testing — Mijin

Absolute certainty of infallibility?

No. That's an odd question. Are you unfamiliar with the scientific method or was it a rhetorical question?

I'm only vaguely familiar with a few of those names. Wouldn't this diagnoses be more broad though? People have seen "building a bridge back to the world," and "securing other minds" as a chief problem for philosophy since Descartes (rationalism). Grounding morality given an epistemology that starts from an enclosed agent equipped with a wholly discursive reason is a problem in Hume (empiricism) as well (e.g., ethics' collapse into sentimentalist anti-realism). The two flavors become fused in Kant. For Kant, other minds—of God or our fellow man—cannot be objects of speculative reason (knowledge) but are merely "postulates or practical reason," i.e., an assumption needed for the individual good will to will itself in a wholly formal, law-like manner, in accordance with what Kant says is the discursive, rule-following nature of reason. This is probably still the most important ethics in politics (through Rawls) and it is one that feels it must justify proper behavior despite our being cut off from the world and knowledge of goodness (hence, Rawls elevation of procedural/formal justice over goodness).

This is certainly the problem Kant's main successors so as central to modern thought (e.g., Fichte, Schelling, Hegel). It shows up as a driving concern in a pretty diverse group of thinkers, from Kierkegaard, to Husserl, to Wittgenstein. It's just that the solutions are very diverse, from something of a step back towards participation in the Logos (Absolute) in later German idealism, to attempts to argue that language presupposed community, to the phenomenological project, to dissolving the subject entirely, to the anti-metaphysical solution of calling such concerns "meaningless" (in both its more dogmatic empiricist and pragmatist forms, from the Vienna circle to Rorty or Dewey).

The traditionalist response has actually built quite a bit on the post-modern deconstructions of the framing that leads towards solipsism. Charles Taylor uses Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty to deconstruct the modern "closed world system" for instance:

“From within itself, the epistemological picture seems unproblematic. It comes across as an obvious discovery we make when we reflect on our perception and acquisition of knowledge. All the great foundational figures – Descartes, Locke, Hume – claimed to be just saying what was obvious once one examined experience itself reflectively. Seen from the deconstruction, this is a most massive self-blindness. Rather what happened is that experience was carved into shape by a powerful theory which posited the primacy of the individual, the neutral, the intra-mental as the locus of certainty. What was driving this theory? Certain ‘values’, virtues, excellences: those of the independent, disengaged subject, reflexively controlling his own thought processes, ‘self-responsibly’ in Husserl’s phrase. There is an ethic here, of independence, self-control, self-responsibility, of a disengagement which brings control; a stance which requires courage, the refusal of the easy comforts of conformity to authority, of the consolations of an enchanted world, of the surrender to the promptings of the senses. The entire picture, shot through with ‘values’, which is meant to emerge out of the careful, objective, presuppositionless scrutiny, is now presented as having been there from the beginning, driving the whole process of ‘discovery’.”

A Secular Age

I think what tends to unite traditionalists is the insight, borrowed from 20th century thought, that this paradigm is itself historically contingent, and that these problems did not plague earlier systems (and not because they failed to be "critical" in their use of transcendental arguments and scrutiny of reason).

Yet, since their attention is turned backwards (many key figures are historians) they have been able to take genealogical critiques of modernity much further (Michael Allen Gillespie's "The Theological Origins of Modernity," Amos Funkenstein's "Theology and the Scientific Imagination," Brad Gregory's "The Unintended Reformation," Peter Harrison's "Some New World," as well as MacIntyre, Milbank, Taylor, and Schindler's larger project). Having always liked early modern history, and having engaged with plenty of sources outside this sort of genealogy, these seem extremely plausible to me, and some like Funkenstein and Milbank are intricately researched.

Most of this work is fairly recent (from the 90s or later, although a few are earlier), but I'm still surprised that it hasn't spread as much outside this set. Perhaps it is because it is often quite technical, focused on a period most people don't pay much attention to, or maybe because it exacerbates the tension in a lot of continental/post-modern though that what is said about the historical contingency of Enlightenment thought applies just as much to contemporary "post-modern" thought (and in ways that are more direct and explicit than a general acknowledgement of this allows), undercutting in ways.

seem to be clamouring for a counter-Reformation to the Enlightenment. — Tom Storm

Yes, but there are actually three sets in the traditionalist camp here.

There are the largely Catholic "TradCaths" who look mostly as far back as Trent and to neoscholastic readings of Aquinas, and tend to want to move towards a pre-Vatican II early-modern philosophy. They think the nature versus supernatural distinction is essential for explaining grace as gratuitous. They are ambivalent towards Plato.

Against these there is a camp that looks back to ancient and early medieval, and Eastern Christianity more, with their own more "neoplatonic" reading of Aquinas. They also like Saint Maximus quite a bit. And here is where David Bentley Hart, de Lubac, Milbank, etc. would fit (and really Wallace, outside the Christian context). They reject the nature / supernature division entirely. They have been more successful in the Vatican and in theology and philosophy, although they don't have the same sort of popular cult following online. They love Plato.

And then there is a sort of Neopagan and often Nietzschean traditionalism (e.g. Bronze Age Pervert). But, strangely perhaps, this crowd is quite close with a libertarian yet "Christian Nationalist" traditionalist camp (more Protestant), so I put them together. And these folks tend to hate Plato (except for the Guenon, etc. ones into Hindu traditionalism; but they like the Laws more than the Republic)

rhetorical.

What makes you trust science? You say observations (testing, diagnosing, matching). Why trust observations?


(P.S. don't forget to ping me)

@copernicus "observations" is just one part of science, we make models and then we test those models. The usefulness of this method is easy to demonstrate by eg the device that you are using to read this.

Yes, but there are actually three sets in the traditionalist camp here. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Probably more. The point isn’t their proposed solutions (which generally are of little interest to me), but rather their diagnosis of a problem and their tendency toward nostalgia projects. Whether it’s some guy on YouTube commenting on a classic movie or a social conservative writing about identity politics, the trope is generally, “Things used to be better, we took the wrong fork in the road, and now we’re cooked unless we can regain ourselves.” Or something like that. Some see that fork in the road as starting with the Enlightenment, while others think it began with Disney studios.... :wink: To me, this venerable lost golden age tale seems to have reemerged as a defining narrative of our times. Personally, I’m content to be living in my own era, with all its cultural prejudices and schisms. I find it mostly amenable.

usefulness — Mijin

Usefulness is practicality.

If you're satisfied with practical benefits then sure. I'm not. I'm a theoretical person. To me, the truth is more important than functionality.

Actually, the fundamentalist religion of my childhood was about as non-mystical as possible. — Gnomon

Really? The 'Holy Ghost' is non-mystical, how peculiar.

Consequently, in the Venn diagram, I would place my religion right next to (but not in) the lenticular overlap. :halo: — Gnomon

You can put your religion anywhere you want. If you name it religion then it should be that, not so?

If you're satisfied with practical benefits then sure. I'm not. I'm a theoretical person. To me, the truth is more important than functionality. — Copernicus

The two go hand in hand. When we are using a scientific model to make accurate predictions, it can be seen as both an attempt to find useful, practical implications and a validation of a claim about reality.

Our understanding of quantum mechanics for example is being tested with every transitor operation in the device that you are using to read this. Billions of tests per second and our accurate predictions are correct every time. That doesn't give you confidence that that model represents at the least partially how this reality works?

partially — Mijin

sure — Copernicus