Thomas Nagel wins Rescher Prize for Philosophy
‘The 2021 Nicholas Rescher Prize for Systematic Philosophy has been awarded to Thomas Nagel, emeritus professor of philosophy and law at New York University.
The Rescher Prize “is intended to counter present-day tendencies to narrow specialization by rewarding and showcasing the work of philosophers who have addressed the historical ‘big questions’ of the field in ways that nevertheless command the respect of specialists.” The prize is named for philosopher Nicholas Rescher “in acknowledgement of his extensive gifting” to his home institution, the University of Pittsburgh.‘
More here...
https://dailynous.com/2021/02/11/rescher-prize-awarded-thomas-nagel/
(You gotta love the top comment in the combox.)
The Rescher Prize “is intended to counter present-day tendencies to narrow specialization by rewarding and showcasing the work of philosophers who have addressed the historical ‘big questions’ of the field in ways that nevertheless command the respect of specialists.” The prize is named for philosopher Nicholas Rescher “in acknowledgement of his extensive gifting” to his home institution, the University of Pittsburgh.‘
More here...
https://dailynous.com/2021/02/11/rescher-prize-awarded-thomas-nagel/
(You gotta love the top comment in the combox.)
Comments (65)
Why let mere incomprehension stop you? Others here are unconcerned by such trivial impediments.
It begins with Galileo - who formulated scientific method in order to prove the earth orbits the sun, and was threatened with torture and forced to recant, was found grievously suspect of heresy and held under house arrest for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, his contemporary, Descartes - using an argument that can only be described as sophistry, asserted the primacy of the subject - in a manner consistent with emphasising the spiritual and reviling the profane, and he was appointed to the Royal Court of Queen Christina of Sweden.
Nagel is a subjectivist - and now recipient of:
Quoting Wayfarer
Hence:
Quoting counterpunch
I noticed your impassioned response against my purported ‘subjectivism’ in one of our recent exchanges. But I stand by it. Michel Bitbol’s observation about ‘the blind spot’ is both physiologically and analogically accurate. Physiologically, because there really is a blind spot, where the optic nerve joins the eye, which you never notice until it’s pointed out by way of the blind spot test.
The reason it’s analogically accurate is not nearly so simple to explain, but equally true. First, let me observe that Galileo’s treatment by the Catholic Church had nothing to do what what is discussed in that essay by Bitbol. Yet, it’s the first thing you mention. Why is that? What is the connection?
What is at issue is not that ‘subjectivism has absolute primacy’ at all. Rather, it’s the belief that science is ‘the umpire of reality’, that science alone can tell us what is real, what is worth paying attention to. That is so ingrained in our culture that it, like the blind spot, can’t even be discerned, unless you know how to look for it.
There is no ‘picture of reality’ that science paints, dot by dot. There are multiple fields of enquiry, now proliferating beyond any hope of individual comprehension. The idea that there is a supreme truth ‘out there somewhere’ which we’re advancing on, dot by dot, or research paper by research paper, is a quaint hope, in a world where the hardest of hard sciences now seriously entertains the Many Worlds interpretation of Hugh Everett III as the likely meaning of physics.
Science is a tool, or rather, the means of discovering many tools, which are indispensable and crucial to amelioration of the multiple crises we face. But science cannot solve the crisis of meaning. That is mostly what Nagel writes about.
:fire: :clap: Eppur si muove ...
Physiologically, sure! Physically, there is a blind-spot. It's where the term blind spot comes from! Analogically too, there is a blind-spot, but the essay is completely wrong about its nature and cause.
Quoting Wayfarer
"Many of us like to think that science can give us a complete, objective description of cosmic history, distinct from us and our perception of it. But this image of science is deeply flawed. In our urge for knowledge and control, we’ve created a vision of science as a series of discoveries about how reality is in itself, a God’s-eye view of nature. Such an approach not only distorts the truth, but creates a false sense of distance between ourselves and the world. That divide arises from what we call the Blind Spot, which science itself cannot see. In the Blind Spot sits experience: the sheer presence and immediacy of lived perception."
I mention the trial of Galileo because it's where the divergence between science as a tool, and science as a description of reality begins - and because this is the true nature of the blind-spot. The essay claims: "Many of us like to think that science can give us a complete, objective description of cosmic history, distinct from us and our perception of it." But the Church asserted the exact opposite by arresting Galileo. Descartes jumped on board with both feet. He withdrew a work on physics from publication, and instead made an argument in Mediations on First Philosophy that methodologically, is presented in terms of sceptical doubt (such that falls at the first cut of Occam's Razor) to arrive at views consistent with religious orthodoxy; and he was showered with gold while Galileo remained imprisoned. The rest of Western philosophy piled in behind Descartes - and justified science used as a tool in the Industrial Revolution, and for military power, without any regard to a scientific understanding of reality.
So who are these "many of us [who] like to think that science can give us a complete, objective description of cosmic history, distinct from us and our perception of it." They're certainly not making decisions in government or industry, because it was only this time last week they even acknowledged the reality of climate change?
Quoting Wayfarer
No, no - here's another quote from the essay:
"Behind the Blind Spot sits the belief that physical reality has absolute primacy in human knowledge, a view that can be called scientific materialism."
It's very clear what he's saying, and it's also quite clear that the absolute opposite is true - and has been since science as a tool, was divorced from science as an understanding of reality by the trial of Galileo. If you think otherwise, please explain why, 150 years after Galileo's trial - Darwin was attacked and ridiculed, and remains under attack to this day!? Explain why, in 2008 - Craig Venter was attacked for "playing God" for creating artificial life in the lab? Explain why, technology is still applied for power and profit - and not as a scientific understanding would suggest it should be applied, assuming we want to continue to exist?
Quoting Marchesk
Granted, but in contrast to what? Galileo developed scientific method to contrast with revelation as a means to truth, and Descartes immediately rubbished it, by using a radically unscientific method to assert the primacy of the subject. And Descartes got the gold and the glory while Galileo got threatened with torture, death and everlasting damnation.
What's your take on the above damning report on philosophers?
By the way I'm "more than happy" for the esteemed Thomas Nagel. I put the quotes there because the late comedian George Carlin has issues with being "more than happy", it seems or he points out that being "more than happy" is a rather stupid thing to say because what exactly does it mean?
I would like to discuss his "what is it like to be a bat?" if you're game. Are you?
I have a simple argument about the non-physical nature of consciousness and it starts with a simple memory stick/pen drive (it seems I have a fetish but that's another story). Anyway, I remember plugging my pen drive into my computer to copy a movie that I had just downloaded. The information on the screen showed that the pen drive had 0 bytes of data - I had just formatted it. I then proceeded to cut and paste the movie to the pen drive and as the file copy window displayed the progress I just sat there and waited, impatiently of course. In a matter of a few minutes the copy command was complete. I looked at the screen and the display read 6.56 GB of 8 GB free - the movie was now in the pen drive but...here's what's interesting to me...as far as I could tell, neither the mass nor the volume of the pen drive had changed and nor could I use the pen drive to heat up my tea that had gone cold. In other words, there was something in the pen drive but it wasn't physical (no mass/volume change was detected and no net energy gain was noticeable to the extent that my knowledge of science informed me). The movie was definitely not physical.
It's my contention that a similar argument can be made for the brain/mind. Over the years that we live and experience the world (after attaining physical maturity of course), we gather "information" about the world but our brains neither gain mass nor do they expand in volume and too there's no net change in energy of the brain. Clearly, at the very least, information isn't physical and the best guess I can offer is that like data on a pen drive are simply a matter of configuration of tiny magnets, the mind/consciousness could also be simply a functional/material configuration of neurons and their supporting structures and that implies, in my opinion, that mind uploading - transferring consciousness from brains onto suitable media - could be possible but, above all, it implies that consciousness isn't physical.
What say you?
A configuration isn't physical. Imagine 3 balls, one red, one green and the other blue. A configuration would be some kind of permutation/combination of these balls but there's no net energy, mass, volume difference between these configurations.
Right, but what you're asking me to do, is imagine three balls - and then take them away, and suppose there's some substance of configuration still there.
We could copy the configuration onto another (synthetic) brain or other appropriate analog. It would be like an artist creating the exact painting (the configuration of shapes and colors) on two different media (one on canvas and the other on paper for instance). Carbon copying? Xerox machines?
But science does account for subjectivity - admittedly, as an obstacle to understanding to be accounted for and subtracted from the objective, but there's observer bias, the Hawthorne effect, the placebo effect - all sorts of ways in which subjectivity is accounted for in science.
"Elementary particles, time, genes and the brain are manifest to us only through our measurements, models and manipulations. Their presence is always based on scientific investigations, which occur only in the field of our experience."
If that's the case - how do we know we're not just brains in jars, being fed sensory data we mistake for reality? How do we know we're not in the Matrix? If we assume we are not in the Matrix, we have to assume the primacy of the objective, if only on the basis of the chronology of the question. Consciousness evolved from inanimate matter. If consciousness is subjective - where did it come from? The spirit realm?
Red herring is all I can say.
No thanks, I had cereal!
:rofl: Thanks for the discussion and to be honest I didn't quite catch your drift.
So what is it really?
Quoting counterpunch
‘Blind spot? What do you mean, ‘blind spot?’
Funny, I thought it said ‘scientist’. Silly me!
Analogically too, there is a blind-spot, but the essay is completely wrong about its nature and cause.
— counterpunch
Quoting Wayfarer
Its the difference between science as a tool, and science as an understanding of reality. We use the tools, but pay no attention whatever, to science as an understanding of reality. See: climate change!
Quoting Wayfarer
It's from the essay on your title page. The question rather, is what that essay means by blind spot? I simply disagree with that essay.
I suggest that if there is a "problem with science" it's not the assumption of an objective physical reality that exists independently of our experience of it. And it's not exclusion of the subjective - by virtue of such an assumption, but rather the divorce of science as a tool from science as a description of reality by Cartesian subjectivism in defence of religiosity.
The problem with this idea, that subjectivity is accounted for by subtracting from, is that to be able to subtract the appropriate thing, we need to be able to accurately determine what subjectivity has added. Since what ought to be subtracted must be determined by some sort of process, and that process might itself be somewhat subjective, then the wrong thing might be subtracted. If the wrong thing is subtracted, then the proposed accounting for, is actually making the subjectivity worse, by subtracting the wrong thing.
This means that we need a good method to determine, in each application of the scientific method, what is being added in that particular instance, by subjectivity. If we use a scientific method to make that determination then there is subjectivity within that method, and it is very likely that we are actually adding to the subjectivity, rather than properly subtracting it.
.....and the name of the commenter.
I’ve never encountered this reading of history before. The orthodox account is that Cartesian algebraic geometry was a crucial foundation for the ‘new science’ of Newton and Galileo. The other crucial element was the definition of primary and secondary qualities, with the former being those which were amenable to precise mathematisation and the latter being relegated to the mind of the observer. This set the stage for modern scientific materialism. As Nagel puts it in his 2012 book, Mind and Cosmos:
This provides the context for what Michel Bitbol terms ‘the blind spot’, because in this picture, the ‘observer’ is bracketed out so as to arrive at the purely quantitative, scientific ‘view from nowhere’, to allude to the title of one of Nagel’s other books on this subject.
The crucial turning point in modern thought occurred with the ‘observer problem’ in quantum physics, which suddenly made it abundantly obvious that ‘the observer’ has rather a crucial role after all.
(Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271. Linde is one of the originators of 'inflation theory' of the Big Bang.)
There are of course enormous disputes over the meaning of quantum theory, which reinforces the point about the difficulties involved in separating objective and subjective when it comes to foundational theories.
As for Descartes wishing to ‘defend religious orthodoxy’, I’ve never encountered that idea, if you have any sources for it I would be interested in following it up.
I agree. :smile:
Galileo's Trial for heresy was 1634. Descartes didn't publish Meditations until 1641. Galileo had already made the necessary distinctions between subject and object to allow for scientific method in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, before Descartes introduced subjectivism as the only certain truth in defence of religious thinking.
It was only because of what the Church did to Galileo, Descartes withdrew his essay on physics, "The World" from publication, and maintained throughout his life a subjectivist defence of the soul - that for example, in relation to his communications with Harvey, an English anatomist concerned with the function of the heart, clearly inhibited scientific advancement.
What if, instead of finding Galileo grievously suspect of heresy, the Church had welcomed Galileo as discovering the means to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation, and so afforded a scientific understanding of reality - the moral authority of God's word? Truth of Creation! Science would have been openly and enthusiastically pursued and integrated as an authoritative moral truth into political and economic decision making.
Instead, science was decried as heresy; stripped of anything but practical value - and used as a tool to drive the Industrial Revolution from 1730. All the while, for example, the Church burned people alive for witchcraft right through to 1792. If the Church had embraced Galileo, do you think that now, we'd be threatened with climate change, desertification, deforestation, overfishing, ocean full of plastics, etc, and be racing headlong for extinction? I'm not at all sure modern scientific materialism: the physical object to your spiritual subject, the scientific "is" to your religious "ought" is the unalloyed virtue you seem to think it is!
Is that so? I didn't realise Descartes was cowed by the thought of upsetting religious authority. But I also fail to see the relevance to the philosophical point at issue, and I'm sure he wasn't a villian. Surely you must agree that Descartes' invention of algebraic geometery was one of the major foundations of the 'Scientific Revoluion'? It allowed the application of the newly-discovered laws of motion and general scientific method across a universal range.
Quoting counterpunch
Is that so? I wouldn't actually lay the blame wholly and solely at the feet of 'the Church', which actually by that time was already split into competing denominations. Persecution of witches was a global phenomenon in pre-modern cultures - which is, of course, not to condone such barbarism. (There's a pretty good in-depth article on the subject on [url=https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/common-misconceptions/who-burned-the-witches.html]Catholic Education!)
Quoting counterpunch
Of course they should have. And in reality, there was a progressive sect inside the Church who was horrified by Galileo's treatment, and who argued strongly against the proceedings. Regretably, the ultra-conservatives won the day - and not only on religious grounds. There were many factors driving the whole affair, some of which were political in nature.
Quoting counterpunch
Whether it is or is not a virtue - it has enormous strengths, on the one hand, but also has its blind spots, which I still don't think you've acknowledged - quite apart from the historical issue of the Trial of Galileo.
I really couldn't say. I'm not so well versed in math that I could judge the significance of Descartes algebraic geometry in the history of mathematics. A quick wiki suggests: "Some of the roots of algebraic geometry date back to the work of the Hellenistic Greeks from the 5th century BC."
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, it is so. Anna Goddi was the last witch burned alive by the Church in 1792 - 60 years into the Industrial Revolution. I mention this, not to cast moral aspersions, but to illustrate the disparity of reason between science and religiosity.
Quoting Wayfarer
The only reason I indulge in 'should have' is to illustrate the mistake, and show how it plays out in relation to our mistaken relationship to science, now, as we approach upon the climate and ecological crisis. I have argued elsewhere that it's futile to project one's modern day moral sensibilities onto the past. I cannot doubt the piety of the Church. I was an understandable mistake - but with massive, unforeseen consequences we need now, to get to grips with.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm trying. You're not making it easy. You distinguish between subject and object. I'm making a distinction between science as a tool, and science as an understanding of reality - and suggesting that the latter is the real blind-spot.
I know it's a big topic. Before this thread, were you aware of Thomas Nagel and the subjects he writes about? Have you read philosophy of science? Kuhn, Polanyi, those types of things?
The argument about objectivity is a central issue. I think that scientific realism presumes that a kind of ultimate objectivity is possible, at least in principle. That there is 'the way things truly are', and we're gradually enlarging our knowledge of it through the scientific method. That is deeply ingrained in the modern outlook. What I'm arguing is that the subject retains an essential role even in the strictly objective sciences, so called, but that this role is not in itself perceptible to those sciences. Yes, it is a controversial view, because it calls into question scientific realism - but this is a philosophy forum, and it's a philosophical criticism.
Quoting counterpunch
You mean, failing to appreciate the role of science in the understanding of reality is the blind spot?
Not quite. I mean failing to appreciate that science is a valid understanding of reality, relative to overlapping religious, political and economic ideologies - is the blind spot, and it's a mistake held in place by subjectivism.
I could just read Descartes - and extrapolate slightly. It's not like any subjectivist could ever have anything new to say, is it really? That's the problem with the haunted butthole hypothesis. It's something of a dead end philosophically speaking. What's it like to have nothing new to say in 400 years?
Meanwhile, science is taking photos of craters on mars, discovered the stones of Stonehenge are from Wales, 300km away, is tackling climate change, has built the world's biggest telescope - a square kilometre across, has plans to visit Europa, has discovered the world's smallest reptile, awwww, found new bat coronavirus evidence - and so on. What's Nagel gazer on about? Ah yes, his haunted butthole!
I don't see the wisdom in undermining the truth value of scientific knowledge with philosophical ghost stories, to maintain religious belief. I think your love is self love; not a love of philosophy of itself, but rather your philosophy stems from a desire to construe yourself as spirit, above and beyond the mere physical and objective.
I think you're mistaken. You are not the centre of Creation. Science is not here to flatter you. But if you attend closely, and act accordingly, it will save your life.
If we are to use history as a source of philosophical insight, it might be useful to recall a few important points. One is that Queen Christina was well versed about the heliocentric system. Her favorite philosopher was Gassendi, an heliocentric. Another is that, while Galileo did live under house arrest, he died in his bed at the respectable age of 77, while Descartes died at the tender age of 53, of pneumonia, four months after accepting the queen's invitation to come to Stockholm. According to Wiki, neither the weather nor the queen agreed much with him. Should have stayed in his bed...
Important in what regard? It remains, Galileo was grievously suspect of heresy - which is about a hair's breadth from being burned alive, while Descartes was rubbing shoulders with European aristocracy. And so it remains that science as an understanding of reality was potentially heretical - while subjectivism was potentially a ticket to the big show!
Are you suggesting that had no effect on the subsequent development of philosophy?
I cringed reading the introduction to Rousseau's Inquiry into the Causes of Inequality 1755 - a brilliant piece of writing that foreshadows Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations 1775, and Darwin's evolutionary theory, 1859. It begins with a crawling apologetic to the Church for even daring to think in rational terms.
:ok:
Important in that Descartes was invited to what was then a pretty horrible place, and he was reluctant to go, and when he went there, he died of cold. That the extent to which he ‘rubbed shoulders with aristocracy’, as you say. Descartes was also a believer in heliocentrism and a scientist, who invented the cartesian coordinates. You are the FAUX News of philosophers.
I don't deny facts, ever. But the fact Descartes died is somewhat incidental - (unless he really was poisoned by a Catholic missionary, as apparently, Theodor Ebert suggests.)
I have read the 'cogito ergo sum' argument many times, and cannot believe it a credible argument from a man, whom - as you say, was a scientist and a philosopher and invented Cartesian coordinates.
As he was a gifted, rational man, how could he have not realised his 'evil demon' argument was sceptical doubt, as opposed to rational doubt? How could he have doubted that the world exists, and that his own body exists, and not cared if it was credible doubt?
In an argument that ostensibly seeks to establish knowledge that is certain, he moves past physical experience, like pain - a primary sensation prior to cogito, without so much as an acknowledgement. Why? Because he already had a conclusion in mind - that, thrusting his hand into the fire and finding 'I'm in pain, therefore I am' - would rule out, by implying the undeniable existence of an objective reality, it was his intent to undermine.
In relation to the withdrawal of a work on physics from publication, in direct response to Galileo's trial - we can very reasonably conclude that Descartes wrote the 'cogito ergo sum' argument to accord with Church doctrine - using a dubious method to find certain knowledge in the subjective/soul, rather than, find meaning in the physical world through hypotheses tested by the evidence of the senses - and maybe find himself on trial for his life.
You presented his being invited to the court of Queen Christina as a reward for his supposedly 'subjectivist' philosophy, which the powerful would have some interest in promoting... In truth Christina didn't like Descartes's philosophy, which she found too mechanistic, and he fell sick and died as a direct result of accepting her invitation to Stockholm. So your nice conspiration theory crumbles.
Quoting counterpunch
It was a thought experiment about doubting the world, not a real doubt. He was just playing with the idea of radical doubt.
Quoting counterpunch
You don't get it. Pain can sometimes be an illusion. Descartes cogito's point is that one cannot doubt the doubter himself. Descartes was well aware of the existence of an objective reality, and his cogito is an attempt to prove that it does exist.
Quoting counterpunch
Descartes did scrap a book almost ready to publish on heliocentrism, after the second Galileo trial, because he was afraid of being jailed. So he was prudent. But he was not the mouthpiece of the Church. After his death all his books landed on the Church index of prohibited works.
You're right, I did. When all I can realistically defend is, that unlike Galileo - Descartes was at liberty to accept such an invitation, and not on trial for his life and soul, his works banned from publication. It's puzzling though - why Descartes would be invited to the Royal Court of Sweden, if Queen Christina so objected to his ideas?
Quoting Olivier5
Rather puzzling again. Do you suppose then - that, in search of certain knowledge, a philosopher of Descartes calibre, was simply unaware of Galileo's hypothetico-deductive methodology?
Quoting Olivier5
What don't I get?
Quoting Olivier5
You think I don't understand Descartes conclusion? You jest, surely!
Quoting Olivier5
No, his argument was ostensibly, a search for certain knowledge. But Descartes method of doubt boxes him into a solipsistic corner; where all he can assert is that he exists - a point with no implication because the world has been doubted away. He relies upon an appeal to the existence of God to rescue his argument from this oblivion.
Thus I see plainly that the certainty and truth of all knowledge depends strictly on my awareness of the true God. So much so that until I became aware of him I couldn’t perfectly know anything. Now I can achieve full and certain knowledge of countless matters,
Quoting Olivier5
Jailed? Do you mean damned and tortured to death? Galileo's imprisonment was lenient. The Church was burning people alive for heresy right through to 1792. And it was by these means - science as an understanding of reality was divorced from science as a tool used by industry from 1730, to drive the Industrial Revolution. Sure, there's more to the story of Descartes than appears in the headlines, but isn't there always. Nonetheless, it remains that the argument for subjectivism was written in terror of the Church, to accord with religious doctrine - to the exclusion of scientific method as a means to certain knowledge.
[i]What is the importance of Descartes?
Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) French philosopher and mathematician. Descartes is considered the founder of modern philosophy[/i]
Should have been Galileo!
He was perhaps the most famous philosopher in Europe at the time. She spoke excellent French and surrounded herself with luminaries, many of them French. She was just curious to know him, I guess.
You are imagining a kind of cosmic battle between science and religion, in which Galileo was a hero of science and Descartes a kind of traitor, while the 'aristocracy' and the Church are on the other side, fighting for obscurantism. But my contention is that the historical facts paint a far more complex and less manichean picture.
For instance, Queen Christina was not [I]any[/i] aristocrat. She had a rather peculiar life, had a few lovers, men and women, and thought of herself as no less a philosopher than Descartes.
Galileo is my own hero too, more so than Descartes, so no dispute on his contribution. But he, like Descartes and all the others, was a devot Christian educated by the Church and tied to it in many other ways, including financially. Galileo seriously considered the priesthood as a young man. The very name 'Galileus' originally means 'Christian'. The Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems was commissioned by no other than Pope Urban VIII, who had supported Galileo during his first trial.
So this battle between science and religious tradition was happening within the Church. It was not pitting the Church vs the scientists, but splitting the Church and her flock in two camps: those who believed that scripture was the only certain source of knowledge, and those who thought that human reason and observation were God-given faculties that, if used well, could help get a glimpse of the glory of God through the study of His creation.
Quoting Olivier5
A surprise to all, then? Something doesn't add up.
Quoting Olivier5
If you mean to say, that I'm illustrating the suppression of science as an understanding of reality in order to maintain the overlapping authorities of religious, political and economic ideology, you might argue that I'm colouring carelessly outside the lines, but the outline is not imagined.
Quoting Olivier5
"Manichaeism was a major religion founded in the 3rd century AD by the Persian or Parthian prophet Mani (c.?216–274 AD) in the Sasanian Empire."
That is one obscure reference. The only person I've ever known use it is former Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams! It's incredibly apt because of the dualistic cosmology of Manichaeism. I am arguing that Descartes was intellectually dishonest - or what you would call prudent; while Galileo was intellectually honest, and condemned for it.
Quoting Olivier5
No doubt. Newton, 150 years later, in England - had to hide his unconventional religious beliefs in order to advance in his academic career. That's rather the point. Our relationship to science was set 400 years ago, in the context of religious oppression, and has never been revisited. I am arguing that relationship is mistaken - and that science now paints an increasingly valid and coherent understanding of reality, to which it behoves us to attend.
Quoting Olivier5
I have argued that the Church might have welcomed Galileo as discovering the means to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation, and so imbued scientific knowledge with authority, such that politics - justified in some part by the authority of God, would necessarily have had much more regard for science as an understanding of reality, particularly in the application of technology. Had that been so, perhaps now, we would not be facing a climate and ecological crisis that threatens the stability of civilisation, and perhaps thereby, the existence of humankind. Instead, we are faced with something of a grinding of the gears to survive, or a smooth ride into oblivion.
The general outline, as I explained, is that the debate happened within the Church as much as it did outside of it. Copernicus was probably a priest. Giordano Bruno was a Dominican friar. Kepler attended seminary and wanted to be a priest.
Quoting counterpunch
Galileo too was prudent. After his first trial he stayed put about heliocentrism for two decades. It's only after the new pope, a body of his, encouraged him to write about it that he did... Hobbes too was prudent. He accepted a pension from his king, who just asked him in return never to publish anything about religion or politics again... It's quite facile to condemn past philosophers for being prudent, from the comfort of the present, when you ain't gonna burn for anything you say...
Quoting counterpunch
The Catholic Church is 100% committed to ecology and fighting climate change. It's the anglo-saxon Protestants, the anti-papists who deny climate change today. So something doesn't work in your story.
Good to hear. I need £10bn to start with, and a further £20bn over 10 years. The plan is to drill through hot volcanic rock, and pump water through, to produce steam, to drive turbines, to produce massive base load clean electricity. This electrical energy will be converted into hydrogen for distribution, to be burnt in traditional power stations, and used as fuel for transport. I also aim to develop large scale desalination and irrigation technology, carbon capture and storage, and recycling technologies - only viable given a virtually limitless supply of clean energy. DM me with the details! Thank you!
There is no such thing as objectivity. There are only objective thoughts. All thoughts exist as living matter. All thoughts are tangible. All objectivity is tangible.
Sure thing.