linear thought

[nomad]

I've had this bouncing around in my head for a couple of days, and it's not really a complete thought yet. Hopefully I can make some sense though.

I don't know whether this is a human thing or a western thing, but I believe we fall into a trap of thinking linearly about almost everything, when in fact very little is linear. This leads to statements like, "I believe that Christianity/Islam/Socialism/insert-philosophy-here started out as a truly compassionate message but has been corrupted." A very linear, was-good-turned-bad explanation. But wouldn't it be more accurate to say that most (I won't say all) major religions and philosophies, regardless of their original merit, have at all times been both corrupted and preserved?

And the person who makes such a statement is implicitly saying that they have re-discovered the original meaning of the message. But what hope would they have of doing that if that message had not been preserved for them through the ages? Isn't it a bit arrogant to say that an age-old tradition has been completely botched until we came along?

Time marches forward in a linear fashion. And maybe science does (I don't think so, but that's a bit of the incomplete thought). But there are a lot of things that don't. Morality. Nature. Art. And life itself is not a linear experience. Sort of like when you play piano or guitar - you might practice playing scales, but to play music you use chords, striking several notes at once. Life is more like playing music than scales.

[gameld]

i would be careful of what and how i say things if i were you. by suggesting that things like 'Morality. Nature. Art. And life itself is not a linear experience...' you are implying that they do nor follow logically. to talk about something as 'linear' means to talk about it as a line of reasoning. if that is what you meant, then i have to say that i disagree with you. morality makes great sense in a logical fashion. nature is based on logical laws like gravity. art.... well, art is almost completely subjective so is by nature not subject to linear thinking. until you start to try to use it as a communication means. then you must include symbols, characters, gestures, and colors that logically fall into place.

also, be ware of this question: 'Isn't it a bit arrogant to say that an age-old tradition has been completely botched until we came along?' to say that we have to assume that we are the one who claims to have discovered the original message. i don't. in fact, as far as i know, no one in my church makes that claim. we learned it from someone else. we do claim to have the message in a way that was lost for centuries (for the most part) in the mire of many unhealthy traditions (not all traditions are unhealthy). besides, we do say that we 're-discovered' it in some way. but you can't dis-cover something unless it's there to begin with. we don't claim to be the originators of the message. Christ was the originator of the message. He told His people who then communicated it to all of us.

now, can some people make these things into foolish and arrogant statements? yes. but the wording is not foolish or arrogant in itself.

[Karen]

I think nomad makes a good point. We are the products of Enlightenment thinking, derived from Greek cultural and philosophical ideas. But, for example, the world of the Bible is Hebraic, and their thinking was quite different from ours. The shorthand for this difference is Tertullian's "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?": logical, linear thinking vs. the revelation of faith. Our modern morality may make sense logically, but there are great swathes of the Bible where such logic doesn't apply and only faith can reveal it to us.

[nomad]

[nomad]

[JRosemary]

[Robert]

[Robert]

[Kolbitar]

[Robert]

[Steve]

[nomad]

Fascinating replies. I'm afraid some of it is going over my head. And I've picked a rotten time to start such a thread, as I'm on hols. But I'll just put in that, after reading all that, I think I might refine my thoughts a bit. Perhaps rational thought is linear by nature (though it can be what is sometimes referred to as 'lateral thinking', but that is still a line). What troubles me is that in following linear thought, we end up imposing a linear concept on things that are non-linear. And therefore miss connections, relationships, that don't 'follow the rules'.

[Kolbitar]

::It is a pleasure to be speaking with you again.

Robert, the feeling’s quite mutual :-)

::What you are saying is this: Thomists express an epistemology that says this-what we know is based on experience and sensation. This sensation, however, in contrast to the Lockeian tableau rassa is not without some structuring. The mind takes this raw material of experience and extracts those things that are immaterial and deductive in nature. So, what we have is experience (or sensation), then perception, induction and then we have deduction, so that, knowledge of, say, God is neither immediate nor is it purely inductive, but it is both.

I have to (kindly) stop you right there :-) The introduction of Locke is throwing me off, for any comparison of Locke to Realism must first include (at least implicitly) the understanding of their fundamental and incompatible difference: Lock says sense perceptions are what we know, they are the objects of our knowledge; Thomists say we know the object through sense perceptions, they are the means by which we know. Likewise with idealism, which posits ideas as the objects of our knowledge. Thomism says nay, ideas are that by which we know objects, not the objects themselves. Now, this contrast to Locke is important because the nature of the faculty which forms ideas – the intellect – yields, upon rational consideration, all kinds of really important stuff – not the least of which is the immortality of the soul.

By the way, it seems you’re using induction as a synonym for abstraction, is this correct? I use the word “induction” differently – just so we don’t cross our wires.

::How I differ from this position is in denying the whole process of sensation as a truth yielding enterprise.

But this to me entails the denial that when I touch a tree I am directly experiencing the tree. As far as I can tell you’re essentially denying the intuition of sense perception, a direct and undeniable experience. What, then, am I experiencing? You seem to be saying I am experiencing experience, which is like saying I’m seeing sight. I’m not, I’m seeing a tree; I’m experiencing a tree. Then I can reflect on my experience and experience my experience, but certainly not in the same way.

::Rather, I would say that the mind does not extract these principles from the raw material of sensation, but instead, general principles and abstracts are deduced by some other means. This other means is through intellection and intuition to which sensation is an expression of, not the source of. It is more like sensation is the branches of the tree, not the root of it.

The Thomist, as I understand, uses the image of a window as an analogy to sense perception. The senses are windows, and the objects themselves are illuminated and seen by the intellect, so that the objects themselves offer the material for abstraction.

::The reason why I do not subscribe to the Thomistic model is simply this: in giving precendence to the senses as the source of deduction, we adopt an unconscious, but albeit substantial, form of materialism.

Well, I guess one reason I do subscribe to the Thomistic model is because I see animals, babies and children responding to sense perception before their intellects (in the case of the human class) are able to subscribe to any reflective model at all :-)

::For in my view the whole motivation for adopting this sensation-perception-intellection systematic model is that it appeals to a materialistic mindset.

I disagree -- are you surprised :-) It may appeal to a materialist tendency as reality itself appeals to a materialist tendency (not many people experience miracles after all), but both cases are a matter of will and of a truncated perception. For example, where in the material world can one point to a universal? No where, therefore our minds use universal ideas which are by definition immaterial, and are therefore immaterial in so far as they do.

::Afterall, matter is then defined as the prime material from which inductions and deductions arise from. This is not problematic in itself. However, this supremacy of matter as being the foundation for our understanding of reality, vis a vis through sensation (which assumes a materialistic ontology at least epistemically), lends to a superfluity of consigning immaterial entities (such as the soul, God, the mind, etc.) to mere reflections of the 'real' natur eof reality.

I’d argue that they’re not superfluous at all, but that they’re necessary to "adequately explain observed phenomena." In addition -- and again -- the will plays a very major role in Thomism.

::SOme may argue that this is not a necessary conclusion. And perhaps it is not. But, Thomistic epistemology clearly leaves little rational room for metaphysics. Since it was so inspired by Aristotle, and in my opinion the atomists were more in the back of the mind of Aristotle when he was laying out his epistemology than anything Plato or Parmenides contributed to this field, it is only a small jump from epistemic realism to ontological materialism.

It’s no jump, really, it’s a truncation.

::In my estimation, realism is nothing more than ontological materialism with a quasi-immaterialism that can be easily explained away by the processes of the mind.

Well, the data itself – the data of our immateriality – stands alone, so if you can explain it away in one view the same explanation should hold for others. In neither case can it be done, however.

::The question is this: if sensation extracts perceptions and intellections (inductions and deductions) through the mind's abilities, then what is it about the mind that 'senses' the metaphysical properties of what we know (God, our own minds, the soul, etc.) IF these metaphysical properties are merely the juices that the mind sqeezes from what we call matter, the fruit itself, then aren't these 'juices' not separate features from what the mind extracts? IF not, then we have a problem.

Again, it seems like you have the view in mind that perceptions and ideas are that which we know, not that by which we know. I think if you examine and rephrase the question with that in mind you may have your answer. Let me know if that’s not your assumption, and I’ll try to answer it sufficiently.

Thanks,

Jesse