Very nice essay. And I'm almost on the floor laughing because my next essay is going to about words. It is part 2 of my set 'The Evil of Good and the Good of Evil.'
As to 'logic and reason.' They are 1) Highly overrated as a means to accomplish anything even remotely close to peace and harmony let alone democracy let alone anything approaching utopia and 2) have shown themselves to be the amongst the least reliable because most self-defeating ways the mind has of convincing itself it knows the truth.
Why 1) Because Logic and Reason have been hailed as our God-Savour since at least Voltaire and they have imprisoned us. It was a relief to me when I discovered John Ralston Saul: *Voltaire's Bastared: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West*; *The Unconscious Civilisation* and *The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense*.
How do we know they have failed? Look around us. They have failed and it is insanity to try to use these failed tools to fix what the failed tools have created, to rephrase that famous saw about insanity expecting an outcome to be different while doing the same thing.
2) Logic and reason are secondary phenomena. The do not and cannot create anything new. They rely on something pre-existing and an arbitrary picking up of those crumbs. Thus, even following the well-articulated rules of rhetoric, and even creating words with iron-clad meaning (again, something that has failed humanity for more the several millenia so lets consider down that argument that comes from a logic that has blinded itself to that part of reality), the ability to pick only from what is extant, and then to pick only the bits and pieces required to complete a logical argument, means that reason and logic are inherently self-destructive. They simply cannot work because the reality of reality is that is it bigger than logic, reason, argument and words.
Matin Luther said this rather more colourfully than me. And with far fewer questionably defined words.
“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom” (Martin Luther, Works, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142)
Another philosopher of questionable pedigree put it well:
‘Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted: and yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else; which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophic purposes.’ De Quincey, Thomas. "On The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" from Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 81. (Originally published in 1823.)
And of course Montaigne:
But I leave this subject, which would lead me farther than I would follow. I will add only this, that humility and submissiveness alone can make a good man. The knowledge of his duty should not be left to each man's judgment; it should be prescribed to him, not left to the choice of his reason. Otherwise, judging by the imbecility and infinite variety of our reasons and opinions, we would finally forge for ourselves duties that would set us to eating one another, as Epicurus says.
Of course with Montaigne the obedience was to be towards God. So... At least he provided an alternative to 'reason and knowledge' as sources of happiness, if we understand 'obedience' as being 'trust the truth of your Soul to know what is true and to have the strength to allow curiosity to show you what that truth is.'
Hola, Tereza.
Very nice essay. And I'm almost on the floor laughing because my next essay is going to about words. It is part 2 of my set 'The Evil of Good and the Good of Evil.'
As to 'logic and reason.' They are 1) Highly overrated as a means to accomplish anything even remotely close to peace and harmony let alone democracy let alone anything approaching utopia and 2) have shown themselves to be the amongst the least reliable because most self-defeating ways the mind has of convincing itself it knows the truth.
Why 1) Because Logic and Reason have been hailed as our God-Savour since at least Voltaire and they have imprisoned us. It was a relief to me when I discovered John Ralston Saul: *Voltaire's Bastared: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West*; *The Unconscious Civilisation* and *The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense*.
How do we know they have failed? Look around us. They have failed and it is insanity to try to use these failed tools to fix what the failed tools have created, to rephrase that famous saw about insanity expecting an outcome to be different while doing the same thing.
2) Logic and reason are secondary phenomena. The do not and cannot create anything new. They rely on something pre-existing and an arbitrary picking up of those crumbs. Thus, even following the well-articulated rules of rhetoric, and even creating words with iron-clad meaning (again, something that has failed humanity for more the several millenia so lets consider down that argument that comes from a logic that has blinded itself to that part of reality), the ability to pick only from what is extant, and then to pick only the bits and pieces required to complete a logical argument, means that reason and logic are inherently self-destructive. They simply cannot work because the reality of reality is that is it bigger than logic, reason, argument and words.
Matin Luther said this rather more colourfully than me. And with far fewer questionably defined words.
“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom” (Martin Luther, Works, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142)
Another philosopher of questionable pedigree put it well:
‘Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted: and yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else; which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophic purposes.’ De Quincey, Thomas. "On The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" from Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 81. (Originally published in 1823.)
And of course Montaigne:
But I leave this subject, which would lead me farther than I would follow. I will add only this, that humility and submissiveness alone can make a good man. The knowledge of his duty should not be left to each man's judgment; it should be prescribed to him, not left to the choice of his reason. Otherwise, judging by the imbecility and infinite variety of our reasons and opinions, we would finally forge for ourselves duties that would set us to eating one another, as Epicurus says.
Of course with Montaigne the obedience was to be towards God. So... At least he provided an alternative to 'reason and knowledge' as sources of happiness, if we understand 'obedience' as being 'trust the truth of your Soul to know what is true and to have the strength to allow curiosity to show you what that truth is.'
Again, thank you. Good stuff.
What jumps out at me, is that it's not Dis- Mis- information that is of utter concerns.
It is Information that is being hunted down and skinned out like some trophy for all to see.
But that's just a Readers Digest version I had to grow up with. Hahahah! Randall S.
I adored watching Mary Poppins over and over again with 3 kids. Fabulous English backdrop.
Along comes some ding dong Biden twit to run roughshod all over it. Dang!
One favorite part... Jane and Michael cause a run on the Bank! Gimmee back my Tuppens!