The Predicament of Modernity

Wayfarer

The Galilean Division

The consequences of the Scientific Revolution are central to understanding modern, global culture. We are all, in a fundamental sense, its products. In what follows I will highlight some broad themes that have had particularly important consequences for life and philosophy in the modern world. These are at the basis of the ideas I have been pursuing since joining philosophy forums about 15 years ago.

First among these is the Galilean division. This marks a major turning point in the history of ideas. In seeking to render nature mathematically intelligible, Galileo distinguished between primary and secondary qualities: the former—extension, shape, motion, and number—belong to objects themselves and are therefore measurable; the latter—colour, taste, sound, and all that pertains to sense or value—were deemed to exist only in the perceiving mind. This move, later assumed by the British Empiricists, established the framework of modern science but also quietly redefined reality as whatever could be expressed in quantitative terms. The world thus became a domain of pure objectivity, stripped of meaning, while meaning itself was relegated to the interior realm of subjective experience.

René Descartes

Descartes systematised what Galileo had begun. Taking the measurable world as the paradigm of objective knowledge, he posited a strict ontological division between res extensa—the extended, mechanical substance of nature—and res cogitans—the unextended, thinking substance of the mind. This dualism safeguarded human subjectivity from the reductionism of mechanism, yet it did so at the cost of severing mind from world. Thought was now a private interior realm looking out upon an inert, external nature. The result was a self-conscious spectator of a disenchanted universe: the modern subject—liberated from dogma yet exiled from a cosmos stripped of inherent meaning.

The Cartesian worldview soon became the framework of modern science. Its success lay in treating the natural world as a closed system of mechanical causes, perfectly describable in mathematical terms and open to experimental verification. By excluding subjective and qualitative dimensions from its domain, science achieved unprecedented predictive power and technological mastery. Yet this very exclusion became an implicit metaphysic: reality was equated with what could be measured, while everything else—value, purpose, consciousness—was deemed epiphenomenal, a by-product of the essentially purposeless motions of matter. Thus the Galilean and Cartesian divisions were no longer simply methodological but ontological, shaping the modern sense of the meaning of being. We're all inheritors of those ways of thinking, whether aware of it or not.

Refs: Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences; Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (2012); Michel Henry, Barbarism (1987).

The Meaning Crisis

Once the cosmos was conceived as a neutral mechanism and meaning confined to the private sphere, the moral and social order could no longer appeal to any transcendent or cosmic principle—the subject of Nietzsche’s “death of God.” The rise of liberal individualism followed naturally: each person became the arbiter of value within an indifferent universe. This newfound autonomy freed individuals from dogmatic authority but also cut them adrift from any shared sense of purpose. The modern self is thus torn between scientific objectivity and moral subjectivity—between a world that seems devoid of meaning and a consciousness that cannot live without it. The resulting tension defines much of modern culture, from existentialism’s despair to our present “meaning crisis.”

The task now, as John Vervaeke spells it out in his Awakening from the Meaning Crisis is to rediscover a living integration of science, meaning, and wisdom—to awaken from or see through the divisions that underlie the meaning crisis. Overview:

Reveal

"This foundational series unravels the meaning crisis: the loss of spiritual vitality, and the sense of disconnection we experience with other people, ourselves, and the world at large. This series provides a historical genealogy – beginning 40,000 years ago – that explores the rise and fall of meaning in the West, and the philosophy, religion and science that nurtured it. John examines how human beings evolved to be meaning-making creatures, and why this is so essential to our culture and cognition. He also explores how the decline of meaningful worldviews has paved the way for various modern ailments, such as our political, environmental and mental health crises, and the rising suicide rates in North America and around the world. "

Paine

The funny thing about Descartes is that most of his actual science really sucked. The algebra stuff was good.

I recognize that a lot of modern things suck. But a lot of the received ideas and practices in the past also sucked.

This newfound autonomy freed individuals from dogmatic authority but also cut them adrift from any shared sense of purpose. — Wayfarer

Totally adrift? That freedom is what you are enjoying now if you are relatively free. There are many kinds of shared purpose in this modern world.

Wayfarer

The algebra stuff was good. — Paine

Indeed, algebraic geometry was one of his major contributions. You know the anecdote, right? He was reclining on his lounge in a tiled room, with a buzzing fly annoying him. But then he realised that the path of the fly could be represented numerically against the grid provided by the tiled wall. Voila! It becomes fundamental to all kinds of science.

But a lot of the received ideas and practices in the past also sucked. — Paine

It's not 'modernity sucks, the ancient world was terrific!' The thread is about something quite specific.

Paine

It's not 'modernity sucks, the ancient world was terrific!' The thread is about something quite specific. — Wayfarer

I was contesting:

cut them adrift from any shared sense of purpose. — Wayfarer

That being a different standard of measure from a golden age idea.

Janus

↪Paine

I take @Wayfarer to mean we are adrift from a culturally imposed overarching purpose. Such overarching purposes were imposed by political elites who throughout most of history were the only literate members of societies. The oppressed illiterate masses had no choice but to at least pay lip service to the imposed values and meanings. To what extent they were genuinely interested in, or were privately opposed to, these impositions remains, and will remain, unknown, precisely because they were illiterate. The irony is that freedom from that imposed life purpose enables the burgeoning of "many kinds of shared purpose".

Paine

↪Janus

The democratic rub.

Janus

↪Paine

Yes, the only possibility for a return to universally shared life purpose is totalitarian. Given inherent human diversity and creativity, why would we ever want something so stultifying as a universally held meaning or purpose?

Wayfarer

That being a different standard of measure from a golden age idea. — Paine

It is also one of the themes in Max Horkheimer's book The Eclipse of Reason'. It doesn't age that well, written as it was in the aftermath of WWII, but his basic point stands. Horkheimer traces how the meaning of reason has shifted from a normative, world-guiding principle to an instrumental faculty directed to specific ends. In the classical and pre-modern worldview, reason was understood as objective—it reflected an intelligible order inherent in reality itself. To act rationally was to conform to this cosmic or moral order, in which reason provided not only the means for action but also the standards by which ends were judged. With the rise of modern science, empiricism, and the Enlightenment’s emphasis on human autonomy, this conception of reason eroded. Rationality came to be understood as subjective and instrumental, concerned not with what is true or good but with how to achieve whatever ends are already desired. Horkheimer argues that in this transformation, reason has been stripped of its substantive and ethical content; it has become a tool for calculation, efficiency, and control. This marks the “eclipse” of reason—the point at which rationality itself becomes irrational, serving domination rather than enlightenment, and leaving modern civilization powerful in its techniques but impoverished in meaning and purpose.

This later becomes one of the main themes of Horkheimer and Adorno's critique of the Enlightenment.

180 Proof

Yes, the only possibility for a return to universally shared life purpose is totalitarian. — Janus

:meh:

Tom Storm

↪Wayfarer

Hi - haven't see you around for a bit.

You often seem to come back to this. And a very popular idea right now. Not to say this is wrong but I have some inchoate reactions. By the way, Australian academic John Carroll was arguing similarly in his engaging polemic, Humanism: The Wreck of Western Culture back in 1993.

I am unconvinced that there is a “meaning crisis.” Most eras when viewed from a certain perspective are in crisis. Many of the supposed symptoms of TMC, I believe, reflect a complex transition to greater freedom: we are no longer constrained by monocultural expectations around race, work, gender, or faith, and we now face a multiplicity of options, which for many translates into uncertainty.

Personally, I would rather be alive now than in almost any other period in history. Can we point to a time before modernity when the worldview was coherent and therefore life was better for most human beings? Clearly, in many places and subcultures there is a push to turn back the clock and re-enchant the world, attempting to restore older certainties. This, I would argue, is where the instincts of MAGA and thinkers like Vervaeke converge. Different in approach and scale of ambition, both seem driven by a fear of contemporary freedoms and multiple meanings.

Another way of describing uncertainty is to call it choice.

Now, if we’re talking about environmental destruction and many of the ills of modernity, how much of this can be more accurately attributed to the form of capitalism and corporate control under which we live? And can it be demonstrated that, if God hadn’t “died,” capitalism would have been kind and beneficial to all?

I guess I’m wondering about a couple of things. First, there’s a problem of attribution: that whatever is wrong with the modern era is blamed on a lack of shared meaning or shared metaphysical agreement (for many this just means god). Second, there’s the assumption that before we “took the wrong fork in the road,” everything was fine and that if only we hadn’t taken it, we would never have ended up in this mess.

Thoughts?

Wayfarer

Yes, the only possibility for a return to universally shared life purpose is totalitarian. Given inherent human diversity and creativity, why would we ever want something so stultifying as a universally held meaning or purpose? — Janus

You need to understand that the search for meaning is not a script or a dogma. It is not about returning to some imagined pre-modern utopia at all. Every time this is discussed, that is what you assume that I'm talking about, hence your mistaken depiction of me as a 'proselytizing dogmatist'.

I am unconvinced that there is a “meaning crisis.” — Tom Storm

The world is converging on a series of overlapping crises, political, economic, existential and environmental. If you can't see that, then I won't try and persuade you otherwise.

Tom Storm

The world is converging on a series of overlapping crises, political, economic, existential and environmental. If you can't see that, then I won't try and persuade you otherwise. — Wayfarer

When has the world not appeared to be in some kind of crisis? That's the point, surely. You are talking about a Meaning Crisis and I've asked a few questions about this, that's all.

ChatteringMonkey

↪Janus

Maybe because meaningful is only really meaningful if it transcends mere individual preferences, because it plays a part in a larger whole... that would be the reason for it.

Wayfarer

When has the world not appeared to be in some kind of crisis? — Tom Storm

it seems to me, at least, that for very long periods of time, in pre-history at least, that almost nothing happened that is remotely comparable to the crises facing current culture. Certainly there have been previous crises, the coillapse of Mediterranean Bronze Age culture was one, the Black Death was one. But I don't think you can say that all cultures have always been in crises.

The specific crisis of meaning I'm referring to, though, is philosophical and cultural. It is about the way in which our collective culture has engendered that sense of meaningless, alienation and anomie, which I think is unarguably a characteristic of globalised Western culture, and which manifests in specific ways in terms of drug dependency, depression and related symptoms.

Tom Storm

it seems to me, at least, that for very long periods of time, in pre-history at least, that almost nothing happened that is remotely comparable to the crises facing current culture. — Wayfarer

Isn’t this simply a factor of population growth and the successes and failures of technology and capitalism? We were always flawed; it’s just that our present technology and population size makes those flaws more dangerous.

It is about the way in which our collective culture has engendered that sense of meaningless, alienation and anomie, which I think is unarguably a characteristic of globalised Western culture. — Wayfarer

Is there a significant non-Western culture that doesn’t have any of the problems we face, so we can see how it is done?

The task now, as John Vervaeke spells it out in his Awakening from the Meaning Crisis is to rediscover a living integration of science, meaning, and wisdom—to awaken from or see through the divisions that underlie the meaning crisis. — Wayfarer

Or do we need to use the freedoms of Western culture to find better ways of living, grounded in more pragmatic approaches to survival?

I’d be interested in hearing what some specific solutions might be and how they could help. Clearly, belief in God isn’t an obvious solution, given that so much of capitalism and colonisation stemmed from Christian culture.

Paine

↪Wayfarer

I don't want to stand against such analyses trying to map out the problems of the modern world. And I am troubled by the speed of many current changes.

Despite all that, I have to weigh all that against the release from the ties of my immediate ancestors. And my son who acts upon the same idea.

Wayfarer

there’s the assumption that before we “took the wrong fork in the road,” everything was fine and that if only we hadn’t taken it, we would never have ended up in this mess. — Tom Storm

I think it is conceivable that modern culture could have developed along radically different lines, although of course, that is one of those speculative issues that can never be proven. But (maybe counter-intuitively) I attribute much of the modern meaning crisis to the structure of pre-modern Christianity. Recall that prior to the Enlightenment, Europe was engulfed in seemingly never-ending religious wars. That individuals were being swept up in religious persecutions and prosecuted for heresy. The way institutional Christianity was structured resulted in many dichotomies and conflicts,with 'right thought' or religious orthodoxy rigorously defined and enforced to the point of the death penalty.

That is certainly one of the major causes of the meaning crisis that I see. Those elements of Greek philosophy that had been incorporated into theology, then became associated with the very religiious authoirities which Enlightenment science sought to differentiate itself from. So I'm by no means recommending any kind of return to an imagined religious source of morality. But at the same time, those elements of the 'perennial philosophy' that Greek wisdom articulated really do capture profound existential truths about the human condition.

When I was doing religious studies, I discovered the Gnostic Gospels and the nag hammadi writings. They were much more concerned with attaining individual insight somewhat along more 'Eastern' lines, I felt. As it happened, the 'pistic' sects of christianity triumphed over the Gnostic sects, and, as they say, 'history is written by the victors'. But had that gone a different way then it could have been a radically different world to the one we now live in. But, as I say, un-proveable.

Or do we need to use the freedoms of Western culture to find better ways of living, grounded in more pragmatic approaches to survival? — Tom Storm

Of course. John Vervaeke has set up a foundation (The Vervaeke Foundation) to explore options, and it's on the internet and streamed via youtube and other technologies. We have to call on everything we have, technology and science included. But the key point is, to overcome or transcend that sense of the Universe being fundamentally meaningless and life as a kind of fluke set of circumstances - even knowing what we know about the Cosmos, which is vastly more, and vastly different, to what our forbears could have known.

Janus

You need to understand that the search for meaning is not a script or a dogma. It is not about returning to some imagined pre-modern utopia at all. Every time this is discussed, that is what you assume that I'm talking about, hence your mistaken depiction of me as a 'proselytizing dogmatist'. — Wayfarer

Can you explain how the search for and finding of meaning could be universally shared in a world of human diversity? I'm not denying that groups of people can share meanings and purposes within various contexts. But additional to that you have what each individual's life means to each individual, that is the overall sense of direction in their personal live's that they might favour.

I'm not claiming that such favouring is independent of culture, but modern culture offers a huge smorgasbord―a situation quite different from what obtains in traditional cultures―at least in relation to what people gave lip service, if not real dedication, to.

Yes, the only possibility for a return to universally shared life purpose is totalitarian.
— Janus
:meh: — 180 Proof

Can you elaborate?

Maybe because meaningful is only really meaningful if it transcends mere individual preferences, because it plays a part in a larger whole... that would be the reason for it. — ChatteringMonkey

Okay, that's an assertion―can you provide an argument for it? I mean, we all, as members of a society, and to one degree of consciousness or another, play a part in a larger whole―we have no choice but to do that.

Tom Storm

But the key point is, to overcome or transcend that sense of the Universe being fundamentally meaningless and life as a kind of fluke set of circumstances - even knowing what we know about the Cosmos, which is vastly more, and vastly different, to what our forbears could have known. — Wayfarer

I’m not convinced that the idea that the world is meaningless is really the problem we face. One can hardly accuse MAGA of this, or China. Surely it is the wrong kind of meaning that ends up causing harm. The hardwired notion that God gave us dominion over the Earth and its animals seems to have something to do with our environmental issues.

Look, we’ve had about 150 years of genuine secularism in the West (and the journey began before that), but to imagine that thousands of years of theism and religious values are not also responsible for our presuppositions and our current predicament seems distorted.

Wayfarer

Can you explain how the search for and finding of meaning could be universally shared in a world of human diversity? — Janus

Each of us has to find meaning in our own way. I think that was actually part of what phenomenology was setting out to do. And existentialist philosophy, generally. The point of the phenomenological epochē, is not that different to Heidegger's 'clearing' - it is allowing the truth of our own existence to open up, to become meaningful to us. But, where in current culture is that kind of discriminative self-awareness taught or communicated?

Again, Vervaeke's lecture series is a fertile ground for this - he's not trying to 'impose an agenda', but elucidating some fundamental existential facts from all kinds of sources, including anthropology, philosohy, psychology and cognitive science. But he presents it in terms of the salience landscape, of relevance realisation, which he sees as being more compatible with today's world and with science.

(His chapters on the emergence of the Galilean division and the advent of the modern crisis of meaning Episodes 20-22 are amongst the best in that series. )

Janus

Look, we’ve had about 150 years of genuine secularism in the West (and the journey began before that), but to imagine that thousands of years of theism and religious values are not at least partly to blame for our presuppositions and our current predicament seems distorted. — Tom Storm

:up: As I see it the suite of real and dire problems we face as a species has little to do with a crisis of meaning, but rather grows out of a lack of education, critical thinking and respect for science, not to mention consumerism and greed and the paranoia-fueled competition for dominance.

↪Wayfarer

I agree with you that many, or perhaps even most, people do not critically examine their lives. But much of that lack of critical self-awareness comes down to introjected cultural values that emphasize acquiring stuff over inquiring about stuff.

ChatteringMonkey

↪Janus

Okay, that's an assertion―can you provide an argument for it? I mean, we all, as members of a society, and to one degree of consciousness or another, play a part in a larger whole―we have no choice but to do that. — Janus

But the societies we are a part of aren't recognized as being an end in themselves, they are just there to fulfil the desires of it's members. And maybe that works to some extend for those that have their desires met for the most part, probably not so much for those that are less fortunate.

What counts as evidence? In the 20th century you had a couple of big ideologies fighting it out and trying to fill the void left by religion. People do seem to crave being a part of a larger story, if it isn't religion, than maybe nationalism, or maybe just supporting a sports club or saving the world from climate disaster etc etc...

I'm not the most religious person, but even I do also intuitively feel like just fulfilling my individual desires doesn't quite do it.

Wayfarer

↪Janus

I don’t disagree that education, greed, and social dysfunction are serious issues, but those are symptoms rather than the root. The “meaning crisis” I’m referring to isn’t about a loss of morality or piety; it’s about the underlying ontology of modernity — the way the scientific worldview, as inherited from Galileo and Descartes, implicitly defines reality as value-free and mindless. Once meaning is exiled from the fabric of being, everything else — from consumerism to the instrumentalisation of knowledge — follows naturally.

So the crisis isn’t a call to religion, but a call to re-examine the metaphysical assumptions we’ve inherited. Science remains indispensable, but it cannot by itself tell us what anything means. One can retain plenty of respect for science while recognising that fact, which is built into the very foundations of the method.

But then, as always, you will interpret whatever I say through your antireligious mindset, which sees any kind of appeal to transcendent values through that prism. And there's really nothing I can do about that.

Tom Storm

↪Janus

I hear you. I think one of the glitches in all this is that once a problem is identified and agreed upon, people bring their worldviews to it as solutions. Christians appeal to the Gospels for guidance. Marxists call for a worker’s revolution. Postmodernists favor anti-foundationalist approaches. I think what Vervaeke is trying to do is find the Esperanto of philosophy: a shared worldview that we can all participate in to address our problems collectively.

ChatteringMonkey

↪Wayfarer

Science remains indispensable, but it cannot by itself tell us what anything means. One can retain plenty of respect for science while recognising that fact, which is built into the very foundations of the method. — Wayfarer

Maybe you can't. Religion and myth is build on a certain non-literal and wholistic understanding of the world, where the values and meaning naturally flows from.

Literal use of language to describe the world and to accumulate knowledge eventually ends up dissolving that mythical super structure.

Apustimelogist

Vague, oversimplistic, poorly motivated ideologies that claim to solve all our problems like this are distractions from actual problems and actual solutions, imo.

Janus

But the societies we are a part of aren't recognized as being an end in themselves, they are just there to fulfil the desires of it's members. — ChatteringMonkey

If the desires are conditioned into the people rather than being critically realized by them, then of course that's a problem. We come to be blind followers instead of critically active members in our communities.

Today we might say we are brainwashed by culture in the form of advertising and popular media, whereas in the past, in theocratic and aristocratic societies, and today in autocratic societies, critical thinking is not only implicitly discouraged, but explicitly banned under penalty of punishment.

I don’t disagree that education, greed, and social dysfunction are serious issues, but those are symptoms rather than the root. — Wayfarer

Okay then, we simply disagree, because I see those, among other factors, as some of the root causes of humanity's woes.

I don't believe it has anything to do with metaphysics. People who are materialists can enjoy a sense of the wonder of life and existence itself, and all the more so the more they are educated through science to appreciate their mind-blowing beauty and complexity.

Of course metaphysical assumptions should be questioned, if people are even interested in metaphysical questioning, as opposed to endeavoring to understand as much as possible the nature of the world in whatever spheres garner their interest.

↪Tom Storm

For me the only possibility of a universally shared worldview that is not imposed would be an education and curiosity-based valuing and even reverence for the incredible diversity and beauty of people and other animals and the physical world itself.

Vague, oversimplistic, poorly motivated ideologies that claim to solve all our problems like this are distractions from actual problems and actual solutions, imo. — Apustimelogist

I'm with you on that!

Tom Storm

it’s about the underlying ontology of modernity — the way the scientific worldview, as inherited from Galileo and Descartes, implicitly defines reality as value-free and mindless. Once meaning is exiled from the fabric of being, everything else — from consumerism to the instrumentalisation of knowledge — follows naturally. — Wayfarer

This is the nub of it.

I’m not convinced that consumerism or the instrumentalisation of knowledge wouldn’t still be dominant even if the West had remained committed to Christianity.

So the crisis isn’t a call to religion, but a call to re-examine the metaphysical assumptions we’ve inherited. Science remains indispensable, but it cannot by itself tell us what anything means. One can retain plenty of respect for science while recognising that fact, which is built into the very foundations of the method. — Wayfarer

I’m still not sure that the problem is correctly defined, but perhaps a proposed solution would help clarify my understanding. What would be an example of a solution in this context?

T Clark

I am unconvinced that there is a “meaning crisis.” — Tom Storm

Yes. I was thinking the same thing. My family and the people I care about are pretty much enough meaning for me.

Can we point to a time before modernity when the worldview was coherent and therefore life was better for most human beings? — Tom Storm

Yes. With an emphasis on “for most human beings.” I wonder how much of this is the inevitable result of more or less universal literacy even before supercharging by today’s communication technologies.

environmental destruction and many of the ills of modernity, how much of this can be more accurately attributed to the form of capitalism and corporate control under which we live — Tom Storm

I think this is right, but I’m not certain that corporate capitalism itself isn’t a specific, perhaps inevitable, result of the modernity the OP talks about.

When has the world not appeared to be in some kind of crisis? That's the point, surely. You are talking about a Meaning Crisis and I've asked a few questions about this, that's all. — Tom Storm

I must admit, I do worry that the crises we are dealing with today are somehow more existential than they have been in the past. I joke that my solution to the problems is to die soon. I do worry about my children though.

Isn’t this simply a factor of population growth and the successes and failures of technology and capitalism? We were always flawed; it’s just that our present technology and population size makes those flaws more dangerous. — Tom Storm

I think this is exactly right. In the past, we always had someplace else we could go when we fucked up the place we live and made it unlivable.

Or do we need to use the freedoms of Western culture to find better ways of living, grounded in more pragmatic approaches to survival? — Tom Storm

I’m not usually a hell in a handbasket type, but I guess I’m not sure we have the wherewithal to do this. In a sense I guess we need the kind of gumption that comes with commitment to a coherent cultural vision which may no longer be available to us. I think we’re perfectly capable of driving this bus off the cliff.

A bunch of good posts.

ChatteringMonkey

↪Janus

But the societies we are a part of aren't recognized as being an end in themselves, they are just there to fulfil the desires of it's members.
— ChatteringMonkey

If the desires are conditioned into the people rather than being critically realized by them, then of course that's a problem. We come to be blind followers instead of critically active members in our communities.

Today we might say we are brainwashed by culture in the form of advertising and popular media, whereas in the past, in theocratic and aristocratic societies, and today in autocratic societies, critical thinking is not only implicitly discouraged, but explicitly banned under penalty of punishment. — Janus

Yes I agree, that's why I've always thought this whole free speech debate we had recently was a bit of a red herring.

The idea that we are these autonomous free agents self-determining what we will be and want to do based on this market of free ideas seems fundamentally misguided. By the time we are mature enough to really begin to discern we have already been enculturated in some or other mores and have inherited certain hierarchies of values we use to discern... doing away with religion only creates a void for advertisers to jump in. Edward Bernays certainly figured that one out.

Tom Storm

I’m not usually a hell in a handbasket type, but I guess I’m not sure we have the wherewithal to do this. In a sense I guess we need the kind of gumption that comes with commitment to a coherent cultural vision which may no longer be available to us. I think we’re perfectly capable of driving this bus off the cliff. — T Clark

Fair points and and this is probably right.

Perhaps we will become victims of the too much meaning crisis...

The Predicament of Modernity

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