Author: Kleiner

An interesting reflection today in the NYTimes on the relationship between philosophy and faith from Gary Gutting (philosophy professor at Notre Dame) here.

An excerpt:

“The standard view is that philosophers’ disagreements over arguments about God make their views irrelevant to the faith of ordinary believers and non-believers.  The claim seems obvious: if we professionals can’t agree among ourselves, what can we have to offer to non-professionals?  An appeal to experts requires consensus among those experts, which philosophers don’t have.

This line of thought ignores the fact that when philosophers’ disagree it is only about specific aspects of the most subtle and sophisticated versions of arguments for and against God’s existence […]. There is no disagreement among philosophers about the more popular arguments to which theists and atheists typically appeal: as formulated, they do not prove (that is, logically derive from uncontroversial premises) what they claim to prove. They are clearly inadequate in the judgment of qualified professionals.  Further, there are no more sophisticated formulations that theists or atheists can accept — the way we do scientific claims — on the authority of expert consensus.

In these popular debates about God’s existence, the winners are neither theists nor atheists, but agnostics — the neglected step-children of religious controversy, who rightly point out that neither side in the debate has made its case.   This is the position supported by the consensus of expert philosophical opinion.

This conclusion should particularly discomfit popular proponents of atheism, such as Richard Dawkins, whose position is entirely based on demonstrably faulty arguments.  Believers, of course, can fall back on the logically less rigorous support that they characterize as faith.  But then they need to reflect on just what sort of support faith can give to religious belief.   How are my students’ warm feelings of certainty as they hug one another at Sunday Mass in their dorm really any different from the trust they might experience while under the spell of a really plausible salesperson?”

An interesting article here on how quick internet reading is dulling our capacity to think and reflect.  Is the answer “slow reading”?

An excerpt:

“If you’re reading this article in print, chances are you’ll only get through half of what I’ve written. And if you’re reading this online, you might not even finish a fifth. At least, those are the two verdicts from a pair of recent research projects – respectively, the Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack survey, and analysis by Jakob Nielsen – which both suggest that many of us no longer have the concentration to read articles through to their conclusion.

The problem doesn’t just stop there: academics report that we are becoming less attentive book-readers, too….

So are we getting stupider? Is that what this is about? Sort of. … we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts.

Which all means that although, because of the internet, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of factual titbits, we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, contemplate, and relate all these facts to each other…..”

Dr. Kenneth Howell, a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Illinois, has not been renewed to teach after a student accused him of hate speech in his class.  What was his hate speech?  It appears just this: clarifying what natural law moral theory has to say about homosexuality as compared to what Utilitarianism might say.  Keep in mind, he was doing this in a Catholic studies course!  Seriously, if you cannot teach the natural law in a Catholic studies course, where can you teach it?  This is either intellectual excommunication by the liberal academic elite or the act of a cowardly administration that acts out of fear (lawsuits, etc) rather than principle (this is the same university that removed editors of the student run paper after they printed the Muhammad cartoons).

News story here.

Of some interest is that the U of Illinois atheist student group (AAF – Atheists, Agnostics, and Freethinkers) has come to Dr. Howell’s defense.  They describe him, despite obvious differences of opinion, as a “friend” of the group (apparently he has helped organize some events) and are generally appalled by the censorship of ideas in what should be, at a university, a free marketplace of ideas.  Their statement can be read here.

I must say that this whole thing hits pretty close to home with me.

Here is an interesting article called the “Gospel of Scientific Materialism”.  The article goes a long way toward explaining why I find “literary atheism” (Nz, Camus, etc) so much more interesting than scientific atheism (Dawkins, etc).  The latter resides in complete self-forgetfullness, they are incapable of asking the “human questions”.  Nz and Camus are wrong, but they are not self-forgetful and they indeed do ask the human questions.

An excerpt:

“The basic thrust of a reductive science of the mind involves a move from cultural categories—“I have an obligation to care for my children”—to biological ones—“I only feel an obligation because human DNA has evolved to promote species survival.”

It is a way, in other words, to deny the reality and authority of culture.One belief unifies a great deal of social theory and philosophy of the last one hundred years, and it’s the belief that culture crushes and deforms us. Max Weber called it “the iron cage.” Jacques Derrida used fancier words, but the so-called “Metaphysics of Presence” amounts to the same thing.

This belief has been reinforced by the fact that most have located the vitalizing powers of human existence in destabilizing thrusts and eruptions that undermine established cultural patterns. Michel Foucault provides perhaps the perfect example. He was fascinated by explosions of erotic desire and vivid scenes of violence.

Duty, logical coherence, settled or inherited patterns of behavior—these are among the bad motifs in our postmodern anti-culture. Self-expression, transgression, unmasking, madness, smashing the system—they are the good motifs. The bad motifs are all associated with laws, norms, and principles that discipline the soul. The good motifs suggest an anti-discipline, a liberation of desire.

… I’m not surprised by this postmodern anti-Sinai. The old motifs put stress and tension into life. The Socratic maxim—know yourself—animated St. Augustine just as much as Albert Camus. They disagreed about the meaning of life—Augustine sought the uncertain requirements of God’s will, Camus proposed misty notions of an authentic life—but both agreed that we need to enter into ourselves. We must carefully examine our lives so that we can weigh, assess, correct, repent, and renew our efforts to live as we should.

Self-examination turns out to be endlessly painful and difficult. Therein lies the appeal of reductive explanations. They release us from the task of self-examination and the need to discipline our errant desires and disobedient wills. What matters is something impersonal, something working at a deeper level than culture and its soul-shaping agenda: the Laws of History or Physics, the Unconscious or Natural Selection. We shouldn’t underestimate the appeal of this release—and the pleasing rest it provides.”

Here is an interesting Times article by David Brooks on the how the internet and books shape academic performance.  The broader point is that the different cultures that currently travel with each medium shape us as learners.  As it stands now, he think the internet helps you be informed and hip while books help you become cultivated.

An excerpt:

“The Internet-versus-books debate is conducted on the supposition that the medium is the message. But sometimes the medium is just the medium. What matters is the way people think about themselves while engaged in the two activities. A person who becomes a citizen of the literary world enters a hierarchical universe. There are classic works of literature at the top and beach reading at the bottom.

A person enters this world as a novice, and slowly studies the works of great writers and scholars. Readers immerse themselves in deep, alternative worlds and hope to gain some lasting wisdom. Respect is paid to the writers who transmit that wisdom.

A citizen of the Internet has a very different experience. The Internet smashes hierarchy and is not marked by deference. Maybe it would be different if it had been invented in Victorian England, but Internet culture is set in contemporary America. Internet culture is egalitarian. The young are more accomplished than the old. The new media is supposedly savvier than the old media. The dominant activity is free-wheeling, disrespectful, antiauthority disputation.

These different cultures foster different types of learning. The great essayist Joseph Epstein once distinguished between being well informed, being hip and being cultivated. The Internet helps you become well informed — knowledgeable about current events, the latest controversies and important trends. The Internet also helps you become hip — to learn about what’s going on, as Epstein writes, “in those lively waters outside the boring mainstream.”

But the literary world is still better at helping you become cultivated, mastering significant things of lasting import. To learn these sorts of things, you have to defer to greater minds than your own. You have to take the time to immerse yourself in a great writer’s world. You have to respect the authority of the teacher.

Right now, the literary world is better at encouraging this kind of identity. The Internet culture may produce better conversationalists, but the literary culture still produces better students.”