Philosophers on the Beach

[Ron de Weijze]

What I don't understand enough, is why the "justification" of where the term belongs. One label belongs to many facts and one fact has many labels for as long as it takes to get an impression we have, associated in an exact way to what impressed us, let alone when the matter is of historical proportions and concerns us all. Kant obviously had his interpretation and so did his contemporaries not winning the essay contest. Russell, Wikipedia says, had Enlightenment associated with the birth of Protestantism. Van den Berg (Dutch psychiatrist) in his 1958 Metabletics, associated it with a change in socio-cultural relations:

[img]http://www.crpa.co/private/The%20Awaken ... cience.png[/img]

[zorro]

The E is now used as a fighting ground for pet theories and anachronistic ideologies.

I guess you could say that about any wellspring of intellectual thought and directives. Adam Smith is also fighting grounds for pet theories and ideologies. But that doesn't make him any less of a cutting edge in the process of enlightenment.

Why some people say there wasn't an enlightenment is because not all people think like the Enlightenment would have us think. You use the example of stem-cell research. But I don't think that negates the fact that an enlightenment occurred.

Humans have not been very good in accepting the ideal or reasoned ways of the E. Ideals and reason have more often been reach in an opposite, perverse, materialistic manner, through wars, revolutions and obnoxious politics.

[chaz wyman]

The E is now used as a fighting ground for pet theories and anachronistic ideologies.

I guess you could say that about any wellspring of intellectual thought and directives. Adam Smith is also fighting grounds for pet theories and ideologies. But that doesn't make him any less of a cutting edge in the process of enlightenment.

In all the words Adam Smith wrote he never wrote the word Enlightenment, neither did David Hume, yet they are supposed to be THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT. The Scottish Enlightenment was not invented until the 20thC.

Why some people say there wasn't an enlightenment is because not all people think like the Enlightenment would have us think. You use the example of stem-cell research. But I don't think that negates the fact that an enlightenment occurred.

DO you think this point is clear?

Humans have not been very good in accepting the ideal or reasoned ways of the E. Ideals and reason have more often been reach in an opposite, perverse, materialistic manner, through wars, revolutions and obnoxious politics.

No, nor have most of the people that have been attributed to The Enlightenment. And all of them would not know what the hell you are talking about where you to tell them they were part of such a thing.
Reason was not invented in the 18thC. What do YOU think the E is? And do you think other people think the same as you?
In what way does this give you the right to reject other things that cannot be included in the the E?

[chaz wyman]

What I don't understand enough, is why the "justification" of where the term belongs. One label belongs to many facts and one fact has many labels for as long as it takes to get an impression we have, associated in an exact way to what impressed us, let alone when the matter is of historical proportions and concerns us all. Kant obviously had his interpretation and so did his contemporaries not winning the essay contest. Russell, Wikipedia says, had Enlightenment associated with the birth of Protestantism. Van den Berg (Dutch psychiatrist) in his 1958 Metabletics, associated it with a change in socio-cultural relations:

Jonathan Israel says that the E started with Spinoza. And he has produced 3 doorstops to prove it.
Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790. 2011.,Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. 2006; and; Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750. 2001.
Like I said just about everyone has their own take on the topic.
They are confusing the word with the object.
E ought to be a broad area of study , not a battle ground of pet theories.
The E is not a preexisting phenomenon that simple needs proper definition; it is not a natural category; it is the epitome of person bias.
The politically correct of the intellectual historian has completely emasculated the E by attributing to it just about everything that contributed to the status quo ]of the 19thC. This has robbed it of it most interesting and radical aspects - people like D'Mettrie, and Diderot.

PS why have you got a late 19thC artist in your post?

[zorro]

Chaz:

In all the words Adam Smith wrote he never wrote the word Enlightenment

Who said he did?

Anyway, the way you respond to things makes you out to be a crusty piece of old bread. Is that your true nature?

[chaz wyman]

Chaz:

In all the words Adam Smith wrote he never wrote the word Enlightenment

Who said he did?

Anyway, the way you respond to things makes you out to be a crusty piece of old bread. Is that your true nature?

This is your problem, not mine.

I am widely regarded as a kind, likeable, and friendly person.

[Arising_uk]

...I am widely regarded as a kind, likeable, and friendly person.

So alter-ego here then?

[chaz wyman]

...I am widely regarded as a kind, likeable, and friendly person.

So alter-ego here then?

Yep - completely.
I love to argue.
In everyday life, people see my brain turning over and rarely take me on.

[Ron de Weijze]

What I don't understand enough, is why the "justification" of where the term belongs. One label belongs to many facts and one fact has many labels for as long as it takes to get an impression we have, associated in an exact way to what impressed us, let alone when the matter is of historical proportions and concerns us all. Kant obviously had his interpretation and so did his contemporaries not winning the essay contest. Russell, Wikipedia says, had Enlightenment associated with the birth of Protestantism. Van den Berg (Dutch psychiatrist) in his 1958 Metabletics, associated it with a change in socio-cultural relations:

Jonathan Israel says that the E started with Spinoza. And he has produced 3 doorstops to prove it.
Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790. 2011.,Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. 2006; and; Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750. 2001.
Like I said just about everyone has their own take on the topic.
They are confusing the word with the object.
E ought to be a broad area of study , not a battle ground of pet theories.
The E is not a preexisting phenomenon that simple needs proper definition; it is not a natural category; it is the epitome of person bias.
The politically correct of the intellectual historian has completely emasculated the E by attributing to it just about everything that contributed to the status quo ]of the 19thC. This has robbed it of it most interesting and radical aspects - people like D'Mettrie, and Diderot.

PS why have you got a late 19thC artist in your post?

I am less pessimistic about people "confusing the world with the object". It is alright for us to each have our own take. We just have to remind ourselves that the object is not the noumen and the noumen is not the phenomenon, in the best of philosophical traditions. There are spurious correlations and concepts are colligenda, not claims, not to offend or be offended by others with their takes, claiming the fame and fortune for themselves or having it taken from them. Whatever it is or was, it is all ours and we can manage our own biases. My take on what E is, is exactly that we have learned to manage that (bias), since the Middle Ages. How to shake the influence of self serving clergy and have our own "direct line" to God; how to methodically question and test our own beliefs to no longer feel brainwashed by quacks etc. The painting in my post was the one prominent illustration in Van den Berg's book. For some reason I always directly associated it with E. He wrote it in 1956 and describes how differently people interacted in the Renaissance compared to the Middle Ages.

[zorro]

I can't get the idea of on the beach out of my head. Is it a metaphor for something?

There is the book "On The Beach" by Nevil Shute in which the world comes to an end because of nuclear war. So, is on the beach referring to something like the end of the world? Is that what Philip Glass was thinking with his opera "Einstein On The Beach"? After all, Einstein's scientific discoveries opened the door to the development of atomic bomb, the ultimate weapon that could have annihilated all.

Why isn't Anja Steinbauer's article entitled Philosophers at the Beach instead of 'on' the beach? I guess that's because the idea of being at the beach isn't as significant or poignant.

Ideas have ruled and shaped the world. Ideas, also, have almost destroyed the world. Could it be, then, that these philosophers on the beach represented ideas that in themselves almost blew up and put an end to the world? These thinkers added contentious knowledge to the human project. Knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Knowledge has put ideas in peoples heads that have almost destroyed us.

The only philosopher on the beach that really didn't have anything new to add to knowledge was Schopenhauer. He was just a pessimist. Marx should have been there instead. His ideas certainly whipped up a divisiveness that could have put an end to all.

Or could it be like Freud once said: Sometimes as cigar is just a cigar.

[zorro]

The beach might also represent the middle ground between the material and the abstract. The land on one side of the beach symbolizes the material world and the ocean on the other symbolizes the abstract world. The philosophers on the beach are sitting in the middle trying to figure out both sides in order to reconcile them. The land represents the fixed world and the ocean the one always in flux.

[spike]

I think zorro is on to something there with the beach analogy.

A famous chaz proclamation: "The Enlightenment is a myth."

Chaz's presumption is totally wrong. Granted the Enlightenment had its flaws. But one of it positives, and an indication of its existence, was its attacks on religious authority and dogma. That attack forced the opening of a window to fresh thought. It turned on a proverbial light bulb in human minds, hence its name The Enlightenment.

[chaz wyman]

I think zorro is on to something there with the beach analogy.

A famous chaz proclamation: "The Enlightenment is a myth."

Chaz's presumption is totally wrong. Granted the Enlightenment had its flaws. But one of it positives, and an indication of its existence, was its attacks on religious authority and dogma. That attack forced the opening of a window to fresh thought. It turned on a proverbial light bulb in human minds, hence its name The Enlightenment.

Attacks on religion - You mean the CHristian Enlightenment?
Read the essay and then comment.

[spike]

"The Enlightenment is a myth."

chaz, I am just going by that ludicrous statement of yours.

[zorro]

The beach scene, with four of the nineteenth century's most influential thinkers on it, could be a representation of the Enlightenment and what it wrought, what with its contradiction, optimism and pessimism. The beach could also be symbolic of the shifting sands of time. But I am not sure what to make of the seashells that might have been found on the beach.

Issue 86 of PN also has an article by Joel Marks entitled Absolute Vulnerability. He writes about the possibility of the Earth being hit by an asteroid. On reading it I recalled the movie Deep Impact in which the Earth is struck by an asteroid. The final scene of the movie is a beach scene where two of the movie's main characters are standing, waiting to be drowned by the tidal wave created by the asteroid hitting the ocean.