort, you need
administrators to coordinate efforts,
--- joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
At 03:47 AM 10/12/2002 +, you wrote:
The sheer complexity of modern technologies
requires that RD be a team
effort; no one individual acting alone can
supply the expertise needed to
advance the state of the art. If you have a
team effort,
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31300] Western Rationality
I wrote:if enlightenment comes only from within, then there's no way to
convince anyone else of the validity of your enlightenment. It's like those religious people who say you have to Believe to understand. Well, I don't believe, so I'll just put
Title: RE: Western Rationality
[By mistake, I sent this before I was finished. Please reply to this one.]
I wrote:if enlightenment comes only from within, then there's no way
to
convince anyone else of the validity of your enlightenment. It's like
those religious people who say you have
RE: [PEN-L:31300] Western Rationality
- Original Message -
From: Devine, James
Lewontin and Levins (in their DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST) argue against the
Enlightenment version of science. They see the world as heterogeneous,
involving a large number of parts that are interconnected as part
Jim wrote:
I should reiterate that the reason why western rationality
is in quotation marks is because it is not the same thing as
scientific thinking.
Exactly. This is why I had western rationality in quotation
marks in my post that started this discussion.
As should be obvious that my
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31287] Re: RE: Western Rationality
I wrote: I don't understand why scientific (consistent logical empirical) thinking _requires_ division of labor, bureaucratization, and the rest. Please explain.
Carl: The sheer complexity of modern technologies requires that RD be a team
RE: [PEN-L:31287] Re: RE: Western Rationality
- Original Message -
From: Devine, James
Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Carl:
I think enlightenment comes from within, not from any evidence the
social sciences can produce. But that's just me channeling R. W.
Emerson again.
if enlightenment comes only from within, then there's no way to convince
anyone else of the validity of
Dear All,
I had to spend some time on studying for an exam, that is, my
microeconomics exam, where the main topic was western
rationality, so I could not follow this discussion that closely.
But, apparently, I caused much turmoil on the list.
Let me clarify a few concepts, as I see them:
To me
--- joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
At 05:12 PM 10/10/2002 +, you wrote:
Again, I believe it's the nature of science
itself -- not just the
corruptive effects of capitalism -- that so
often causes technology to
have a destructive, dehumanizing impact on
society. The ever
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Carl writes:
Again, I believe it's the nature of science itself -- not just the
corruptive effects of capitalism -- that so often causes technology to
have
a destructive, dehumanizing impact on society. The ever increasing
specialization of scientific
At 2:41 PM + 10/9/02, Carl Remick wrote:
How does scientific study do this by its nature?
Because scientific study requires that you rule out all variables
not having to do explicitly with the subject being investigated.
You can't study everything at the same time, so you would have to
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Joanna writes:
A critique of the development of science under capitalism would take much
more than an email. Suffice it to say that what we refer to as SCIENCE
today is a specific historical form suffering from specific historical
deformations. I leave it
At 05:12 PM 10/10/2002 +, you wrote:
Again, I believe it's the nature of science itself -- not just the
corruptive effects of capitalism -- that so often causes technology to
have a destructive, dehumanizing impact on society. The ever increasing
specialization of scientific knowledge
Title: RE: Western Rationality
Joanna wrote:
A critique of the development of science under capitalism would take much
more than an email. Suffice it to say that what we refer to as SCIENCE
today is a specific historical form suffering from specific historical
deformations. I leave
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ian:
Indeed, lots of the problems of modernity are the uses
to which logic, scientific thinking etc. have been put and those
problems are not reducible to the problems created by capitalism.
Carl:
Yes, I think the basis of many of modern society's
and what is the alternative to scientific
thinking?
That's the horror of it all. As Huxley suggested
in Brave New World, there
doesn't seem to be any choice between the
dehumanization of science and
reversion to simple savagery. As I said, I don't
have any answer to this.
Carl
I start
I start by proclaiming that science does not
equal rationalism. In fact, they can be quite
exclusive of each other. Spend one day at a
university dominated by a college of science, and
you'll have to agree with me.
CJ
Unfortunately critical thinking toward bourgeois science (and there *is*
Title: RE: Western Rationality
Carl had written:
Yes, I think the basis of many of modern society's worst
difficulties is the
pernicious objectification of the individual that results from the
scientific method, in all its many forms -- especially
including the social
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The issue of attaining zero unemployment is not about measuring it. Rather,
it's about figuring out a better way to organize society that doesn't
organically involve unemployment (open or hidden).
Hear, hear, Jim. Yes, let's keep our eyes on the prize!
Title: RE: Western Rationality
My sour view of quantification
certainly owes something to the fact that I scored far, far lower on my math
than my verbal SAT and have been socially marginalized ever since :)
I know you're kidding, but the SAT is a great example of the single number
Ian Murray wrote:
Who the hell are you to unilaterally -- no, monopolistically -- decide what
is and is not a legitimate question on this list? Is this list not a
manifestation of a collective practice or are we, in your readings of post
on this list, all solipsistic-monadic deceptive
Title: RE: "Western Rationality"
Jim
wrote,
...eight separate kinds of
intelligence,
Jim modestly fails to note his own contribution to this
issue: there are also multiple kinds of
stupidities.
Eric
/
Title: RE: "Western Rationality"
yeah,
I've been stupid in many ways.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
-Original Message-From: Eric Nilsson
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2002 9:17
AMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subje
At 10:56 AM 10/09/2002 -0400, you wrote:
Unfortunately critical thinking toward bourgeois science (and there *is*
such a thing has been associated with postmodernist relativism,
Not really. There is the work of Feyerabend and a tremendous amount of
ground breaking by the phenomenlogists and by
Even more generally, the
single number fallacy fits with the general capitalist philosophy that
the value of everything should be measured by its contribution to
profits.
Yup.
Joanna
At 02:41 PM 10/09/2002 +, you wrote:
That's the horror of it all. As Huxley suggested in Brave New World,
there doesn't seem to be any choice between the dehumanization of science
and reversion to simple savagery. As I said, I don't have any answer to this.
Oh, that's just silly. We have
From: joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
At 02:41 PM 10/09/2002 +, you wrote:
That's the horror of it all. As Huxley suggested in Brave New World,
there doesn't seem to be any choice between the dehumanization of science
and reversion to simple savagery. As I said, I don't have any answer to
At 06:01 PM 10/09/2002 +, you wrote:
From: joanna bujes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
At 02:41 PM 10/09/2002 +, you wrote:
That's the horror of it all. As Huxley suggested in Brave New World,
there doesn't seem to be any choice between the dehumanization of
science and reversion to simple
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31184] Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Western Rationality
Joanna writes:
A critique of the development of science under capitalism would take much
more than an email. Suffice it to say that what we refer to as SCIENCE
today is a specific historical form suffering from specific
Title: Western Rationality
[was: [PEN-L:31032] Re: RE: Re: employment]
I wrote: There's Western rationality and there's Western
rationality. The main -- hegemonic -- form is the capitalist
rationality that wants to reduce everything -- and all people -- to
things that can be manipulated
Ian:
Indeed, lots of the problems of modernity are the uses
to which logic, scientific thinking etc. have been put and those
problems are not reducible to the problems created by capitalism.
Yes, I think the basis of many of modern society's worst difficulties is the
pernicious objectification
At 10:35 PM 10/08/2002 +, you wrote:
Scientific study by its nature puts distance between a human observer and
human subject, creates a hierarchical relationship and deliberately limits
development of empathy. I think this has had a deeply damaging effect on
human relations overall.
Title: RE: [PEN-L:31107] Re: Western Rationality
Ian:
Indeed, lots of the problems of modernity are the uses
to which logic, scientific thinking etc. have been put and those
problems are not reducible to the problems created by capitalism.
Carl:
Yes, I think the basis of many
RE: [PEN-L:31107] Re: Western Rationality
- Original Message -
From: Devine, James
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 4:00 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:31113] RE: Re: Western Rationality
Ian:
Indeed, lots of the problems of modernity are the uses
to which logic, scientific
Ian Murray wrote:
How do we conjoin the best science and logic[s] we have in the service of
our most mutually enobling and enabling emotions?
No platitudes allowed :-)
When the question is a platitude the only correct answer is a platitude:
VIII. Social life is essentially
- Original Message -
From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 6:11 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:31120] Re: Re: RE: Re: Western Rationality
Ian Murray wrote:
How do we conjoin the best science and logic[s] we have in the service
of
our
Ian Murray wrote:
Like I said in advance, the question was a simple one; the notion that it
has a simple answer is ridiculous given that you did not answer it
Yes I did: I said that it is not a legitimate question, and therefore
has no answer, simple or complicated. When it
--- Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
The platitude is that theory/thought can never
be
more than a _partial_
comprehension of the most advanced practice.
Carrol
In 'education science' they would call that a
theory.
I had a theory the other day, just as I was
coming out of sleep. By the
- Original Message -
From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yes I did: I said that it is not a legitimate question, and therefore
has no answer, simple or complicated. When it comes up as a legitimate
question, it would come up in the course of collective practice, and
would be
Come on, cool it everybody.
On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 09:46:03PM -0700, Ian Murray wrote:
- Original Message -
From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yes I did: I said that it is not a legitimate question, and therefore
has no answer, simple or complicated. When it comes up as a
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