World War 1 - the spectre of appalling savagery and loss of life in the heart of Europe; and the subsequent discovery of relativity and quantum physics, which undermined faith in the mechanistic model of the universe that had reigned after Newton.
‘Things fall apart
The centre cannot hold’
~W B Yeats. — Wayfarer
. "Meaning" denotes relevance derived from context; the only constant in our civilizational context is accelerando (towards extinction or apotheosis?) — 180 Proof
Just out of curiosoty, do you like the modernism-postmodernism transition that has taken place? Why? — TheMadFool
I would have thought that development of an economic and social philosophy NOT based on consumerism and acquisition might be of vital importance. — Wayfarer
This is probably, more or less, what one hominid grunt-gestured to the prettier one next to him while watching another group of hominids trek on out of Africa... Grouchy luddite, aren't you? :smirk:I think the fantasy of interstellar travel is clearly the sublimated longing for Heaven. — Wayfarer
It’s not a matter of liking or disliking — Wayfarer
as everyone says nowadays, it is what it is — Wayfarer
materialism, which is writ large in modern culture, — Wayfarer
patchwork of ideas I advocate here, drawn in from various sources. — Wayfarer
Dostoevsky's warning - if God doesn't exist, everything is permitted — TheMadFool
Wrong again! — counterpunch
Morality comes from human beings - from evolution within a tribal context. Moral behaviours were advantageous to the tribe, in competition with other tribes, and advantageous to the individual within the tribe. — counterpunch
You would know, right? — TheMadFool
That's an explanation but I'm sure you wouldn't go so far as to say that's the explanation, no? — TheMadFool
Morality, if you haven't already noticed, is human-exclusive i.e. only humans seem to possess it in degrees that would qualify morality as a distinct entity. — TheMadFool
Yes. I would. — counterpunch
No. It's not. As I already said, even chimpanzees have a moral order of sorts. What's most distinct about human morality is that it is intellectually articulated. Explicit, as opposed to embedded in the hierarchical structures of the tribe.
...so the rest of your post is moot! — counterpunch
Hate to break it to you but no, you wouldn't! Sorry! — TheMadFool
I rest my case! — TheMadFool
That's fine: after all - wadda you know? — counterpunch
By your own admission - fuck all! — counterpunch
I gave the matter some thought and a coupla points I want to discuss. — TheMadFool
William Lane Craig, not someone a philosopher might want to cite, said in a debate that self-awareness, knowing that you exist, amplifies suffering (hyperalgesia, allodynia) and I recall mentioning it somewhere that that's the key to morality - our suffering magnified by our sense of self, we begin to, or more accurately we're forced to, think about right and wrong (morality). — TheMadFool
Animals, most of them, lack self-awareness and even among those we've determined are self-aware are only so in very rudimentary ways. Thus, morality can't be a matter of simple biology common to all animals - — TheMadFool
2. The usual way morality is explained by the theory of evolution is by demonstrating how, for example, altruism benefits the altruistic individual. — TheMadFool
Yet, deep down, we can feel it in our hearts, we know something's off about it, our hearts (feelings) don't share our mind's (rationality) convictions that morality has now been explained by evolutionary theory. — TheMadFool
Incidentally when you read Don Quixote 1605, you find a book that is like a post-modern pastiche, dripping with irony and self-reflexivity. It could almost be John Barth (except readable). — Tom Storm
With many positions on modernity and the individual, can one say they are indifferent? Some philosophers say we are still living in modernity, for some we are in post-modernity, some say we were never modern. — Warren
I've been thinking about this for years — counterpunch
it makes no sense to me, or to the facts, to consider morality exclusively human — counterpunch
In short, morality may bud in animals, some of them, but it'll bloom only in the human mind or those blessed/cursed, I can never tell, with higher consciousness. — TheMadFool
we'd have wiped ourselves out. — counterpunch
I could not disagree more....at least, not without risk of being banned for the kind of language I'd need to use to adequately express how much I disagree! — counterpunch
Just an old modern, I think. — 180 Proof
it makes no sense to me, or to the facts, to consider morality exclusively human, or even the consequence of conscious thought — counterpunch
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