Philosophy Now Forum

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2024 7:20 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2024 3:16 am Anthropology's another really pseudo-scientific load of nonsense. It's a cut above gender studies, but only a cut. This is a philosophy board: let's talk Marx, or Hegel, for that matter...or let's discuss what Marcuse or Gramsci thought, or the very influential (and completely nuts) Paolo Freire. Let's talk about somebody who actually matters, and whom the Neo-Marxists actually follow.

Anthology is a wide field indeed. I would like to better understand why, and how, you can so certainly dismiss it. “Another really pseudo-scientific load of nonsense” seems over the top.

Is there a discipline or approach to the study of man that you think should replace it? What?

What "study of man" do you mean? His physiology? I recommend Biology. His place in the physical universe? I recommend Cosmology. The meaning of life? Philosophy and Theology. His cultural products? Literature, History, Art, Medicine, Architecture, Engineering...

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 11, 2024 11:10 pm

Alexiev wrote: ↑Sat Feb 10, 2024 4:37 pm You appear to know as little about anthropology as you do about Neo-Marxism.

Far too much. But please, do continue..

You are becoming like Sculptor, using the word "mythology" as a pejorative.

In some circumstances, it certainly is. I don't think you want your medical doctor or your airline pilot operating by way of mythology, do you?

Do you really have no interest in art, literature, history or any of the Humanities?

Oh, dear.... I'm sorry, but this is just too amusing. If you knew me, you wouldn't try that tactic. Sorry.

Also, one might think Kipling would appeal to you.

I've been to his house. It's very nice, actually.

I don't have any idea what you are talking about. "Operating by way of mythology"? You appear to equate mythology with some sort of primitive and inaccurate science. But myths are more akin to history than to science. They are stories people tell about their past. I assume you like the Christian and Jewish myths (by the way, I don't use the "myth" to imply inaccuracy. Instead, myths are oral histories, often featuring the supernatural, and often telling about events that actually happened.)

Which of Kipling's houses have you been to? I've been to Bundi, where he lived in India for several years. Good hunting!

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 12:28 am But myths are more akin to history than to science.

Not histories. Their closest relation is Literature Studies. The fact that they can include some truths does not make them all ultimately truthful.

I assume you like the Christian and Jewish myths...

Again, you wrongly suppose I'm unaware of the whole line of arguing you're floating...but I know about the mythos concept taught by, say "Comparative Religions" people. The problem is that it's yet another secularist metanarrative that's supposed to "handle" all metaphorical truths by pretending that they're value-equivalent, and ultimately tame and submissive to the larger secular metanarrative -- and that no grounds for differentiating harmful, erroneous or debased "myths" from truth-bearing ones is allowed.

I disagree: it's not only allowable, it's indispensible.

Which of Kipling's houses have you been to?

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/batemans

I wonder if just thinking, let alone believing, that a Thing like God is male gendered, of all things, is one form of toxic gender philosophy as well?

Could there be an issue arising, in the days when this is being written, around a so-called 'toxic gender philosophy', because for thousands of years human adult males have aligned "themselves" to a Thing like what God is purported to have with Its strength, power, and intellect over not just some others but everything?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 6:11 am

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 12:28 am But myths are more akin to history than to science.

Not histories. Their closest relation is Literature Studies. The fact that they can include some truths does not make them all ultimately truthful.

I assume you like the Christian and Jewish myths...

Again, you wrongly suppose I'm unaware of the whole line of arguing you're floating...but I know about the mythos concept taught by, say "Comparative Religions" people. The problem is that it's yet another secularist metanarrative that's supposed to "handle" all metaphorical truths by pretending that they're value-equivalent, and ultimately tame and submissive to the larger secular metanarrative -- and that no grounds for differentiating harmful, erroneous or debased "myths" from truth-bearing ones is allowed.

I disagree: it's not only allowable, it's indispensible.

Which of Kipling's houses have you been to?

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/batemans

Please don't tell me what I'm "arguing". I'm perfectly capable of doing my own arguing, and, as usual, you are both incorrect and misguided.. It's also annoying and obnoxious to tell another person what he us thinking, especially when you are wrong.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Feb 11, 2024 11:17 pmWhat "study of man" do you mean? His physiology? I recommend Biology. His place in the physical universe? I recommend Cosmology. The meaning of life? Philosophy and Theology. His cultural products? Literature, History, Art, Medicine, Architecture, Engineering...

If we cut to the chase as it were, I believe we will find that the essential reason that the (modern) discipline of anthropology is abhorrent to you is because it necessarily contradicts and simultaneously offers a radically opposed explanatory model about *the origin of man*.

Simply put, scientific physical anthropology presents a *physiological* view of man as a biological creature, an animal, that arose out of nature and through natural means. It turns the Biblical mythology, which really is an *ideological anthropology*, on its head. Obviously, you can neither accept the conclusions of a physiological science, nor that of physiological physical anthropology.

Your a priori perspective, as you know and as your readers all know, is the Genesis model. Full stop. God played Paddy Cake Paddy Cake with some dirt and :::poof::: man appeared. Let's face it: no physiological science is needed nor wanted when you start from that point.

I think you left out of your catalogue *cultural anthropology* which, I assume, also has abhorrent implications. That is, it begins with the predicate that it is possible, if not ultimately achievable, to take a *neutral* position when one examines a foreign culture; their views, their assertions, their description of *the world*, and how they arrive at those admonishments about *how to live* and *what to do* in life, and to compare them to our own, and as a result glean insights. So for example the field of *comparative religion* is abhorrent to your rigid sensibilities which your express concisely here:

the mythos concept taught by, say "Comparative Religions" people. The problem is that it's yet another secularist metanarrative that's supposed to "handle" all metaphorical truths by pretending that they're value-equivalent, and ultimately tame and submissive to the larger secular metanarrative -- and that no grounds for differentiating harmful, erroneous or debased "myths" from truth-bearing ones is allowed.

Any *secular meta-narrative* poses a fundamental danger to your (strange, convoluted) determined religious views about man and his origins and of course his ends.

I hope this clears things up.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 10:27 am Please don't tell me what I'm "arguing".

Well, I recognize the mythos strategy of explanation. You may perhaps not know what a stock theory it is, and thus think it originated with you; but I assure you, it did not. You can find it spelled out in basic Comparative Religions, in the work of people like W.E. Paden, for example.

If it offends you to hear me point that out, I really can't do anything about that. It's the truth.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 2:03 pm I believe we will find that the essential reason that the (modern) discipline of anthropology is abhorrent to you is because it necessarily contradicts and simultaneously offers a radically opposed explanatory model about *the origin of man*.

Well, that would be one of its more tragic features, but no, I don't find it abhorrent because of that, but because, like Gender Studies, it's sorely lacking in academic rigour and specialized methods of improving knowledge. It's too easily hijacked by propagandists...which, today, it almost entirely is. One could say the same about other areas, too...like Education, as a formal field. It partakes of the same kinds of deficiencies: lack of academic rigour, lack of any unique tools, easy co-optation by propagandists.

So for example the field of *comparative religion* is abhorrent to your rigid sensibilities which your express concisely here:

I know that field extremely well. I'll bet I know it far better than you do, as a matter of fact. So what I say, I say from knowledge, not from mere preference. Yes, that field is yet another pseudo-academic field, with severe problems of the kinds listed above, plus some special ones of its own. But my criticisms of it are not arbitrary, uninformed, or related to a particular agenda. They're methodological.

I hope this clears things up.

As usual, unfortunately not. It just puts a little more ad hominem mud in the water. But I've come to expect that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 4:03 pm

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 10:27 am Please don't tell me what I'm "arguing".

Well, I recognize the mythos strategy of explanation. You may perhaps not know what a stock theory it is, and thus think it originated with you; but I assure you, it did not. You can find it spelled out in basic Comparative Religions, in the work of people like W.E. Paden, for example.

If it offends you to hear me point that out, I really can't do anything about that. It's the truth.

You have no idea what you are going on about. Instead, you make up my arguments and then attempt to refute them. It's obnoxious.

I"ve told you what I think about mythology, but you won't listen. So you are unable to "recognize" anything. Perhaps you should read my comments about Dalrymple's book in the other thread, which claimed the evangelical movement in England soured the Brit's relationship with India and led to the Sepoy mutiny. Dalrymple claims that, like you, the British Evangelicals from Britain thought the Indians had nothing worthwhile to teach the British. Instead, they were ignorant pagans, who needed enlightenment. Apparently, you have much the same attitude.

If you want to argue with W.E. Paden, be my guest, But only an a-hole tells someone else what his argument is, and then argues against it. Is that you, Immanuel?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 4:09 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 2:03 pm I believe we will find that the essential reason that the (modern) discipline of anthropology is abhorrent to you is because it necessarily contradicts and simultaneously offers a radically opposed explanatory model about *the origin of man*.

Well, that would be one of its more tragic features, but no, I don't find it abhorrent because of that, but because, like Gender Studies, it's sorely lacking in academic rigour and specialized methods of improving knowledge. It's too easily hijacked by propagandists...which, today, it almost entirely is. One could say the same about other areas, too...like Education, as a formal field. It partakes of the same kinds of deficiencies: lack of academic rigour, lack of any unique tools, easy co-optation by propagandists.

So for example the field of *comparative religion* is abhorrent to your rigid sensibilities which your express concisely here:

I know that field extremely well. I'll bet I know it far better than you do, as a matter of fact. So what I say, I say from knowledge, not from mere preference. Yes, that field is yet another pseudo-academic field, with severe problems of the kinds listed above, plus some special ones of its own. But my criticisms of it are not arbitrary, uninformed, or related to a particular agenda. They're methodological.

I hope this clears things up.

As usual, unfortunately not. It just puts a little more ad hominem mud in the water. But I've come to expect that.

Hmmm. You tell people what they think, and then whine about ad hominems? You really like whining, don't you?

What "rigor" do you expect from anthropology? Are anthropologists failing to transcribe unwritten languages into the phonetic alphabet properly? Are they recording the myths improperly? What the hell are you talking about? You might as well say the physics lacks rigor because Newton and Aristotle made mistakes. Any lack of rigor in this thread is (you guessed it) coming from you.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 4:28 pm I"ve told you what I think about mythology, but you won't listen.

You've actually only repeated back to me what basic Comparative Religions "thinks," and I've already considered and found good reasons to reject it.

Knowing the reasons why something is wrong is not at all the same as "not having listened" to it.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 4:34 pm Hmmm. You tell people what they think, and then whine about ad hominems? You really like whining, don't you?

She accuses me of "whining" by appealing to yet another ad hominem argument.

No, I object to ad hominems for the same reason: not because of hurt feelings, but because they're a fallacy, and hence, bad thinking.

What "rigor" do you expect from anthropology?

I don't expect any.

They don't have a distinct discipline. They don't have a strict adherence to the data. They don't even subject themselves to basic rules of evidence. They rely heavily on imaginative narrative-making, rather than observation. They are heavily propagandized. Why would I expect rigour from that?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 4:09 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 2:03 pm I believe we will find that the essential reason that the (modern) discipline of anthropology is abhorrent to you is because it necessarily contradicts and simultaneously offers a radically opposed explanatory model about *the origin of man*.

Well, that would be one of its more tragic features, but no, I don't find it abhorrent because of that, but because, like Gender Studies, it's sorely lacking in academic rigour and specialized methods of improving knowledge. It's too easily hijacked by propagandists...which, today, it almost entirely is. One could say the same about other areas, too...like Education, as a formal field. It partakes of the same kinds of deficiencies: lack of academic rigour, lack of any unique tools, easy co-optation by propagandists.

How odd this statement seems to me. Allow me to explain. If the modern view of man's origin is categorically and fundamentally wrong -- you describe it as its tragic feature -- then that view (of man and man's origin) will become the starting point for all successive errors. An *anthropological* (i.e. physical anthropological) view of man certainly tends to undermine the Genesis narrative. But the Genesis narrative, according to you, is entirely foundational to the possibility of belief in a savior (the Second Adam). If the *secular* stance is carried through and applied rigorously it undermines nearly everything in religious-mythologtical narratives.

How curious it is that you, as a Christian fundamentalist par excellence -- do not find these views and doctrines abhorrent because they lead one, logically, to see Christian Story (mythology, allegory) in a very different way than as *realism*.

Your critique is not so much about the discipline itself, but rather that it can be or has been (as you say) "hijacked by propagandists". That is a very different criticism. I could point you to a dozen examples of Christians who declaim themselves as *authentic* and yet who -- and you would and have said as much -- are also propagandists. (Take for example Benny Hinn).

it's sorely lacking in academic rigor and specialized methods of improving knowledge

Sure, but the nature of the activity (say for example when an anthropologist lives with a foreign people and writes about the experience) can only be one of testing one's subjective tendencies which certainly cannot be erased at will. I cannot see how *scientific rigor* could genuinely enter in to such a cross-cultural study. In the end, and after one had lived the experience and then come to write about the experience, one could present it honestly with awareness of one's subjectivity -- and the better cultural anthropologists and ethnographers achieve this. So it seems clear that you are asking anthropology (in this case the sort of study in which someone lives with a very different culture for an extended period) for something that could never be given.

And for this reason I personally conclude that you are not being as honest as you should. Your core reason for feeling abhorrence for the field of anthropology is that it is modern. Its *meta-narratives* as you call them do not coincide with the religious-metaphysical views expressed in Genesis and thus undermine the Christian meta-narrative.

AJ: So for example the field of *comparative religion* is abhorrent to your rigid sensibilities which your express concisely here:

IC: I know that field extremely well. I'll bet I know it far better than you do, as a matter of fact. So what I say, I say from knowledge, not from mere preference. Yes, that field is yet another pseudo-academic field, with severe problems of the kinds listed above, plus some special ones of its own. But my criticisms of it are not arbitrary, uninformed, or related to a particular agenda. They're methodological.

If I am not mistaken you are insinuating that your comprehension of the field, or your interpretation of it, is superior to mine? I can say the following: comparing religious views has, for me, been invaluable in sorting through their mutual narrative content. So it would not matter much if I had gained the perspectives I have gained through reading one, two or five studies of that sort, or a thousand.

Suffice to say that I do not have a great deal of trust in your conclusions in this and numerous other areas. But that does not mean all areas.

But my criticisms of it are not arbitrary, uninformed, or related to a particular agenda. They're methodological.

You see, here I believe what you say. You actually do believe that your views do not have arbitrary, subjective bases; that your ideas about religion and man's origin are absolutely true and undebatable; and that you have no discernible agenda.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 5:29 pm ...a Christian fundamentalist par excellence...

Ad hominem. And waaaaay too long and rambling. And wrong again. So boring.

Not bothering.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 5:34 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 5:29 pm ...a Christian fundamentalist par excellence...

Ad hominem. And waaaaay too long and rambling. And wrong again. So boring.

Not bothering.

The more familiarity with your stance that I gain, the more accurate are the assessments. What you cannot challenge and refute, here among your peers, stands Immanuel.

You are a Christian fundamentalist. It is not in any sense ad hominem to point this out. It is the literal foundation of your views. It is descriptive accuracy.

I prefer *thorough*! And there is nothing rambling in what I say.