Philosophy/Religion
We often hear about the differences between religion and science, and even religion and philosophy. A fair analysis of both will include common features as well. [Edited from a different discussion.]
What's labeled religion, philosophy, and science, all have common features. They're usually separated, sometimes strictly, but they share very basic human questions.
From a historical point of view, these questions have predated any "religions" we think of today, ancient/modern philosophy and certainly modern science.
Human beings have been around for roughly 200 thousand years. Around this time they developed the capacity for thought and for language. This is what has traditionally been said to separate them from other primates, and from animals in general -- "reason" and "speech" (ratio, logos).
Thinking, language, speech, words -- all this predates writing, and so if we take history to mean written history, it is all "prehistoric."
Taking the 200,000 number as an exact date for behaviorally modern humans' emergence (for the sake of simplicity), and then reminding ourselves that writing wasn't invented until roughly 5,000 years ago (3,200 BC), it leads to a question: what was happening during those 195 thousand years of our existence? What were we thinking?
It's all surmise. But we know these people buried their dead, created cave art, and had complex tools. I would assume they told stories, and shared myths and legends -- perhaps especially about ancestors. They likely all had "gods," but in the sense of animism. They had rites and rituals, danced, chanted, and sang. They had ideas about themselves and about their worlds. They asked questions and gave themselves the best answers they could conjure up -- about the plants and animals, the soil, the stars, the weather, sickness and birth and death.
This all predates anything we usually mean by "religion" or "philosophy." Yet for the majority of our time on earth, as a species, these were the phenomena that occupied our cognitive faculties -- when we weren't wandering, hunting and gathering (which is to say, pretty rarely).
Jump forward to the ancient world of Sumer, and read the Epic of Gilgamesh. Read some of the writings out of Egypt. All deal with death, life, birth. These are human concerns and human questions.
By the time we get to Greece, and the "love of wisdom," a new tradition is laid out. Same humans, similar questions, just formulated in a new way and in a new culture. From there we have the origin and foundations of Western thought.
That's the context I like to think of when trying to answer these questions. To summarize:
(1) We're human beings, and we sometimes think.
(2) Sometimes this thinking is concerned with universal questions.
(3) These questions are called philosophical.
(4) So philosophy is a kind of thinking -- a kind that asks universal questions.
What are these universal questions? What does philosophy ask? The same as many religions'.
In my view, one core question is "Why does anything exists at all?" (or, "What is existence/being?"), and both what we call "philosophy" and what we call "religion" asks (and answers) it, tacitly or explicitly. It's unavoidable.
When asked explicitly, many answers have been given and are well-known. In Plato, being was the Forms, ultimately the "Form of the Good" -- the permanent and eternal as opposed to mere seeming and becoming. In the Christian tradition, being is God. Modern science also has an answer: nature (translated from the Latin natura, from the Greek phusis -- which is also where we get "physics", considered the fundamental science).
But this is all pointless talk about history, etymology, abstraction, and soaring speculation, which should be as relevant to us and our personal, everyday concerns as a mathematical theorem is -- that is, until we grasp the following fact: along with answers to the question "What is existence/what is being?" there comes an answer to the question "What is a human being?"
"What is a human being?" What can be more relevant to us? It's often the basis for what's considered a "good" life (i.e., the question "What should I do with my life?"), and so ethics and morality; for proposals about how to organize society -- and so the basis for politics; and for claims about human nature -- and so the basis for humanity's goals and about the future of the species ("Where are we going?").
Answers to these questions have come from both philosophy and religion. Human beings are zoon echon logon, creatures of God, the res cogitans, homo sapien sapien, etc. We're the rational animal, the primate with language, souls with God-given reason, a mind/body, and so on.
How you characterize human beings has considerable impacts on what they do, individually and collectively. These characterizations are based on answers to basic human questions, whether philosophical or religious.
So in the end, from a certain point of view both religion and philosophy are operating in the same dimension.
What's labeled religion, philosophy, and science, all have common features. They're usually separated, sometimes strictly, but they share very basic human questions.
From a historical point of view, these questions have predated any "religions" we think of today, ancient/modern philosophy and certainly modern science.
Human beings have been around for roughly 200 thousand years. Around this time they developed the capacity for thought and for language. This is what has traditionally been said to separate them from other primates, and from animals in general -- "reason" and "speech" (ratio, logos).
Thinking, language, speech, words -- all this predates writing, and so if we take history to mean written history, it is all "prehistoric."
Taking the 200,000 number as an exact date for behaviorally modern humans' emergence (for the sake of simplicity), and then reminding ourselves that writing wasn't invented until roughly 5,000 years ago (3,200 BC), it leads to a question: what was happening during those 195 thousand years of our existence? What were we thinking?
It's all surmise. But we know these people buried their dead, created cave art, and had complex tools. I would assume they told stories, and shared myths and legends -- perhaps especially about ancestors. They likely all had "gods," but in the sense of animism. They had rites and rituals, danced, chanted, and sang. They had ideas about themselves and about their worlds. They asked questions and gave themselves the best answers they could conjure up -- about the plants and animals, the soil, the stars, the weather, sickness and birth and death.
This all predates anything we usually mean by "religion" or "philosophy." Yet for the majority of our time on earth, as a species, these were the phenomena that occupied our cognitive faculties -- when we weren't wandering, hunting and gathering (which is to say, pretty rarely).
Jump forward to the ancient world of Sumer, and read the Epic of Gilgamesh. Read some of the writings out of Egypt. All deal with death, life, birth. These are human concerns and human questions.
By the time we get to Greece, and the "love of wisdom," a new tradition is laid out. Same humans, similar questions, just formulated in a new way and in a new culture. From there we have the origin and foundations of Western thought.
That's the context I like to think of when trying to answer these questions. To summarize:
(1) We're human beings, and we sometimes think.
(2) Sometimes this thinking is concerned with universal questions.
(3) These questions are called philosophical.
(4) So philosophy is a kind of thinking -- a kind that asks universal questions.
What are these universal questions? What does philosophy ask? The same as many religions'.
In my view, one core question is "Why does anything exists at all?" (or, "What is existence/being?"), and both what we call "philosophy" and what we call "religion" asks (and answers) it, tacitly or explicitly. It's unavoidable.
When asked explicitly, many answers have been given and are well-known. In Plato, being was the Forms, ultimately the "Form of the Good" -- the permanent and eternal as opposed to mere seeming and becoming. In the Christian tradition, being is God. Modern science also has an answer: nature (translated from the Latin natura, from the Greek phusis -- which is also where we get "physics", considered the fundamental science).
But this is all pointless talk about history, etymology, abstraction, and soaring speculation, which should be as relevant to us and our personal, everyday concerns as a mathematical theorem is -- that is, until we grasp the following fact: along with answers to the question "What is existence/what is being?" there comes an answer to the question "What is a human being?"
"What is a human being?" What can be more relevant to us? It's often the basis for what's considered a "good" life (i.e., the question "What should I do with my life?"), and so ethics and morality; for proposals about how to organize society -- and so the basis for politics; and for claims about human nature -- and so the basis for humanity's goals and about the future of the species ("Where are we going?").
Answers to these questions have come from both philosophy and religion. Human beings are zoon echon logon, creatures of God, the res cogitans, homo sapien sapien, etc. We're the rational animal, the primate with language, souls with God-given reason, a mind/body, and so on.
How you characterize human beings has considerable impacts on what they do, individually and collectively. These characterizations are based on answers to basic human questions, whether philosophical or religious.
So in the end, from a certain point of view both religion and philosophy are operating in the same dimension.
Comments (111)
For me personally, I have only an archaeological interest in popular (of the common people) world religions --- including that of my own culture --- which are specific to a place & time that no longer exists. But I find a lot of commonality in the more elite philosophies of the deep thinkers in each culture. The religions retain their cultural flavor, for sampling in small doses, but even the obsolete worldviews still contain some nutritious meat for thought about perennial questions. :smile:
My answer to this will be much the same as for several other questions around the fora at present: philosophy concerns itself primary with conceptual clarification.
So one might do philosophy by clarifying the concepts used in religious talk. But that is very far from being the whole of philosophy. There is far more than needs clarification.
Hence it is only one small part of philosophy that "operates in the same dimensions" as religion.
And religion is not particularly adept at conceptual clarification.
I would extend that even further. Chalmers leans towards defining consciousness as a fundamental property of reality. He says "It would be odd for a fundamental property to be instantiated for the first time only relatively late in the history of the universe." I agree. If consciousness "is" at all, it has been around for a very long time....
Quoting Xtrix
More like 70,000 years. From the hard evidence we currently have. Maybe 200,000 but we don't know for sure if they were 'the same'.
All humans have a cosmological stance. We have a 'foundation' upon which we build. A devout religious person cannot simply 'give up' believing in what they believe in regardless of the evidence put before them no more than a scientist would disregard scientific evidence.
Note: NO to arguments that 'science' trumps 'belief' in this respect. To 'disregard' your cosmological perspective would mean for your entire sense of reality to collapse.
The commonality is the requirement for a sense of world (weltanschauung), axis mundi or, simply put, an anchor by which we can feel grounded. No anchor, no reality and no sense of life.
The very terms 'religion,' 'science' and 'philosophy' are expressions of our understanding that there are different means to approach different explorations. The confusion comes when we use one to explore the other as if it has priority over it. We do not tend to pray for answers to questions about physics nor do we calculate the 'meaning' of life in a physics-based formula. When we ask about the best course of action for a moral issue we don't hold purely to cold logic or measure the weight of good vs bad like a scientist.
The common feature of all of these is that they necessarily operate within a community of humans and therefore seem to express something about what humans are/do.
The heart of the religious questioning (in my mind) is that of ontology. Religion is more about reinforcing the foundations of our cosmological view, science is more about exploring it and philosophy is about questioning it. All approaches are void without the others.
It can be, if we want to define it as primarily concerned with conceptual clarification. Then we can go on from there. But that pretty much ignores how I think of it, and everything I wrote -- which I think is a better way of looking at philosophy.
Quoting Pantagruel
But I didn't mention consciousness, I mentioned thinking -- and here especially language. We don't really know anything about consciousness, but we know something about language -- and there's no reason I see to believe language has been around for a "very long time" before behaviorally modern humans emerged. You can double the numbers if you like, it makes little difference -- it's still a blip in history.
I take your comment however, and consciousness is something that's otherwise worth speculating about.
Quoting I like sushi
Yeah, there's debate about the exact dates, of course. It varies from a low range of 50 to 100 thousand years to 100/200 thousand years. I'm talking there about behavioral modernity, especially language -- which is a species property.
Quoting I like sushi
Exactly. And so no philosophy and no science. I think you've stated it better than me.
Quoting I like sushi
Indeed.
Quoting I like sushi
I would argue the heart of questioning is ontological.
Quoting I like sushi
I see where you're going here, in terms of emphasis, but again I think at the heart of this is being -- the human being -- and that means thinking/language, perception, and questioning. Which all presupposes existence.
Quoting I like sushi
You guys use the term "religion" as if describes this single monolithic entity, as if Talmudic analysis is at all like Taoism. The same can be said of "philosophy," as if all it seeks the same thing.
If you're interested, you can find religious texts that endlessly describe distinctions and clarifications and that speak nothing of ontology, but just set forth commandments or that offer moral guidance.
Some theologies accept atheism and some philosophies are schools that offer best manners of living.
What I suspect you mean is that modern Western stereotypical forms of Protestantism don't offer specificity of terms and they treat questions of being as primary, thus making them distinct from modern analytic philosophy.
That I agree with, but there's more to religion and philosophy than just that.
Trust me I don’t.
It's not a trust issue. I was referencing your use in your post.
Fair point.
In such a sense we’re all religious.
That's only because you've defined religion as a worldview and we all have worldviews. I don't see the terms as synonymous. To say someone is deeply religious doesn't refer to someone who is deeply scientific.
The two are nowhere-near alike.
Faith is a sort of spiritual courage where fate is concerned.' I have faith to get through the day'.
I can exchange the day for a book, say I'm getting through what the book considers life to be.
If anything, God is a philosopher.
Quoting 180 Proof
I.e. free inquiry (iconoclasty) =/= ritual worship (idolatry).
In simple, and short, terms I just meant that 'religion' (as in that part of us sometimes referred to as 'religiosity') is more concerned with the 'world grounding' of our existence than science. Science is not concerned so much with what 'feels' right but rather how items operate.
As the OP isn't directly about science/religion I was more or less cutting away the 'science' part to make clearer what distinctions there are between philosophy and religion ... I do not view 'religion' as merely the modern presentation of some social institution though.
Philosophy deals with 'questions' (broadly speaking) and 'religions' deal with orientation (sense of place and world at large).
I would argue strongly against any of these rough adumbrations being anything clearly defined bounds, meaning I see 'religion' in 'science' and 'science' in 'philosophy,' and 'philosophy' in 'religion' and round and round we go. I would add a forth aspect but that is not what this OP is about.
Says who?
Religion far predates philosophy. What both have in common is that they deal with basic human questions. The beings asking the questions are human beings. Human beings think and speak and, importantly, exist. Every answer comes out of a particular human being in a particular culture, and is a kind of interpretation. Some answers we now categorize as "religion," some as "philosophical," some as "scientific," etc.
His use of 'Heirophant' is something I carry around with me every day now
What is a heirophant?
More precisely 'Heirophany'
To quote:
Psychology and Science - I believe these are opposite.
Philosophy and Art - I believe these are opposite, and an evolution of the former.
Are Theists an art-form?(Haha.. seriously.)
I think your entire post is baseless and confused.
Put aside the labels for a minute and think about what’s going on when you’re “doing” what we call philosophy. What are we paying attention to? What questions are we asking?
Psychology, study of mind, and the Sciences.
Philosophy, prospect of mind, and the Arts.
It seems to have evolved in this order, that's what I'm saying. I don't see how it's wrong - survey to study to prospect. Philosophy is opposite to Art because it's a mind inwards outwards whereas Art is body outwards inwards. The same round about logic applies to the others. Psychology is outwards to inwards, and anatomy is inwards. You'll find that science is inwards to outwards(what you can do inside with what's outside of the mind), and finally humanities is outwards.
Perhaps looks like gibberish but on deep analysis and inspection you'll maybe find meaning.
We've always known what we are, I think. We merely find that to be unsatisfying, or in any case insufficient in some way. So, we contrive a definition of "human being" that's more agreeable to our conceit, and from that definition we "build haunted heaven" to use the words of Wallace Stevens. We ask ourselves: Why does that "human being" exist? What should that "human being" do?
A very hairy elephant, I believe, though not a mammoth.
:100: :up:
Have we? And what’s that?
Essentially and in short, a living organism in an environment, trying to survive as well as as possible given the characteristics we have and the resources available to us or which we can acquire. Much like any other living organism. All else is nuance, dependent largely on circumstances and matters at hand.
So a biological interpretation is what we’ve always known?
That’s not how I live, nor how anyone I know lives. We can think it and say it, but an “organism trying to survive” isn’t my experience. First and foremost I’m engaged with someone or something, I’m moving towards something, I’m caring about or interested in something. I have a world, not an environment.
I highly doubt prehistorical people thought of themselves this way or spoke of themselves this way.
If this is what leaps to mind as a kind of “default” interpretation of human being, I think it’s just a mistake.
Might have just something to do with seeing humanity solely through the lens of biological evolution - which, of course, all sensible folk must do nowadays.
I've been reading from a master's dissertation on Schopenhauer's philosophy of religion - Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Religion and his Critique of German Idealism by Nicholas Linares. He writes:
In my view a lot of current philosophy, especially in the English-speaking world, denies 'man's need for metaphysics' - has lost sight of what that need is or why it exists. The rationale, as this passage says, is existential, not scientific. Boethius said man is the one creature blessed and cursed with self-awareness, and so with the foreknowledge of her death. No other creature carries this burden. Were it not for philosophy, he said, we would be the most miserable of animals. That is the sentiment Schopenhauer is echoing. It is curious that Schopenhauer is generally cited as a convinced atheist, yet in this respect he differs profoundly from what contempoary atheism often states.
What bearing does science have on this? Well, it's ameliorative - medical science obviously ameliorates physical suffering and pain, no question about that. But does it address the existential plight? I think not. As noted above, it basically says, hey, you're just another species, deal with it.
See also Thomas Nagel's Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament.
This is part of how we interact with the rest of the world, or universe (which for me is the environment in which we exist). It's part of how we live, which is to say survive. We have certain characteristics which come into play when we interact with the world and each other. Certain of those characteristics distinguish us from other living organisms, and thus we interact with the rest of the world differently than they do in many cases. Those characteristics may be physical. But not entirely physical--we desire certain things, need certain things, fear certain things, try to resolve problems or alter situations we encounter or discover to our benefit. But nonetheless we're living organisms and our lives are our interactions with the rest of the world we inhabit.
This is interesting and I see little to disagree with.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, because modern atheism has replaced Christina dogma with scientism, rationalism, etc. I still say that's an improvement in some respects, while a disaster in others. Nietzsche has interesting things to say about this as well, of course.
Quoting Wayfarer
I deeply respect science, and think it's currently the best we have if we want to understand various aspects of the world, from atoms to planets to living things to politics. But when it gets held too closely, it gets calcified into another dogma. There's a balancing act that needs to happen, and it's not easy.
We're distinguished in that we're the only entities with a world. Animals don't have worlds, they have environments.
You're operating from a naturalistic/biological interpretation of being. It shows up in the various words and categories you employ in discussing this. Nothing "wrong" about it, necessarily, but it's not the whole picture. It tends to forget the human being doing the interpreting, and giving the answer "we are living organisms trying to survive." That very answer has a history, has developed over time, and is an outgrowth of natural philosophy. "Nature" and "physics" (you mentioned "physical") are words worth looking at closely -- their meanings have changed with time. What's "material" and "physical," for example, is very difficult to pin down indeed and rests on many assumptions.
So it may seem relatively obvious to you, as it once did to me as well, but it's always worth taking another look at.
I'm uncertain what this means. They're as much a part of the world as we are. We're peculiar animals, certainly, but animals nonetheless.
It's a naturalistic view, as you say, though I have a rather broad view of nature, as I include in it all we think and feel as well as what we do. I think we have much yet to learn about nature (the universe) and it may include more than what it appears to include to us now. Until we learn what that "more" is, though, we speculate and are inclined to wishful thinking.
If we define "world" as "physical universe" or "environment," yes. I don't think it's close to that.
They have no worlds. They're part of our world, yes.
Quoting Ciceronianus
We're also a bunch of atoms nonetheless. We're also the "rational animal." We're also "creatures of God." We're also "minds" and "selves." To pick one of these and say "Here is the REAL truth" is just nonsense. It's an interpretation. That doesn't make it untrue -- it just means it's not the only truth.
Quoting Ciceronianus
And what is "nature," then? If we include all phenomena -- all beings whatsoever, including feelings and thinking and processes and forces, matter and energy and justice and mineral baths -- then what exactly distinguishes "nature" from "God's creation"?
:roll: A cognitive defect, or bias, for 'philosophical suicide'. (Zapffe, Camus, Rosset, Brassier). Preferring to be a 'satisfied swine' rather than a sad socratic. To wit:
[quote=On the Genealogy of Morals, 3rd Essay, 28.]The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far — and the ascetic ideal offered man meaning! It was the only meaning offered so far; any meaning is better than none at all ... this fear of happiness and beauty, this longing to get away from all appearance, change, becoming, death, wishing, from longing itself — all this means — let us dare to grasp it — a will to nothingness, an aversion to life, a rebellion against the most fundamental presuppositions of life; but it is and remains a will! And, to repeat in conclusion what I said at the beginning: man would rather will nothingness than not will.[/quote]
(Emphasis added.)
:death: :flower:
Every time I hear Nietzsche I’m reminded of his brilliance. Thanks for the reminder — that’s a good one.
No longer a fan. I gave up on him a while back.
To those who've never been through the mystical looking glass it means nothing; it would be like an alien visitor from a planet where there's no sound arriving on earth and witnessing an orchestra. What are all those people doing? What are those things they're holding?. And how would you explain that to this visitor. 'Well, there's this thing called 'hearing'....'
So, meh. Philosophy from the outset had one side facing towards the numinous, another towards the practical. The former has been practically extirpated in today's culture.
It isn't conceit that creates "haunted heavens." If Heaven is whimsical, it's only because we don't have a way to quantify the meaning of humanity. We haven't quantified the personal identity, nor can we. Vacant tombs...placing living man at the forefront of everything and human endeavor on a pedestal...now that's conceit. The pot doth call the kettle black, methinks.
Because you ‘follow’ and ‘see’ nothing.
“Genuine - this is what I call him who goes into godforsaken deserts and has broken his venerating heart.
In yellow sand and burned by the sun, perhaps he blinks thirstily at the islands filled with springs where living creatures rest beneath shady trees.
But his thirst does not persuade him to become like these comfortable creatures: for where there are oases there are also idols.
Hungered, violent, solitary, godless: that is how the lion-will wants to be.”
- Thus Spake …
So I cannot possibly agree with our point because it is blatantly wrong.
Conceit as in intelligence? ;)
You take it that I worship Nietzsche because I quote him mentioning something that is clearly about ‘asceticism’? Is youur ‘sacred cow’ buddhism … I don’t assume that but I could have been petty and threw such nonsense at you if I wished to.
He actually praises it (‘asceticism’), so I gather you both agree and disagree with this. I don’t see how this isn’t about the use of ‘asceticism’.
Ignore the derogatory remark of you not ‘seeing’. I’m interested how you can read this and not appreciate it as a direction reference (and understanding of) ‘asceticism’.
I guess if you view the view of the Dionysian as ‘indulging’ then you can easily mistaken his point as being opposed to ‘ascetic’ living. That is a fair stance I guess but I don’t think it can be justified fully or stand up to the test of other points put across by him and others.
This may well be true of humanity today. Humanity in the depths of prehistory could justifiably be framed as only concerned with survival having (possibly in some cases) more interest in basic sustenance.
Although it is unfair to compare hunter gathers today’s world with those of prehistory, there are some signs that with limited resources people don’t really have any course to care for anything other than basic needs. When asked about what is important the reply is often ‘meat’ not ‘god’. When asked about death their imagination has no real time to convey an answer much further beyond some vague hint at a myth followed by ‘I don’t know’ in reference to any ‘otherly realm’.
In argument against this there must’ve been times where resources were plentiful and then as time kept by more ‘cultivation’ of time was open to them to explore and compare and contrast the inner experience with the outer impressions of existence.
As mentioned above the stresses and strains on the human body do lead to some quite extraordinary experiences. These are most likely where religious practice stems from. If you have been through an experience where you haven’t slept or ate for a week or so (or some other form of stress/strain) you might well appreciate what I’m saying here.
Every religious practice has some form of ‘abstinence’ within its rituals and practices. I generally view them as being tied up with some weird idea of ‘otherly realms’ though. I think somewhere the experience of the individual just tried to frame this lingually intangible experience as best they could and perhaps viewed it as ‘other’ or knew of no other way to express something other than through framing it within some ‘fantasy’ realm.
I was listening to Yuval guy recently talking about the mystery of patriarchy. He suggested something I have been looking at a lot over the past decade. He was suggesting that in smaller groups matriarchy can exist yet in larger social groups (nations and such) something else happens. I’m curious as to whether humans, like locust, go through physical changes once a certain population threshold is met. Obviously we don’t look physiologically different (like locust) but I think the effect could show in our neurological state - hence the lack of matriarchal societies. Given the present state of the species with mass communication this may be revealing itself more now (if there is anything to ‘reveal’).
I know it’s very speculative but I have found it an interesting premise from which to view social change. Rather than the obsession with the abstract ‘cultural’ exchanges maybe the issue is a matter of physiological changes due to reaching a population threshold.
Um...I'm not calling you unintelligent at all, but also not not saying you're conceited.
I just think we're seeing this all wrong. We know it's futile to grapple with abstraction, abstract as life forms are, so some try to quantify them by saying their personality is an illusion. Or something. I'm a big dummy, but that's how I see it.
To put in a different way, the consensus has steered away from viewing each other in a classical light.
How I interpreted that quote, is that Nietszche is criticizing asceticism, on the grounds that asceticism is
I interpret that to mean that he associates sensory experience as the source of 'happiness and beauty' and the attempt to deny that through asceticism with the wish to escape all appearance, becoming, and so on.
But the context in which it was given was as a response to a passage I posted from Schopenhauer, who can scarcely be accused of piety. Schopenhauer is saying that both religion and philosophy are an attempt to address the existential plight of suffering, as he sees it, which arises from man's being subject to 'the will', which is a blind striving that animates every living thing.
I used that passage to illustrate Schopenhauer's philosophy of religion, which admits that religion answers a need, but then asserts that philosophy is superior to it, because it demands knowledge, not simply submission to a belief system.
How we get from there to Nietszche criticising asceticism, I don't know. I guess the implication is that anything 'religious' is ascetic, or something.
‘Asceticism’ as a ‘moral principle’ he would no doubt mock. As a principle arrived at (beyond societal dictates) he wouldn’t. This is why there are a number of seeming contradictions in Nietzsche as he doesn’t lay out ‘rules’ only comments on the problem of creating rules when old rules are disposed of.
I guess it wouldn’t be too far fetched to equate his ‘overman’ with buddhist ‘nirvana’. Neither is to be possessed or attained. They are ‘the reaching for’ or ‘to strive’.
The western world isn’t buddhist it is judeochristian. The judeochristian principles cannot be ‘removed’ without replacing them with something other. The whole point of ‘god is dead’ is the problem of taking responsibility on ourselves rather than shifting it away from ourselves. But we’re all weak and pathetic and will continually keep clutching at ideas of ‘morality’ in the shadow of Christian Virtues. The very same exists in buddhists doctrines with dos and don’ts and Nietzsche would rile against those just as ardently if they happened to fall into his western world.
The quote above from The Genaelogy of Morals is how he first started to address the problem of human values and how to replace and rethink how human value systems can be replaced and/or reconstructed (in the west) in light of the disintegration of Christianity’s appeal due to the age of science. The recognition of humans as animals (less substantiated in his time than now) is something many, including myself, find hard to hold to having lived a life in a culture that regards humans (as someone mentioned) as on a ‘pedestal’ compared to other animals. The crazy thing is we have been trained to deplore our animal self because we’re able to see ourselves as apart from nature. Our images of godhood are our images of our future selves … but we have no idea how to attain them. The Greek gods were more human and lived for war and to murder and torture, to gain the upper hand over each other. The monotheistic god destroys human nature, impedes the capacity to use our ‘animal nature’. It sets up rules that ‘evil’ is a thing rather than Fortune.
I certainly don’t agree with @Xtrix that ‘religion’ came before ‘philosophy’. They are the same thing but the division made in human cognition - socially impelled for unknown circumstances/reasons - most likely allowed the concept of ‘religion’ to congeal more readily in the public eye than the concept of ‘philosophy’. Underlying the Weltanschauung (‘world view’), that has always given us ‘presence,’ was the catalyst for all items of division whether we like it or not.
I’ve tried to frame ‘time’ before through use of the symbolism of Prometheus and Epimetheus. I think it makes sense to look at (speculatively) how ‘time’ (now atomized) sat quite differently for prehistoric humans. Without a conceptual adumbration of ‘time’ I don’t see how ‘religion’ or ‘philosophy’ can gain a good foothold. Maybe they can slightly through use of narrative that exists independent of history.
For Pierre Hadot the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were a series of spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research.
However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things (Philosophy as a Way of Life p84). Hadot acknowledges his use of the term “spiritual exercises” may create anxieties, by associating philosophical practices more closely with religious devotion than typically done. Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions, are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta, despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life.
For this reason, they call upon far more than “reason alone.” They also utilize rhetoric and imagination in order “to formulate the rule of life to ourselves in the most striking and concrete way” and aim to actively re-habituate bodily passions, impulses, and desires (as for instance, in Cynic or Stoic practices, abstinence is used to accustom followers to bear cold, heat, hunger, and other privations) (PWL 85). These practices were used in the ancient schools in the context of specific forms of interpersonal relationships: for example, the relationship between the student and a master, whose role it was to guide and assist the student in the examination of conscience, in identification and rectification of erroneous judgments and bad actions, and in the conduct of dialectical exchanges on established themes.[/quote]
So what does it mean?
You should be able to explain it to us because we’re not aliens. Even our cultural differences are not that great. You said there is meaning so tell us what that meaning is. What does it mean for you? Make use of simile if need be. I for one am all ears.
What does "this" refer to?
This is a speculative thread you’ve started though but I was just playing around with the ‘what if’ of merely ‘trying to survive’ as the be all and end all of prehistoric human’s existence. I would argue to some degree that ‘surviving’ is probably closer to ‘living’ than merely ‘existing’ (meaning ‘going through the motions’ rather than engaging directly with life in some capacity).
:up:
Yeah, it really comes down to how we want to interpret or talk about human activity. It's perfectly fine to put on our biological/evolutionary glasses -- that's a powerful perspective and it explains a lot, and a lot of patterns emerge and questions answered when you do so.
But to argue it's somehow the "basic" perspective, or that we've stumbled, at long last, upon the Truth -- all else being quaint nonsense -- is a mistake.
Quoting I like sushi
Another interesting perspective, yes.
@Wayfarer
Nothing Waywarer? Have a smidgen of intellectual honesty and say what it means to you, please.
Cause of the Antichrist.
[quote=Wayfarer]?praxis ‘those who have ears to hear, let them hear’. That doesn’t apply to everyone, there are those whose minds are irredeemably made up already.[/quote]
This is what irredeemable intellectual dishonesty (i.e. shallow, derivative sophistry at best) looks like.
As noted by you, both try to make sense of the world. The difference is that some aspects of philosophy have an empirical basis, whereas Religion use of empirical phenomena is weaker. And there's also conceptual analysis which is a crucial component of modern philosophy.
Religion evidently seeks to provide meaning and purpose explicitly by invoking God (or Gods) and thus all phenomena are ultimately explained by ending up relating back to a supreme being. This can happen in philosophy too, so there's no escape from some kind of intuition or basic idea of which we have an intuition is correct.
Religion tends to provide an answer, whereas in philosophy issues can be clarified, minimized or left behind and often more questions result for pursuing the issue at hand.
A professor I had once joked that philosophers have a question for every answer. Susan Haack pointed out that if two people are in a room and always disagree, they are usually philosophers, which is correct, to a point.
The spiritual element (or mystical or numinous) is not as easy topic for philosophy to deal with, whereas in religion it is taken as a given or an evident phenomenon.
I suppose the key difference, in my mind, is that one field keeps asking and debating age old questions whereas the other often has the answers "ready made", though interpretive issues do arise. Descartes had a point that at least once in our life, when appropriate, we should question everything, and see what follows form this.
It's a good exercise for thinking a bit more clearly about how we interpret and relate to the world.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Yes.
Quoting Xtrix
The sense of self is a "modern" notion. Believe it or not, "self" did not exist in the cerebral happenings of humans in the primitive era. This is a modern philosophical idea, not a religious one.
Slinging ad hominems my way doesn't make your (typical knee-jerk) evasion of @praxis' direct question any less conspicuous. And whether or not I harbor a "pathological hatred of anything ... religious" in no way addresses the veracity of my critiques of "religious" apologetics and related fetish-fantasies (e.g. the only response you were capable of to Zapffe's interpretation of what Schopenhauer calls "metaphysical need" is this evasive ad hominem). You simply haven't any philosophical credibility, sir.
I don’t see the relevance of this comment. I didn’t say anything about the concept of “self” nor that it was a religious idea.
Of course “primitive” humans referred to themselves and thought about their own being and the being of others, just as I said. There’s nothing philosophical about that— people do it all the time, and there are words in every language that does so. If you truly can’t distinguish between this ordinary usage and the technical notion of “self,” then that’s your problem.
No you did not say self. It was an implication from C's post and yours. It is relevant in the exchanges between you and C.
Quoting Xtrix
You certainly missed the philosophical part of my comment. That's why I emphasized it as philosophical. Referring to yourself is not what "self" in philosophical terms means, although for practical purposes, they did have awareness.
I never hinted or suggested you were?
Either way you do seem to be avoiding any attempt to explain/show/adumbrate what it is that was asked for. I don’t even know what you mean by ‘mystical looking glass’ nor would it seem obvious to anyone as it is too vague a statement.
People used something akin to complex rosary beads to store information. Peoples alive today familiar with such mnemonic techniques (in Australia) view constructs like Stone Hedge as blatant mnemonic devices. I think it is an interesting to view prehistoric landscapes as canvases upon which a rich tapestry of knowledge was written by way of mythos and ritual. This is something I was trying to get at earlier in mentioning Eliade’s work. The Mundane is imbued with a Sacred meaning. Knowledge is passed on this way as the written form didn’t exist.
As a basic example if some people had a successful hunt the would be happy about it. The location of this hunt would leave a lasting psychological mark on the landscape. From this we have the beginnings of a ritual. The site will become ‘special’ it will take on a Sacred meaning.
I don’t see this as being anything like religion nor philosophy. Those two distinctions are merely laid out for academic convenience but the underlying principles of human existence are still items of human existence. Giving authorship and agency to inanimate objects is also something human infants do before they can either walk or talk - in is a natural disposition (the psychological/neurological evidence for this is clear as can be).
I understand the problems of metaphor, mythos and mimetic functions, but they are nevertheless power tools of human cognition that allow us to relate to each other and the world at large.
Note: Her name is Lynne Kelly (referring to study of mnemonics).
Exactly. The reference seems interesting and I’ll check it out.
You wrote, "To those who've never been through the mystical looking glass it means nothing", and also seem to claim that Nietsche was incapable of seeing this meaning. What are you referring to? What's the idea or sentiment behind this meaning that you mention? Again I will point out that we're not aliens but all members of the same species, with the same sense organs, neurological structure, and even very similar cultural backgrounds. Also, many of us are familiar with Eastern religion, philosophy, and mysticism.
Just say what you mean.
The "REAL truth" isn't at issue. Your point as I recall was that we humans ask ourselves (among other things) "what we are" (I paraphrase). My contention is we know what we are, but enjoy thinking otherwise; in fact prefer to think otherwise--usually, that we're more than we are or appear to be. I think that's what we're doing when we ask ourselves: What is a human being?
It happens we can be reasonably certain that we're made up of atoms. We're also reasonably certain that we're living creatures in a world with other things we interact with on a daily basis (putting aside the silly claims some philosophers are pleased to make now and then). It would be incorrect, though, for us to say human beings are "God's creatures" or creatures that have souls, for example. To the extent we make such claims when asking what we are, I think we engage in wishful thinking. Maybe we are, maybe we do, but to assert we are/do is unwarranted.
Yes, I know. And my contention is that this is completely misguided. We don't "know what we are" and simply like to think otherwise; rather, we interpret ourselves in various ways -- and always have. To say we're organisms trying to survive is one of those interpretations. Why you privilege this above others is why I mentioned "default" and "real truth" -- how else is it to be interpreted? If we "know what we are," and what we are is an organism, then that indeed is the "real truth," the rest being mere thinking. That's how you're portraying it, and that's simply a mistake. It's mistaking one interpretation for the "true" interpretation. Which is what Christians and many others do as well.
Quoting Ciceronianus
When we ask that question, we're already in a different mode of being than we are in when hunting, gathering, engaging with tools and interacting with others. Which is exactly what you're doing as well when you then interpret human being as an organism trying to survive.
Quoting Ciceronianus
There's a much richer explanatory theory in physics and chemistry than many of the claims of Christian dogma, yes. But some Christians are more sophisticated, defining God as a kind of "force" or energy field...none of this is the point, though. It's not that every interpretation is equally serious. Science happens to be very powerful for many different reasons. But it simply cannot explain everything, and continuously fails to see how reliant it is on philosophy and is, in fact, an outgrowth of philosophy -- namely, natural philosophy.
Quoting praxis
Recall I had started by referring to an essay on Schopenhauer's philosophy of religion. This essay says that Schop. situated 'man's need for metaphysics' in what he perceived as the existential plight of human beings - driven by blind will to pursue pleasures and satisfactions that can never be satiated, and which can only be transcended through a form of renunciation. But he doesn't say, therefore, that the solution to this predicament is to believe in a religious creed (notice that 'creed' and 'credence' basically mean the same). I think Schopenhauer's understanding is nearer to that of the gnostics and to Eastern philosophy - which he acknowledges - which call for a kind of meta-cognitive shift, an insight into the nature of being and knowing. I know that sounds vague, but then, Schopenhauer's entire magnum opus was about this shift. Also the essay I linked to provides a much deeper analysis, That is something like what I meant by 'through the looking glass'. (The reference to Lewis Carroll was not accidental, I think he too intuitively grasped the kind of meta-cognitive shift. Remember also that Schop, saw himself as the intellectual heir of Kant.)
[quote=Nicholas Linhares]Schopenhauer argues that, because (religions') function is to provide a system of metaphysics for the average person, who has a limited capacity to comprehend metaphysical truths, religion must be less direct when making its claims than philosophy. Religious teachings can be of “inestimable benefit” to the average person, but “with reference to the mental capacity of the great mass of people, they can only [present] an indirect, not a direct truth” (WWR II 168). This indirect truth is that which “has itself under the veil of allegory” (WWR II 169). Such allegories employ symbols, allusions, narrative tropes, figurative language, and cultural references from the time and place in which their author is writing to convey a deeper, more universal idea than one provided by a literal reading of the text. Schopenhauer discovered that this approach to writing and interpreting religious texts was common to mystical traditions arising in vastly different civilizations. He remarks on the similarities, when read allegorically, found “in the Oupnekhat (Upani?ads), in the Enneads of Plotinus, in Scotus Erigena, in the passages of Jacob Bohme, and especially in the wonderful work of Madame de Guyon, Les Torres, and in Angelius Silesius, and finally also in the beautiful poems of the Sufis” (WWR II 612). [/quote]
And no, I don't think Nietszche 'gets' this, but I'm not going to argue that point.
arranged by what, is the question.
It seems likely that hunter/ gatherers would have known what they were, or had no existentially angsty questions about it as we moderns do.. The more elaborate societies become, the more specialization, the more possibilities of vocation available, the more the question of identity and purpose becomes an existential issue.
Add to that the basic mystery of the Real, of existence itself; questions that have had more and more elaborate stories, and more and more questioning of the stories themselves, spun around them over millennia and the modern situation doesn't seem so strange.
Do you mean emptiness?
Next time perhaps try not to make so much ado about nothing.
??nyat? is not mentioned in that essay and a lot of people won’t know what is meant by it.
I'm merely suggesting that what prompts a person to ask "What is a human being?" isn't any confusion on the part of the person. The person has no doubt the person, and other persons, are human beings. That person doesn't have any problem distinguishing a human being from an owl, or an ant.
The person asking the question is either engaged in a kind of academic exercise, wishing to describe a human being for who knows what reason, or listing what it is that distinguished human beings from insects (for example) or wondering whether a human being is something more than what he/she/whatever already knows to be the case, or perhaps determine what a human being should be.
The question as to how to distinguish a human being from other animals, with its very obvious answers is not at all the same question as "what does it mean to be a human being", though. You may want to say the latter question is a misguided one, but it's tied up with the ethical question regarding the good life.
I kind of like this. Is this from a book or just your own stuff? So any time I'm asking universal questions I'm doing philosophy? What do you consider universal questions? What about when I'm sweeping my floor and taking a shower? I'm thinking a lot there to, but it's not philosophical, so what is it? Not many people ask themselves big questions.....does that mean most of us aren't philosophers?
Thanks. Not from a book, but might as well be. Like anything it's a combination of books I've read about history and philosophy filtered through the snowflake-like tapestry of my brain's neurochemistry. :wink:
Quoting John McMannis
In my view, yes.
Quoting John McMannis
One's that thinkers throughout history have asked and struggled with:
What is a good life? What is good?
What am I?
What happens after death?
What should we do?
What is knowledge? Justice? Love? Beauty? Consciousness?
What is being?
And so on...
Quoting John McMannis
Reverie, I guess. Or simply average thinking. Sometimes I like to call it "junk thought." We're talking to ourselves all the time, and almost none of it gets expressed, nor is any of it worth expressing. My mind wanders a lot, jumping from image to image or word to word. Most of it is just crap.
Quoting John McMannis
Indeed.
Yes, but that's not saying much. The Christian doesn't have much issue with that either. Nor did the Greek. Nor did the Hindus. We don't have much problem separating a tree from a rock, but that doesn't prove anything about what a tree or rock "really is," underneath it all (e.g., one consists of cells and the other doesn't).
Quoting Ciceronianus
There you go again. "Already knows." What do they "already know"? I think you're quite right -- they do "already know," and what they know is very different depending on time and place. In Medieval Europe, they "already knew" that humans were created by God -- before conducting their academic (or Scholastic) exercise. Today we "already know" that we're simply evolved, biological organisms -- before we conduct our academic exercises about "what a human being is." Both are interpretations, both are "pre-theoretical."
And that, essentially, is my point. "What does it mean to be a human being?" is not the same question as "What is a human being?"
I think we're saying different things, or perhaps I'm being unclear.
Christians, Hindus, Moslems, Romans, Vandals, Han, Mayans, all humans, now alive or previously alive; none of them take, or took, a squirrel (for example) to be a human being. They were quite able to distinguish themselves and other humans from other creatures and from things. They didn't ask themselves "What am I (or what is my friend or enemy); an armadillo, or a human being?"
They also know/knew things about human beings which aren't limited to physical attributes but have in common. They know/knew that human beings get angry, get sad, get happy, etc. They know/knew we get hungry, eat, procreate, fight--they and we know a great deal about what a human being is and would agree that such characteristics are common to human beings. There would be no dispute regarding whether a person was a human being having such characteristics.
We obviously dispute other things--whether Jesus is our savior; whether we're the spawn of extraterrestrials; whether we're God's creatures; whether Adam and Eve were our ancestors, whether we have immortal souls. These are issues, as you say, of interpretation. They're may also be issues of speculation, faith, wishful thinking.
When we speak of what something "really" is we're saying that it is or may be something in addition to or more than or different from what we all agree it is.
Not necessarily. Apes have the same characteristics you mentioned. In fact some explorers were often unsure about the humanity of the tribes they encountered — which is racist, of course, but still a fact.
Anyway, I’m nitpicking. I understand your point. I’m only emphasizing this to demonstrate that knowing what a human being is perhaps isn’t as easy as you believe. We’re able to distinguish differences between trees and shrubs, between horse and donkey, between humans and primates— but to pin down exactly why they’re different and whether or not they belong in similar categories isn’t an easy task, as we learn from taxonomy.
Quoting Ciceronianus
It’s all interpretation. Once you’re thinking or talking about it, you’re interpreting. If you perceive, you’re interpreting. Take vision as an example.
That doesn’t man there’s no such thing as truth, or that anything goes. But it does mean that what we take as solid fact, basic truth, or total agreement really doesn’t guarantee us much. And to say human beings are organisms, at bottom, and all else is interpretation, is just saying “This interpretation is the reality, and all other interpretations are interesting but culturally dependent.”
What is it you interpret vision to be interpreting?
I believe I understand what you're saying, but I think that there comes a point when insisting all is interpretation becomes meaningless, or pedantic (no offense intended). That may be the Pragmatist in me. When we assert that when I see a chair I'm interpreting it, I doubt we're saying anything significant. When we claim that we can distinguish a human being from a potato, I don't think this is an interpretation in any reasonable sense.
Colors, for example.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Well in the sense of perception, yes it's an interpretation. And it is trivial, yes. When it comes to an understanding of being (the world, the human being, etc), it's also an interpretation -- but it doesn't necessarily have to be explicit or theoretical. It's just what everyone knows and does. If you were to study a tribe somewhere, by looking at what they do -- their culture, their vocabulary, their customs, their rites, their work, their daily routines, etc -- you can better grasp their understanding of being.
I think the very methodology by which the universal metaphysics are developed within philosophy and religion follow an opposing order. Philosophy, like science, begins with the human experience of reality, and asks "what does this mean?" Then, hypothesizing and theorizing about metaphysical principles follows. Both philosophy and science begin with observation, the general procession being: observation > hypothesization > theorization > [philosophy or scientific law]. The nature of both scientific and philosophical enterprise are marked by inquisition; science and philosophy are inquisitive in nature. Religion, rather, is not.
Quoting Wayfarer
A very cogent observation, and pertinent to my point. The goal of religion is to ameliorate the human existential crisis which pursues the foreknowledge of death. Religion takes the opposite approach from both philosophy and science, beginning with an assertion about a desired end, for instance that human beings will not experience death, and developing a cosmology determined to show, prove, or convince of that assertion. The process enjoyed by our particular 'western' religions, for instance, is as: [assertion of eventuality] < "faith" < natural truth < divine revelation. This means that as an enterprise, rather than being inquisitive, religion, opposing both philosophy and science, is generally demonstrative in nature. This is an essential difference between the focus of religion on the one hand, and that of philosophy and science on the other, in my view.
We have to believe what we say to be true and to have mostly always been true for us. We are not at all inclined to throw off certain lived narratives and so shed our skin with words all the time believe our new skin to be the original skin.
It’s all a blur we choose to see certain images in. When the image changes we change with it so we cannot even appreciate our own progression from moment to moment nor recognise a moment passing.
As a way of understanding and viewing our place in the world none of the above do so in any one particular way and none of them do so without the existence of the other in mind (however it may be represented).
An economist will view the view differently to a teacher, and all teachers and all economists will, for the most part, have a particular shared view. Would we call this a 'religion'? I don't think so, but the systems under which economists and teachers operate will tend to give them a common frame with which to view the world.
The 'frame' is important and we spend absolutely no time looking at the frame. The frame is there and unseen. How we move and direct the frame has a lot to do with its shape and the current view it gives us.
How people choose to apply 'science,' 'philosophy' and 'religion' to this story of The Frame would be interesting to hear. I am assuming some would say the frame is X or the view is Y etc.,.
Modern science is much more narrow in scope than that. It is only concerned with meaning insofar as it confirms or falsifies a specific hypothesis under consideration, or reveals a general principle. But that principle will generally be physical in nature, rather than anything like a moral principle. Greek philosophy was much more concerned with hypothesising and theorising about metaphysical principles than is science per se.
:smirk:
Quoting Ciceronianus
:up:
Quoting Ciceronianus
Apparently, "interpretation" is one of those lit-crit loan words in philosophy which is easier to over-interpret than most other terms.
When we way "all is interpretation" we misuse "interpret" and "interpretation" as they're defined in dictionaries and ordinary use. When we interpret something we explain it, or judge it, or translate it depending on context; we do something intentionally, and our interpretation may be wrong or inadequate. We do none of those things when we see something; we simply do what people with sight do--that is to say, see as human beings do. There's typically no thought involved.
To say I'm interpreting when I see a radish implies something about seeing which makes it a matter of dispute. Seeing a radish thus becomes a matter of debate or dispute; did I see a radish, or is that merely me interpreting again? It seems a way of assuring that all day to day living is considered uncertain or questionable, which I suppose is pleasing to some. It's a trope, though.
All the better.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Perception is a kind of interpreting.
"We tend to think that what we see just depends on what's 'out there,' but the more one studies vision either as a scientist or as a painter, one discovers that what's called vision involves an enormous amount of interpretation. The color we see as red is not the same color in terms of wavelengths at different times of the day. So in even in what we think of as our simplest interaction with the world, just looking at it, we're interpreting." (Hilary Putnam)
Quoting Ciceronianus
Right, there isn't.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Not really. It's not a question of whether anything exists "out there" or not, but that -- as Kant points out -- we're perceiving things, and perception has its own forms.
Quoting Ciceronianus
That's exactly wrong. This is only the case is one is ensconced in epistemology. This great fear of the "uncertain" creeps in, but that's not important here. What I'm pointing out is trivial. I'm not using the dictionary version of "interpreting," which is similar to saying "it's just your opinion." It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of perception. We all perceive, and so we all interpret. A glass being half full or empty is also an interpretation -- it doesn't mean there's no glass there.
That's not merely a perception of a glass with liquid in it, but a judgement. Of course we see a glass with liquid in it as a glass with liquid in it, but that is not an interpretation, it is an example of a basic understanding that is shared by all. We can build on that basic understanding and interpret the glass and liquid as arrangements of different kinds of atoms, but nonetheless we still see, and cannot but see, it as a glass with some liquid in it.
What definition are you employing, then? If you define "interpreting" as "seeing" you certainly may do so if you like, of course, but it seems misguided.
I agree with Putnam that what we see doesn't depend solely on what's "out there." Neither does it depend solely on what's "in here." What we see, do and think is a result of our interaction with the rest of the world. Sometimes we interpret when interacting; sometimes we don't.
When I see a radish, I see just what a human being with (relatively) normal eyesight would see. If I was colorblind, I would see just what a human being who was colorblind would see. If I see a radish at sunup I'd see what a human being would see on looking at a radish at sunup; if I see it at sundown I'd see what a human being would see then. This isn't my interpretation of a radish, however. It's me (a human being) looking at a radish in certain circumstances or under certain conditions and seeing what a human being would see in that case.
A bird looking at a radish isn't engaged in interpretation. Neither are we.
It's a perception, and perception is a kind of interpreting. All perception. again I think Kant is good here and I'm basically repeating him.
This is only controversial if one takes interpreting to mean "uncertain" or "opinion." Of course there's a glass there, and a chair and a tree and the color red. But all of that is also partly subject-dependent.
I agree that what we see depends on us just as it depends on what is there; seeing is interactive. Animals also presumably see things as things (but not self-reflectively, since they have no language). I just think 'interpretation' is a problematic term to use in this context because it suggests a voluntary act that is somewhat arbitrary and could have been otherwise.
Perception.
Quoting Ciceronianus
We're always perceiving and, thus, we're always interpreting.
Quoting Ciceronianus
It's your perception of the radish, which is interpreting.
Quoting Ciceronianus
A bird is interpreting sense data as well, as we are. This happens automatically.
That's fine, but recall I said at the beginning that I was not using "interpreting" in this sense -- namely in the dictionary sense. I think perception is better to, but can't always be employed as well.
Religion [math]\rightarrow[/math] Philosophy [math]\rightarrow[/math] Science.
All these fields are avatars of each other that, oddly, coexist. Well, it isn't that surprising (grandmother, daughter, granddaughter can all be alive together).
I think this is exactly right, chronologically— with one important caveat: that the words themselves are being used in modern terms. Otherwise, all three share the common feature of dealing with basic human questions — they all begin and end with the human mind.
In the modern sense, I think science (as natural philosophy) is the most narrow. Its object is nature. Science, then, from one perspective is simply physics — and physics studies how the natural world works mostly using mathematics. Mathematics is a very unique activity, and calls upon different human mental capacities — what one might call logical capacities (and which is often meant by “reason,” “rational,” and even “thinking” — all potential translations or derivatives from the word “logos.”)
It’s also important to recall that both words, nature and physics, stem from the same Greek word: phusis, which was the early Greek word for “being.” Its more limited sense— nature (natura in Latin) — became predominant shortly thereafter.
So the lines between religion and philosophy aren’t as rigid as one might think. I sense the push of scientism has reinterpreted history as a story of overcoming myth and superstition through the powers of the scientific method — and so there’s endless debate about religion and science, faith and reason, etc. But this can be misleading. I myself for too long took this line of thinking.
But as in the case with Buddhism, ordinary conceptions of religion tend to break down. It’s better and easier, in my view, to see all of these words as referring simply to an activity of humans; specifically the activity of “deep thinking” (to distinguish from other kinds of everyday thought) in terms of fundamental questioning.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a great example of what I mean.
Religion [math]\rightarrow[/math] Thinking (Philosophy) [math]\rightarrow[/math] Science.
There really is no choice but science (materialism). Science is amenable to testing; anything else is more about coherence (of ideas) rather than correspondence (with reality).