Evolutionary strategies/behaviours and culture

[phildwyer]

Socio-biology is obviously rubbish, but we can't just dismiss it out of hand. As a social pathology it tells us much about our society. The truly interesting question is why people *want* to believe it. Or rather: what are the social conditions that have given this claptrap a crude plausibility among the half-educated?

 

[camouflage]

You know, I was thinking about this very question myself the other day. ie. to what extent does 'culture' affaect genetic inheritance.

Some evolutionists would argue that the birth of 'culture' conincided with, and then reinforced, the devlopment of our larger brains. This brought a new factor to the table - as well as sexual selection and selection by fitness, heredity could now select by 'intellect' or eg. who could make the best flint arrowheads - thus selecting for intelligence and even larger brain size (and simultaneously selecting thatn cultural information for inheritance)

Sounds a little politicaly unsound if you ask me.

 

[camouflage]

i see i'm late to the table, again. never mind, aye.

 

[gorski]

I have a problem understanding your argument on a number of levels...

Firstly, Urban, there is a bit of history in all this with Jonti and his insistence on "simplicity" and "descriptiveness" of the obvious as the top achievements of Humanity. I lost patience, so then I respond like I do with some reason. Please feel free to read this whole thread and see...

Secondly, what's an instinct, please? Because, that's the crucial issue here and - do we have a "definitio fiat per genus proximum et differentiam specificam"? So, what is it? When you answer that question we may have a game on our hands. In the meantime we are talking about something we are pretending [or at least presuming] to know what it is but... nowt there, so anyone is an expert or can appear as one...

Thirdly, "authority", eh? That's when we are supposed to take one's word for it, even if we feel "a bit" uneasy about it, but based on "authority's" past record/labour, we presume one knows what one is talking about [and in depth!!!], hence we do not ask for additional proof/argument, that we normally would have in all other cases; we cut him/her some slack and don't ask the awkward questions, as we may turn out not to see what everyone else can see, as it is so obvious, so in fear of embarrassment we do - nothing, isn't it?

Is that status acquired over time when one is educated in something, in a systematic manner, when one is doing it for a while and understands the issues, including the cutting edge problems? Because, there is quite a body of work on just about any topics nowadays. Not easy to cover.

You see, this is NOT Winnie's area of expertise. He is into artificial insemination and such like. Medicine. And even in his own profession Winston, as I explained, had difficulties understanding any of that "cutting edge stuff". He attacked people in the field who went against the "authorities" of the day with those "cutting edge questions/issues", who didn't have any deference towards his "heros" but had the balls to push forward. Those pioneers suffered under his attacks. He caused some distress, as he sided with "established authorities".

Then he changed his mind and cashed in on their pioneering work and risk - their work, the work he opposed so vehemently, that he now made his own and he is building his "authority" on that. But he only did it when it was opportune to do so. And he now wants to expand his reach as an "authority" into all sorts of areas. Tell me, why should we trust this guy unquestioningly in an [for him] unfamiliar territory, when he couldn't even handle his own area properly?!? Why should we be expected to bite our tongue, if we feel he's talking nonsense?

He is now expecting us to take his word for it, as it were, not challenge it, in deference to his work as a medical doctor, even though he is well and truly outside of his own area of expertise. Moreover, even though in it he also had problems grasping the new and difficult issues, as they arose... Why should I kowtow to "Professor, Lord, His Majesty" Winny the Pooh, if he's well out of his depth? I mean, I wouldn't do that even if a proper social psychologist stood in front of me and said something that was much more plausible but didn't quite pass the scrutiny of my reason, let alone this uncritical "we have instincts" shite. I'd ask questions and press on a matter of concern and of possible dispute even in such a case, let alone now!

Besides, isn't one entitled to say that "the Emperor is naked", do you think? Or should one "remember one's place and keep schtum, do as one's told"? Like, when "The Sun revolves around the Earth" was a "fact"... As a principle! Because, to me this is tantamount to that - for reasons given before, in this very thread. And I put a lot of time and good will into it, only to be told - nothing. Yep, whatever "doesn't fit" and requires a re-think - Jonti and co. simply ignore.

Not very fruitful. And they are masters of that! Very efficient at blocking out stuff they either can't deal with, don't understand or can't find a counter argument for. The most one can get from that lot is "we can't create a perfect argument for xyz, but it is plausible and that's good enough for me". Well...

Once again, Phil is right on the issues...

 

[Knotted]

Secondly, what's an instinct, please? Because, that's the crucial issue here and - do we have a "definitio fiat per genus proximum et differentiam specificam"? So, what is it? When you answer that question we may have a game on our hands. In the meantime we are talking about something we are pretending [or at least presuming] to know what it is but... nowt there, so anyone is an expert or can appear as one...

This is a really good question. I don't think its fashionable for biologists to talk about instincts at all these days (I could well be wrong on that though). Its easy to say that there is no such thing as instinct if you give it too tight a definition. Its also easy to say that pretty much any behaviour is an instinct if you give it too loose a definition. Does 'instinct' have any real scientific use?

This thread would have been much more interesting in the science & environment forum.

 

[Jonti]

The fact is that you (gorski and phildwyer) have failed to persuade people here that your idealism reflects the real world. Others have written more clearly and simply and cut to the heart of what is a complex and emotive issue.

Some may still deny that evolution has shaped our bodies and brains; and so our minds and culture. But that side of the argument has failed to carry its case. The only question remaining is how and to what extent the evolutionary forces that shaped our bodies and brains have also shaped our minds.

 

[Jonti]

I certainly agree that philosophers who try to dismiss evolution are a waste.

 

[Jonti]

It is difficult to formulate a definition of instinct which can be theoretically defended against all possible criticisms; indeed it is difficult to come up with scientific theories which are similarly invulnerable. This is not such a problem as may at first appear, for science is a practical art, so we can, arguably must, form judgments about our definitions and theories on pragmatic grounds.

This may seem unsatisfactory to those approaching questions about the human animal from the direction of the humanities or political theory. But, if the resultant science works well enough, the difficulty lies more in understanding why the science is successful, not with the science as such.

There's a fairly full discussion of the meaning of instinct and the difficulties in precisely pinning it down at http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Instinct

 

[gorski]

I have to agree with your critical self-assessment, Johnny boy: as a philosopher you are really poor and hence a waste of space and time...

May I refer you to the many answers we [not just Phil and I!!!] gave earlier. Read and learn!

Because some of us are critically evaluating evolution doesn't automatically mean we're batting for the "other side" [church etc.]. No one rejected evolution as such, you poor, poor, silly boy... "If you're not with me you're against me" is such a stupid idea to hold, you know... Tertium non datur speaks of a feeble mind... No one dismissed Darwin the man or said that his little theory is completely wrong, just that it is the least crappy one on Earth...

Pragmatism is but a position - and a very, very poor one at that. Nominalism was always silly, you see...

Because you can't easily comprehend some ideas doesn't automatically mean they are worthless... if you, dear Prince, have to work a little towards getting them... And trying to force everyone to speak your language, as it were, is equally stupid and spiritually lazy, not to mention extremely rude and arrogant!

But the most laughable of all is your apparent appropriation of the interpretation of "reality", as if you have the overview and necessary mantle to be the judge...

You poor little deluded sod [if you're serious] or silly little twat [if you're trolling]...

Bah!

 

[Jonti]

Sorry gorski, I'm fed up of being your straw man.

You're going back on ignore with the other anti-evolution idealist hegelian nutter. But do look me up if you ever make it into the 21st Century.

 

[Jonti]

This is a really good question. I don't think its fashionable for biologists to talk about instincts at all these days (I could well be wrong on that though). Its easy to say that there is no such thing as instinct if you give it too tight a definition. Its also easy to say that pretty much any behaviour is an instinct if you give it too loose a definition. Does 'instinct' have any real scientific use?

This thread would have been much more interesting in the science & environment forum.

Yes, it would have been. There's no real continuity of discussion here, which is a great shame. Maybe the topic can be revisited later.

Anyway, the loosest possible definition of "instinct" must be

Instinctive behaviour depends on how the nervous system has been built through heredity; but Individual experience is needed for the innate capacity to be realised.

I think most of the scientifically trained posters here have in mind that kind of definition. There is no tabula rasa (blank slate) on which experience impresses itself. Instead, we are born into the world as a real, physically structured being. Our perceptions and responses to the world are inevitably shaped by the physical structure of our nervous systems -- and this has the form it does because of natural pressures.

To give an example -- one I hope is reasonably clear and uncontroversial -- we experience colour because it was evolutionarily advantageous for our ancient ancestors to do so.

The cultural meaning and use of colour may (and does) vary quite considerably. But that it can have meaning to us at all is thanks to our evolutionary history.

 

[gorski]

Sorry gorski, I'm fed up of being your straw man.

You're going back on ignore with the other anti-evolution idealist hegelian nutter. But do look me up if you ever make it into the 21st Century.

Oh, no, no, I insist you look me up if you ever get past the XIX/early XX c Anglo-Amuuuurican nonsense...

Talking of straw shite: whomever here rejected evolution and opted for Creator's kaaaahhh-boooommm "idea"?!?

 

[Knotted]

It is difficult to formulate a definition of instinct which can be theoretically defended against all possible criticisms; indeed it is difficult to come up with scientific theories which are similarly invulnerable. This is not such a problem as may at first appear, for science is a practical art, so we can, arguably must, form judgments about our definitions and theories on pragmatic grounds.

This may seem unsatisfactory to those approaching questions about the human animal from the direction of the humanities or political theory. But, if the resultant science works well enough, the difficulty lies more in understanding why the science is successful, not with the science as such.

There's a fairly full discussion of the meaning of instinct and the difficulties in precisely pinning it down at http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Instinct

Can only reply briefly and then I'm away for the weekend.

Richard Dawkins has a metaphor for genetic determinism of the ingredients of a cake making a cake. The cake is made from the ingredients but it this does not mean that you can work out exactly what the ingredients are doing. (That's as I remember the metaphor anyway).

So when we are talking about innate abilities we are talking about both behaviours and genetic mechanisms and also the evolutionary history at the same time. Maybe we can do this but it takes considerable empirical effort to unravel the causal relations.

The link you give has an example of learning to ride a bike. We could reasonably say that there is a human instinct to ride bikes (if we choose to use the word 'instinct' in that way) - we are pretty good at it. But there is obviously no evolutionary history of bike riding that allows us to do this (though of course this does not mean that there are no adaptionist explanations for this ability).

If we are talking about instinct in pure behavioural terms then we are usually talking universals. But I don't think this says very much. Nor do I think finding exceptions to supposed universals says very much either - the tendency might be there but it might not be realised. I don't see much use in the word 'instinct'.

 

[phildwyer]

The fact is that you (gorski and phildwyer) have failed to persuade people here that your idealism reflects the real world.

Idealism? Hardly. The philosophical method Gorski and I are practicing is known as *dialectics.* Its most prominent characteristic is its denial of self-identical essences, such as 'matter' and 'ideas,' and its insistence that identity is relational. Thus for example, as a simple matter of logic, ideas and matter depend upon each other to exist: they form a mutually definitive binary opposition. The crude and reductive materialism of Jonti and his ilk is philosophically as primitive as is the amoeba to evolutionary biology.

 

[phildwyer]

Once again, Phil is right on the issues...

Speaking of which, do you have an opinion on the issue I raised earlier? To wit: what are the social conditions that have given rise to the pathetic parodies of thought known as 'socio-biology' and 'evolutionary psychology?' What is it about our society--and our society alone--which has made these outlandish theories appear attractive?

 

[Fruitloop]

There's no problem scientifically as far as I'm aware with the idea that matter and ideas are mutually determining, it's just that this is seen as a starting point for knowledge rather than a conclusion. The real challenge is to uncover the precise nature of the relation between matter and ideas, both in terms of implementation (how physical structures come to express computational abstractions, and these abstractions themselves can comprise thought) and conversely how the material world is moulded by and dependent on its observation.

Unpicking this knot requires large quantities of facts - of diverse natures due to the complexity of the phenomena being studied - and a historical perpective that takes into account the enormous timescales over which these things have come to be. To reject the products of systematic investigation into the specific functioning of relevant phenomena in favour of some kind of wordplay based in already-existing semantic (and thus ultimately experiential) categories is to reject the very means that has got us to the present state of knowledge - a purely retrograde step without supplying something that could conceivably take its place.

 

[gorski]

Speaking of which, do you have an opinion on the issue I raised earlier? To wit: what are the social conditions that have given rise to the pathetic parodies of thought known as 'socio-biology' and 'evolutionary psychology?' What is it about our society--and our society alone--which has made these outlandish theories appear attractive?

Oh, no, m8 - you should see what "Histo-Mat" and especially "Dia-Mat" looked like in the former Soviet empire. Stalin was the God on Earth meddling in absolutely everything! Todor Pavlov and co. were aces!!!
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Todor+Pavlov+theory+of+reflection&hl=en
http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/106-3-138.shtml

And by those standards this is child's play...

But of course, one might see it in a more dark manner and say that all this shite in the West is more pervasive, more difficult to fight and see through, as it's not that nasty in terms of pure power relationship, i.e. it's not as easy to see where it all stemmed from, like in the USSR and the satellites. It was very open there and hence one knew in whose interest it was and how to resist it... more-or-less...

Nevertheless, I gather it is similar in both societies/types of governance/orders, in terms of providing a certain stability to a society in question: it gives a coordinative system, places an individual into a whole, gives a few simple principles by which to explain most stuff to oneself and orientate oneself in a given "reality". Not much more is needed to get by and even be "successful", I suppose, by the society's very own criteria.

Dogma or at least ideology has this role, as you know, no doubt, that is not to be underestimated, I think... Especially if you want to replace it with something much more demanding, sophisticated, complex... Just how does one do it?

 

[gorski]

Unpicking this knot requires large quantities of facts - of diverse natures due to the complexity of the phenomena being studied - and a historical perpective that takes into account the enormous timescales over which these things have come to be. To reject the products of systematic investigation into the specific functioning of relevant phenomena in favour of some kind of wordplay based in already-existing semantic (and thus ultimately experiential) categories is to reject the very means that has got us to the present state of knowledge - a purely retrograde step without supplying something that could conceivably take its place.

I doubt anyone here wants anything of the sort.

What Phil, myself and some others here keep insisting on is a series of lessons we learned from Kant - Fichte - Hegel - Marx - Critical Theory development, namely - amongst other things, that the whole thing depends on the process of thinking behind the phenomena we encounter and try to describe; the type of thinking which orders the phenomena in a specific manner and therefore gives them meaning and places them in a whole, thereby giving them their "factual-ness"... How can one otherwise explain that the same phenomenon can be seen in completely opposite light by two top but theoretically opposed minds?

That in turn, one can argue, depends on a number of things, namely the way we produce our lives/mode of production, cultural and theoretical context [not to forget individual circumstances, capabilities and so forth, of course ].... Kant, Mozart, Goethe, Hegel, Beethoven are not possible in ancient Greece, of course.

 

[Jonti]

There's no problem scientifically as far as I'm aware with the idea that matter and ideas are mutually determining, it's just that this is seen as a starting point for knowledge rather than a conclusion...

Nor indeed with the insistence that identity is relational.

 

[phildwyer]

Oh, no, m8 - you should see what "Histo-Mat" and especially "Dia-Mat" looked like in the former Soviet empire. Stalin was the God on Earth meddling in absolutely everything! Todor Pavlov and co. were aces!!!
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Todor+Pavlov+theory+of+reflection&hl=en
http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/106-3-138.shtml

And by those standards this is child's play...

But of course, one might see it in a more dark manner and say that all this shite in the West is more pervasive, more difficult to fight and see through, as it's not that nasty in terms of pure power relationship, i.e. it's not as easy to see where it all stemmed from, like in the USSR and the satellites. It was very open there and hence one knew in whose interest it was and how to resist it... more-or-less...

Nevertheless, I gather it is similar in both societies/types of governance/orders, in terms of providing a certain stability to a society in question: it gives a coordinative system, places an individual into a whole, gives a few simple principles by which to explain most stuff to oneself and orientate oneself in a given "reality". Not much more is needed to get by and even be "successful", I suppose, by the society's very own criteria.

Dogma or at least ideology has this role, as you know, no doubt, that is not to be underestimated, I think... Especially if you want to replace it with something much more demanding, sophisticated, complex... Just how does one do it?

Yes, when I said 'our society' I really meant European modernity, not specifically capitalism, although the two have turned out to be co-terminus. I can trace the patterns of thought that are common to capitalism and empiricism, I can show where they depart from other patterns of thought, I can even show why they're wrong, but I can't figure out why they arose. The best I can come up with is the discovery of America, which led to the monetarization of the European economy. Either that or Satan.

 

[gorski]

There are different attempts at thinking the novelty of Modernity through, as you know.

Some think of it in terms of Ancient Greek lessons being forgotten - I think following Nietzsche's pattern of thinking - when we consider "To on legetai polahos" or literally "that which is [being] speaks/expresses itself in a manifold of ways", meaning "which is ordered/structured according to a variety of principles". They claim that in Modernity we see it end up completely devastated and totally reduced to utility [i.e. a single principle of knowledge with a purpose outside itself] in Bacon's hands, or on the Continent with Spinoza's reduction of the similar sort but from a different ground, where everything is ordered from a single principle, "more geometrico" [even in ethics].

In the given context, I would wager, no one would reasonably question Descartes standing up to the oppressive context of his time, introducing the methodical skepsis as a way forward, as the innermost right of the Modern Subject [to doubt] and deducing it all from oneself, rather than externally, thereby taking away the legitimacy of the Church, Kings and Feudal Lords etc. That was a huge, emancipatory step forward, as we all know. But which way from there?

I suspect one needs to properly place it in the historical, social, political context in order to understand why they thought of it in those terms. That would be, overall speaking, very much in line with the novel scientific advancements, promising transparency and the release from mythology. And then we have a potentially nasty, aggressive line/strand in the development of Modernity. Modern Subject, says Heidegger, forces everything before oneself and handles/experiments on/orders it in one's own image, somewhat Biblically expressed.

It can be understood quite easily, I suppose, with the attack on the dogma of the day, standing up to the mythology, superstition of any sort and going for our very own capabilities, i.e. internally, but still having to fight really hard to get them recognised properly - and then, in some cases, going overboard, inasmuch as the single unifying principle of Judeo-Christian type is taken on board and not questioned per se.

There are those who think that is not the only strand, of course!

The other one can be seen in a variety of "softer" thinkers, as it were, and many have tried tracing it back all over the place. Habermas and co. see it in particular in early Hegel's writings: the inter-subjective, inter-communicative strand of Modernity, being given a very different form from the one mentioned above.

Do you see that as the option/possibility leading out of that type of thinking which is willfully reductionist or you have other things in mind, Phil?

 

[phildwyer]

There are different attempts at thinking the novelty of Modernity through, as you know.

Some think of it in terms of Ancient Greek lessons being forgotten - I think following Nietzsche's pattern of thinking - when we consider "To on legetai polahos" or literally "that which is [being] speaks/expresses itself in a manifold of ways", meaning "which is ordered/structured according to a variety of principles". They claim that in Modernity we see it end up completely devastated and totally reduced to utility [i.e. a single principle of knowledge with a purpose outside itself] in Bacon's hands, or on the Continent with Spinoza's reduction of the similar sort but from a different ground, where everything is ordered from a single principle, "more geometrico" [even in ethics].

In the given context, I would wager, no one would reasonably question Descartes standing up to the oppressive context of his time, introducing the methodical skepsis as a way forward, as the innermost right of the Modern Subject [to doubt] and deducing it all from oneself, rather than externally, thereby taking away the legitimacy of the Church, Kings and Feudal Lords etc. That was a huge, emancipatory step forward, as we all know. But which way from there?

I suspect one needs to properly place it in the historical, social, political context in order to understand why they thought of it in those terms. That would be, overall speaking, very much in line with the novel scientific advancements, promising transparency and the release from mythology. And then we have a potentially nasty, aggressive line/strand in the development of Modernity developing. A Modern Subject, says Heidegger, which forces everything before oneself and handles/experiments on/orders it in one's own image, somewhat Biblically expressed.

It can be understood quite easily, I suppose, with the attack on the dogma of the day, standing up to the mythology, superstition of any sort and going for our very own capabilities, i.e. internally, but still having to fight really hard to get them recognised properly - and then, in some cases, going overboard, inasmuch as the single unifying principle of Judeo-Christian type is taken on board and not questioned per se.

There are those who think that is not the only strand, of course!

The other one can be seen in a variety of "softer" thinkers, as it were, and many have tried tracing it back all over the place. Habermas and co. see it in particular in early Hegel's writings: the inter-subjective, inter-communicative strand of Modernity, being given a very different form from the one mentioned above.

Do you see that as the option/possibility leading out of that type of thinking which is willfully reductionist or you have other things in mind, Phil?

I don't think there's any way out of it. In fact, I think the idea that there has to be a way out of it is a central feature of it. Human history does not have to have a happy ending. I believe that climate change and nuclear warfare--the gifts of science--will destroy human life quite soon. I expect I'll just about be able to live out my natural life-span, but I don't think my children would (if I had any, which is one reason why I don't).

I'm afraid I've never really seen the point of Habermas. But I agree that modernity consists in the abandonment of Greek thought, and specifically in the transition from Aristotelian rationalism to Baconian empiricism, which took place quite suddenly over the seventeenth century. To me, empiricism is an infantile mode of thought. It takes appearance for reality, in the same way that a small child assumes its father is Santa Claus when he dresses up as such.

And that is the connection with capitalism, which bestows determining power on financial signs: on appearances whch have no essential reality. Empiricism and capitalism are both forms of magical thinking, which accord quite precisely with the attitude to life that has traditionally been called 'Satanic.' But of course we all know that Satan 'does not exist....'

 

[gorski]

Hehe, now I know better...

Well, unlike the previous epochs I see it as being infinitely more open to change [either way] and this time it may even not necessarily be violent... I hope... But I didn't say there has to be a way out of it, btw. Just that it is open to change. The rest depends on oh so many things. And none of it will be changed for the better without the interested and competent Modern Subjects! So, if none or not enough of us are trying - we're fooked, indeed...

Let's hope I'm closer to it on this one... and our kids [uuuuu, go on, go on, go on... have at least one... ] will live even longer than us...

 

[Fruitloop]

Very busy at the moment so not much time to answer. In brief I think there is a difference between gorski's outlook which wants to use a history of thought in order to have a properly informed understanding of modern knowledge and technical capabilities (the latter are at least as important as the former, if not more so). This I find unproblematic, in fact I think that there are interesting parallels within thoroughly modern pursuits like computer sciences where one is encouraged by the nature of the material to understand dialectic-like problems; for instance the way in which the interaction between reduction and interaction conceptually is essentially a question of what is hidden from a particular viewpoint.

What worries me about phildwyer's approach is that he seems to want to use a historical viewpoint to explain away whatever isn't a 'footnote to Plato'. Such a viewpoint is pretty much hermetically sealed against counter-argument, and implies a large amount of baby that is thrown out with the bathwater. My suspicion is that phil doesn't much like the baby anyway, so it's not so much of a problem from his perspective.

One thing that always strikes me about reading actual papers in the sciences (as opposed to pop science) is the ontological diffidence they frequently display. It's difficult to reconcile the picture of naive materialism often painted on here with the caution displayed in the conclusions of the average reseach paper - 'reproduction of these results would tend to indicate that x may be involved in the production of y' etc etc.

Finally, to be consistently dialectical you have to acknowledge the interaction between 'capitalist' scientific knowledge and the raw analysands whether they are 'material' or 'conceptual'. Whilst there may be a socially motivated drive towards quantification, the fact remains that you don't slingshot a satellite around for planets without some enumerative notion of the distances, speeds and amount of fuel involved, and even filthy capitalists sometimes find it more natural to use non-quantified graphic representations - from Venn diagrams to UML.

Interesting stuff though.

 

[Knotted]

Idealism? Hardly. The philosophical method Gorski and I are practicing is known as *dialectics.* Its most prominent characteristic is its denial of self-identical essences, such as 'matter' and 'ideas,' and its insistence that identity is relational. Thus for example, as a simple matter of logic, ideas and matter depend upon each other to exist: they form a mutually definitive binary opposition. The crude and reductive materialism of Jonti and his ilk is philosophically as primitive as is the amoeba to evolutionary biology.

Ironically enough this eclectic dualism is exactly what Jonti is theorising. Nobody else has had the gumption to actually do this rather than talk about it. But hey ho - that's 'philosophy' in the age of decadent late capitalism for you.

 

[Demosthenes]

I don't think there's any way out of it. In fact, I think the idea that there has to be a way out of it is a central feature of it. Human history does not have to have a happy ending. I believe that climate change and nuclear warfare--the gifts of science--will destroy human life quite soon. I expect I'll just about be able to live out my natural life-span, but I don't think my children would (if I had any, which is one reason why I don't).

I'm afraid I've never really seen the point of Habermas. But I agree that modernity consists in the abandonment of Greek thought, and specifically in the transition from Aristotelian rationalism to Baconian empiricism, which took place quite suddenly over the seventeenth century. To me, empiricism is an infantile mode of thought. It takes appearance for reality, in the same way that a small child assumes its father is Santa Claus when he dresses up as such.

And that is the connection with capitalism, which bestows determining power on financial signs: on appearances whch have no essential reality. Empiricism and capitalism are both forms of magical thinking, which accord quite precisely with the attitude to life that has traditionally been called 'Satanic.' But of course we all know that Satan 'does not exist....'

I think it's quite possible that our civilisation will break down under the impact of climate change or war, - but, on the other hand, I think it's quite unlikely that this will lead to the extinction of humanity.

 

[gorski]

Ironically enough this eclectic dualism is exactly what Jonti is theorising. Nobody else has had the gumption to actually do this rather than talk about it. But hey ho - that's 'philosophy' in the age of decadent late capitalism for you.

What kind of sophistry is this???

 

[Knotted]

What kind of sophistry is this???

PhilD & Jonti are saying almost exactly the same thing in very different ways. If you pay attention you will see this.

Also philosophy in the late capitalist period is crap. You and I and everyone else are much better off sticking to the scientific issues.

 

[gorski]

Oh gawd...

 

[Knotted]

Oh gawd...

You know I'm right. You were saying interesting and informative things about instincts. Then you go and spoil it all by giving a hand wringing bolderisation of German philosophy. The most amusing thing is that you think that this crap is alien to the English. Try listening to a CofE minister. Pseudo-post-Hegelian mush is all the rage. Not really protestant, not really catholic something complex and mysterious and balanced inbetween. Makes me want to vomit, personally.