Jacques Maritain
Anyone have been read Jacques Maritain? I have discovered, recently, by indication of a group in facebook, of philosophy. Such a great mind; he have such masterworks in philosophy of art, philosophy of nature, and is a great renovator of the scholastic tradition.
Comments (63)
Yeah, these days there is not much interest in the philosophy of art and not much in the philosophy of nature, outside the latter of which being quantum mechanics, which fascinates us all.
For me, "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder", and "our sense of beauty and power to perceive it or receive it fluctuates greatly over time" covers it all. I would be curious to know if there were any other findings on beauty and on art... written in a text aimed at five-year-old readers, since my absorption capacity to read has greatly declined in the last two or three decades.
What else is there? I don't know, but I'm eagle to hear.
It is true that the first manifestation of visual arts (the statues of the pre-historic Venuses, cave-drawings and -paintings, as well as documented and undocumented but likely decoratons such as jewellery, skin-art, body-art and hair-art) were unseparable from religious / spiritual iconism connected to early man. But so were all other human manifestations of the time, such as hunting, killing, gathering edible plants, warring, sleeping, sex, and childbirth.
So one can argue that art is an extension of spiritual belief, but I think that is a misconception, as it creates a causational link where the link does not exist. If art was an extension of spritualism / religionism, then humans would never have developed secular art. Which is, like, 100 percent of today's artistic output / throughput, with rounding.
I somewhat disagree. I've said for years that beauty is there waiting; an "object" waiting for a "subject" to perceive it. This isn't a theory, it's an experience that I've had, which I count as a better guide. Not "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", but rather "beauty waits for the beholder to see".
Quoting god must be atheist
Art expresses the human, and the religious is an inseparable aspect of the human; whether Hindu, atheist, nihilist, or whatever...all "religions". A new word would be better and less controversial. So, "secular" art is just as religious as anything else. It just expresses a different ideology.
How do you explain then the atheist movement, the secular movement, the agnostic movement, and the fact that 200 years ago everyone was religious, with a few exceptions, but in today's world 1/4 roughly (between one and two billion people) are not religious, and don't even think of religion or god?
Your statement is clearly wrong. Religions and beliefs in god(s) ARE separable from humans. I am sure about that, and I won't be swayed from it. Unless there is reason to.
Absolutely. An ideology which is different in being devoid of religion or god(s). I know that it's not the case in your little world, but it is the case in the world you never cared to learn about.
Religions, all of them. Like I said, maybe a new word is in order...or maybe not. What religion does for people is a function which survives the apparent death of "religion" proper. Ideology is a loaded word as well, so maybe also not the best choice. The I Ching, for instance, describes the idea of "clinging"; fire clings to the log, which is the fuel to keep the flame going. What these stories (religions, atheist movements, etc) do for us is provide that fuel; they're essentially the very stuff of being, of life. Something along those lines. The question is whether atheism or secularism can provide the same spiritual nourishment in this way that religion has done; whether the "stories" that support them are as advantageous to spiritual well-being.
It explains so much of what is said and written on this forum.
Thanks, had meant to turn the discussion back to Maritain anyway.
I am an artist (painter, some sculpture) and I find your idea here very bizarre. Hygiene?! What?! You are going to have to explain that one to me.
Do you respond to visual art at all aesthetically?
Oddly enough though, come to think of it, I am pretty obsessed with bodily cleanliness, and I'm neurotically pursuing purity and perfection in many other areas. So maybe there is some connection!
Yeah, I'd frame it the other way, if anything at all. Hygiene (the need and preference for personal physical cleanliness) as representing a projection of our underlying affinity to high standards of spiritual/mental/emotional "hygiene".
I would use the word "belief system". Religions necessarily involve a god figure, and the supernatural; atheism does not. That's a HUGE difference.
But both are beliefs, inasmuch as there is no proof for the existence, or for the non-existence of god. Whether you accept that there are supernatural forces acting in the world (which the religious do) or reject the possibility of supernatural forces acting in the world, you act on faith.
But please don't make the mistake of taking "faith" in the general sense to mean "faith" in the religious sense.
I don't know what it means to respond to visual art aesthetically. I like to look at pretty pictures, but my preference in visual arts is huge landscapes, such a the view of Budapest from the top of the Citadella, or from Halaszbastya. (You can see these, too, if you use Google maps, to hover over Budapest, and the descend and focus in on the spots I mentioned, and then take a "satellite" view, then a street view.) I like maps, they give me special joy to look at, especially Stieler's maps from the 19th century, and Coronelli maps from the seventeenth. I like some sculptures, such as Rodin's, and some from the Greek masters, Michelangelo's David, and the Pieta by da Vinci. But I like these sculptures for what they represent, the idea, the feeling, the emotion and the philosophy behind them. (Even if they are not something I could describe to.) I liked two movies ESPECIALLY for the visual effects, and for their treatment of philosophical topics: "2001" and "A Clockwork Orange".
As to hygiene: I believe it's a rudimentary art form to make a messy house and clean it up, and put everything in its place, and thus make the living space clutter-free, smelling nice, and clean. I like when I do it in my home. This is both, to me, an artistic expression (rudimentary, not complex, and not symbolic at all... just making something beautiful) and an act of hygiene. I imagine the caveman (for lack of a better expression) kept animal remains in his cave, which would start to stink after a while, and he or his wife would take the trouble of taking the old bones and rotting meat out of the cave, and dispose of them, maybe sweep up, put the rudimentary pottery and tools neatly on ledges, and the not-used hides that served as garments. I can see that happen, and how much better they would feel, since the air quality would improve, and by association, they enjoyed the CLEANLINESS and the LOOK of the place at the same time, and eventually the two feelings became unseparable, and thus the art form of house cleaning would be borne -- this was the first art, I believe.
Then came the depiction of hunger and sex, which was evident in hunting scenes and in sculpting fat, hardly human-shaped, overweight women, which modern anthropologists call "Venuses", since the anthropologists figure that these figures were depictions of very fertile women.
Belief system is an ok placeholder for now, I guess. But no, every belief system has a god figure. Hence why "religion" still somewhat works; it's a metaphor.
Quoting god must be atheist
What's the difference? Again "religious faith" is a human phenomenon that survives traditional religion. I don't understand this atheistic existential horror at the concept of religious faith. It's almost like you lot are ashamed that you possess it.
This is a statement with no support and I challenge you to explain it.
First off, of course, we have to define the god concept.
God is supernatural, and that is an undeniable characteristic of god. And atheists and secular thinkers deny the presence of supernatural in our universe. So when you say every belief system has a god figure, secularists may have some aspects of a god god figure in their belief system (for instance, worship; some people wroship money) but other aspects of essential god features are missing in their belief systems. Therefore it is false to claim that each belief system has a god figure. Another essential feature of god in every conceivable and historically or presently prominent religions is that god can create matter. In polytheisms, at least one god can create matter. Secularists, however, deny that matter can be created. They are adamant that matter and energy is a constant given, they can morph into the other, but never disappear and never get created.
So no, it is not true that all belief systems have a god figure. I daresay that you just haven't met in your small Georgean village or Texas community any persons whose world view could have affected or broadened your knowledge of what is available in human concepts in the world.
Maybe you have, but your preachers advised you to consider them evil, the spawns of Satan, and therefore you must disregard everything they say? Possible. (I am just conjecturizing here. I don't know your background, or what experiences you've had. All I go by is the opinions you express.)
No, we are not ashamed because we don't possess it. We are insulted when someone suggests that atheism is a god-fearing belief system.
Whereas (some) god-fearing people are unable to conceptualize that a belief system is void of god.
It is your ineptitude, the religious', not ours, the atheists'. We can't be blamed for our faith, but you can be blamed for not accepting that our faith does not involve a god.
I'm thinking metaphorically, which seems to be a source of confusion here. I'm essentially using the word god as a metaphor, and yes, as you say, worship is an aspect of this, and I would argue worship is the function of how we interface with the concept of a god. So as a secular person, someone may worship money, yes, or science, progress, etc. These things are gods in their own way, and I would go further and counter that they are, metaphorically, supernatural as well. What is "science"? What is "progress"? These are abstract concepts that represent ideological (sorry, makes the most sense in this context) stories. Science is almost, I think unconsciously, made reference to ontologically, as if it's a being. What I'm arguing is that, in the absence of a God proper, something else must fill the void. So god never left after all. The notion that we can dispense with a god and set off on our own is both hubristic and near-sighted.
Quoting god must be atheist
Lol I live in NYC.
Quoting god must be atheist
This is a statement with no support and I challenge you to explain it.
Quoting god must be atheist
I'm not religious.
But I think the general gist of his argument about Empiricism as a significant ingredient in the disenchantment and mechanization of modern society, all based on an un-self-aware philosophy (in which man uses reason to deny itself) is telling. It feels like a wiser, more well-read, more logical expression of the general themes I tend to blabber on about on this site.
explains a great deal.
Yes, and then, with that in mind:
"The grasping of an object such as an essence or a nature, brought out in its intelligible, supra-sensual components, makes no sense for the Empiricist theory, which denies universal ideas and universal natures. How could the grasping of objects such as Being and the transcendental properties of Being make sense for it? In the Empiricist view, Being means only the fact that a fact comes under sense observation, or the fact that a Predicate is connected with a Subject through the copula. It is not surprising that Empiricism was led by the development of its inner logic to terminate in Positivism, which is not philosophy but a pseudo-scientific escape from or substitute for philosophy."
You stated something is possessed by atheists. The onus is on you to prove that.
You are not in the heads of all atheists. You just created a false conjecture.Quoting Noble Dust
Then there is prayer, there is lent, there are sacrifices, there are atonements, there are rites, there are a whole bunch of other things which are communication between man and an alleged god, but atheists don't do any of them.
Quoting Noble Dust
You are bringing up ideas that have been shot down already. Metaphorically there is nothing supernatural about ideas, thoughts, progress. You are making a twisted claim with that.
You may want to think that they are gods on their own, but they are not.
Quoting Noble Dust
NO person thinks of science as a being. Cut the nonsense, please. You said "almost", so you admit it's not really. You are trying to twist words, but you are not doing a good job at it.Quoting Noble Dust
Right. Maybe you don't follow a set or defined religion or a community of people of a faith. But do you believe a god or some gods exist?
I can see this will go nowhere, but I'll jump in one more time for the heck of it.
Quoting god must be atheist
No, those are aspects of a specific religion; Christianity. Using those specific Christian traditions as evidence that secular god-forms don't exist because those secular god-forms don't possess analogs to that specific religion's aspects is logically inconsistent and near-sighted. The God concept in religion is insanely broad; millions of gods in Hindu religion (which itself, as named, is a Western conglomerate of distinct traditions), The historical uniqueness of the "one" god of Judaism, and it's complication into three persons in Christianity, the complete lack of god as understood in the West in Buddhism, the vagueness of any god concept in the Tao, the unclear concept of "gods" in Greek and Roman mythology and what they may or may not have represented or signified (literally, figuratively, psychologically, or otherwise). It's a brash simplification on your part to think that you can pair the concept of god as a whole down to certain blatantly religion-specific aspects which you can conveniently use to counter the idea that the god concept isn't at work in your own worldview.
Quoting god must be atheist
You also are not in the head of all persons. I'm talking about the zeitgeist of how science is talked about. "Science says..." "Science tells us..." "Because science..." Personifications, accidental to be sure, but real.
Quoting god must be atheist
I'm not an atheist. I simply lack a disbelief in god.
I agree. We get invested in concepts. In some cases, we think that the concept is 'up there,' laying down the law. (We can believe in a personal god.) But metaphorically concepts in general are 'up there.' I can't hold justice in my hand. Nor can I hold the virtue of thinking critically in my hand.
Much of philosophy and politics is (seems to me) a replacement for a traditional religion and a mere transformation of the 'gods' (dominant concepts of virtue and value) in general.
Right, because reason is a 'god.' For you, (the concept of ) reason is authoritative. And that's my 'religion' too, mostly.
Yeah, that's a decent summation. I was actually going to say something similar about the "abstract" being comparable to the "supernatural", but got side tracked. @god must be atheist, when I described the god-concept as metaphorical, this was what I was getting at; logically abstract concepts, within an Empiricist view (bringing in the Maritain lecture to bring the discussion back to the topic) seem to wrongly evoke a supernatural quality; they're abstract in the sense that they're "above" experience, but artificially so. Within Empiricism, we artificially posit that sense is the only real, when in reality, concepts only exist outside of the immediate sense-perception, and only reason gets us there, but not empirically. So, circling back to the concept of religion as universal and inclusive of secularism and atheism, if reason has to function beyond sense-perception in order to be real, then, necessarily, it functions non-physically. It functions "abstractly", or "super-naturally". Now, if we don't move past this reality, the debate just becomes a game of insults based on bad definitions: "you're stuck in thinking super-naturally!" "No, you're stuck in the abstract!" But really, we're functioning on the same plane. But the way we describe the plane actually matters; what I'm describing is the reality that something behind the given, the sense-experience exists; I call it the spiritual. You may call it something different. But if you deny it's existence, then you are squarely in the wrong based on the argument I've laid out here.
That's what I thought you were getting at with 'supernatural.' We die/kill for ghosts like freedom, democracy, truth, God, justice, fame, glory, etc. Even wealth that is not concretely enjoyed but enjoyed as a number that is bigger (or even smaller) than other numbers is a 'god.'
Anyway, I had to chime in, because for me it was clarifying to realize that all we get with humans is a transformation of 'religion,' mostly from a more pictorial representation to an abstract conceptual representation of what is worthy and authoritative. An atheist mocks the theist, but the virtue of being an atheist is just as spectral as the big man upstairs.
In the name of [ ], I do this, that, and the other. Amen.
:fire: (with a few caveats, but I'm with you in the main)
I'm only with me in the main, too.
As we all should be.
Indeed. We agree here too.
No. You believe only god? I believe the weather report. I believe when my neighbour says he is going to go the barber shop. I believe my x wife when she says she'll pick up the grandchildren after 8.
You are copmletely driven by your desire to prove that atheists have gods. No, they don't. Your examples are fit for a congregation in Baptist church, but they are shown to be wrong by someone who is a cliritcal thinker, not a blind follower of a faith in god along with all other accoutraments of a god worship.
I'm a hard-core atheist. Maybe that will help.
What I'm trying to point out is that anti-religious role-play tends to be blind in its own investment in spectral entities ---like truth, justice, progress, etc. This is not to say that such entities make bad 'gods.'
Quoting god must be atheist
Indeed, the 'critical thinker' is the 'Christ image' (the what-we-should-be) of (negative/critical) philosophy. Just as the vegetarian is proud to abstain from meat and the Christian to abstain from sin, so the critical thinker is proud to abstain from superstition -- from un-criticized/un-purified belief. Less meat/sin/superstition means more virtue and higher status -- at least among those who fly the same flag. But why? Assuming that superstition was good for the individual animal (helped him thrive and reproduce within his superstitious tribe by keeping his morale up), the 'religiously' critical mind would choose the [s]cross[/s] capital T of Truth, looking forward to vindication in some virtual future.
If it helps, I'm criticizing you not from the under the flag of traditional religion...but instead from under our shared flag. To me you are being insufficiently critical of your own criticism, which is to say insufficiently self-conscious. Seemingly locked in a anti-'Baptist' framework, it seems that you were 'forced' to assume that I'm a bible-thumper. Instead I've moved on to put more vital 'gods' in question (like progress.) And then to put my motives for doing so in question. And all of these moves are at least 150 years old.
As far as I can tell, not much has happened since then in the realm of intellectuals. Obviously these old ideas have become popular. We now have bestsellers that cast religion as the great enemy of progress. To me it's just one more one-issue fantasy. If only the world's problems had a simple center like religion....
Joshua, I don't believe you are an atheist. You wouldn't have written your post above if you were. You are blinded by your faith, and can't see beyond your nose. These previous statements by me are opinions, not facts, but I hold these opinions about you because of the many references you wrote all favouring Christianity in spirit and in emotion.
You are not saying the truth when you say you're a hard core atheist, is my opinion, and I stand by that opinion. Again, I state that as an opinion, not as a fact.
I have seen many, many wolves in sheep's clothing. It's the oldest trick in the book that you are practicing: declaring you're atheist, then praising Christianity non-stop.
You must think I am so stupid as not to see through your thin veneer.
That you would think that suggest to me just how boxed-in you are. For me the god-issue has been dead for ~20 years. That's how long I've been a total atheist. Quoting god must be atheist
What I think you are missing is that critical thinking and the religion of progress evolved (largely) from Christianity. You can see a good version of this transformation in the Left Hegelians. Heaven is brought down to earth. Humanity grows up and puts away its otherwordly fantasies. It become 'our' job to build 'Heaven' down here. We just have to eradicate poverty, superstition, injustice. Maybe nationalism is on the list of superstitions. So we all just need to wake up and be purified, rational beings, one species under the flag of Reason. I'm not knocking this fantasy. I feel its pull. But notice how apocalyptic and conspiratorial our pop culture is these days. Just as Satan was the lord of this world in Christianity, we see a repetition of string-pullers in high places as the bogey man (perhaps Christianity itself is [s]Satan[/s] the adversary.)
I say look at 'grand narratives' as the essence of 'religion.' Instead of demons and angels, we have more worldly superstitions these days (unrealistically diabolical politicians and billionaires and institutions). When we don't see ourselves in the adversary at all (when we think we are totally pure and at war with total filth), that is an indicator of superstition --in my book, anyway.
Quoting god must be atheist
I almost envy your belief in my belief. Note that you are enjoying the usual conspiracy theory here. 'Everyone is wearing a mask. Nothing is as it seems.' The first shall be last and the last shall be first.
Conspiracy theory is a primary form of religion these days. The world is out of control. Conspiracy theory is the comforting idea that some bad people are in control. So all we need to do is grab the controls from them, wake up, etc. I don't think so. But I would only bother to say so to others who identity with 'truth.' Why kill the buzz of strangers? If I have no solution?
I wish you would stop writing to me, because your so-called facts are wholly unworthy. Please stop responding to me and I promise I shall do the same, that is, I won't respond to you.
This has been a truly sickening thread. It's not healthy to communicate with a person who lies his or her way through an entire debate.
You really disgust me, Joshua.
Again, nothing personal, no claims of fact about your personality... it's just that you make me wanna puke.
Weak.
Goodbye.
Right, but Maritain was by no means the first to question the empiricist idea of "raw sense data". Kant already critiques that idea with his "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind".
And to suggest that modern philosophy, whether continental, phenomenological, existential or analytic, typically retains this outmoded idea, is to attack a strawman. I can't think of one philosopher after Russell (and perhaps only early Russell at that) whose philosophy promotes or relies upon the idea of raw sense data. Can you?
:fire:
And you could count on one hand the number of posters on this forum who understand this point.
I lean towards spiritual philosophy as well; a fools game of sorts, on the TPF. Hence why I sometimes label myself the joker...
I just have a broader conception of spiritual philosophy than you do. All good philosophy is spiritual. As I see it you only count as spiritual the philosophy that you can interpret to be in accordance with your dogmatic view of what spirituality is.
Quoting Wayfarer
Why? I don't think it is any more sensible to say that animals perceive raw sense data than it is to say that humans do. We are evolved animals, that is virtually undeniable. The only differences between us and animals are larger brains, opposable thumb and language ability.
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't think that is anywhere near being an accurate assessment.
Perhaps there is something in how you characterize Wayfarer and myself, but I think "broad social significance" is more of a sociological issue than a philosophical.
In any case I don't agree that the "common person" thinks any more in terms of raw sense data than modern philosophers do, and even if they did it would be because they are behind the times regarding the changes in philosophical thought; which is just what you would expect given the general lack of interest in ideas.
If the concern is with the poverty of spirit of the times; I think consumerism and what we take for granted, obscene prosperity, and the sense of entitlement it fosters are far more potent influences producing self-indulgence, mean spiritedness or poor quality of spirit, or whatever you want to call it, than the idea of raw sense data is, or for that matter the metaphysical ideas of materialism or naturalism are.
So, in short to me it often seems that @Wayfarer is bemoaning and disapproving of what I think are precisely the wrong things.
The only difference between living and dying is a heartbeat.
Quoting Noble Dust
I see Western culture as being predominantly concerned with what have been called 'sensate values'. So, when you remove Christianity from Western culture, what remains is some form of materialism. When I say that I don't mean people who are obsessed with material wealth; it's a matter of cultural psychology. But modern Western culture can only conceive of the real in terms of what is measurable in terms of science.
'The defining cultural principle is that true reality is sensory – only the material world is real. There is no other reality or source of values.
This becomes the organizing principle of society. It permeates every aspect of culture and defines the basic mentality. People are unable to think in any other terms.
Sensate culture pursues science and technology, but dedicates little creative thought to spirituality or religion.
Dominant values are wealth, health, bodily comfort, sensual pleasures, power and fame.
Ethics, politics, and economics are utilitarian and hedonistic. All ethical and legal precepts are considered mere man-made conventions, relative and changeable.
Art and entertainment emphasize sensory stimulation. In the decadent stages of Sensate culture there is a frenzied emphasis on the new and the shocking (literally, sensationalism).
Religious institutions are mere relics of previous epochs, stripped of their original substance, and tending to fundamentalism and exaggerated fideism (the view that faith is not compatible with reason).'
~ Pitimkin Sorokin
That is why space travel and science fiction movies are so central - it's the sublimated memory of heaven, now transposed literally into physical space, which it never has been. (And we might get to Mars, but I'm convinced that interstellar is forever beyond physical travel.)
I have found the alternatives to modern naturalism through a patchwork of philosophies - Platonist and Indian, mainly - that still understand 'philosophy as a way of life' and as the seeking of a vision of a higher truth. It's a hard path, and I'm really not doing very well at traversing it but I do like to sound off about it. :smile:
You keep confirming my impression that you are not seriously interested in considering alternative views, and that your own views are not well-considered.
As it happens, the ground of the argument for human distinction is usually bound up with the Christian dogma of man as imago dei and then dismissed on those grounds. I argue for it philosophically, on the basis that humans have the capacity to realise the rational order of the Universe. But that’s just the kind of argument that is now categorised as being religious and therefore inadmissible.
And so it goes.
Do we see the resonance between this, and what is nowadays extolled as ‘scientific empiricism’? Doesn’t scientific empiricism simply mean that whatever is real ultimately comes down to ‘what can be seen and touched’ (bearing in mind that sight and touch are amplified by instruments). Man has no intuitive sense to grasp the nature of reality aside from what can be thus encountered. Even though it’s so immensely complicated, it’s also very simple.
Seeing that hygiene is about a place for everything and everything in its place - good boundaries - which becomes visually harmonious.
My only brush with Maritain was on a forum where it was pointed out he trenchantly criticised some serious manifestations of bad church organisation that had had huge bad effects. You have reminded me I must go out of my way to get hold of him. Everyone that will pass as agnostic, I want to know better.
I'm one of those "terrors" heavily dependent on secondary sources - so far! Kant is growing on me.
As to the human ability to "realize the rational order of the universe'; it is true that humans can think about the universe, try to understand things discursively, and they can do this because they have evolved the ability to use conceptual language. Of course this is a giant step away from the other animals; who would deny that? It is not a given however, that there is an objective "rational order of the universe" independent from human thought, though. To say there is is a kind of a conceptual equivalent to asserting naive realism; that things just are, independently of human cognition, the way we cognize them to be.
But the fact of the difference between birds and bats, or lizards and fish, is not an ontological distinction, but a taxonomic one. In fact to view h. sapiens as 'a species' is also a taxonomic perspective, situating humans with the biological order, which is a perfectly legitimate thing to do from the perspective of a biologist. But h. sapiens transcends a purely biological description - 'sapience' is wisdom, and wisdom is capable of an understanding that other species cannot attain. I am saying, and indeed Jacques Maritain often said, that naturalism generally occludes or obscures this distinction.
Quoting Janus
No, it is not a given, and it is often disputed. Hence my argument!
Quoting Fine Doubter
I am by no means a Maritain scholar, but have read some of his essays and reviews and parts of some of his books. Interesting to note that he is generally understood as being on the political left. Anyway, have a glance at that essay linked above.
Naturalistic-minded Realists can, and often do, say that only a vanishingly small portion of reality is accessible to the senses. Perhaps you are confusing empiricists with realists. The former are often phenomenalists and claim that only what is experienced is real; and this is not a realist claim at all.
I disagree because as I said different kinds of beings have different ways of being. We can argue about whether our taxonomies reflect anything beyond our understanding, but this is just back to the "rational order" question again.
Quoting Wayfarer
If our observations and understandings reflect anything beyond them, then we are certainly biological beings. How can there be any doubt about that considering the findings of the genome project?
Quoting Wayfarer
The other animals must transcend the biological order too, for they have their own kinds of wisdom that we cannot attain. There are as many kinds of animal wisdom as there are animals, if what we observe of the natural world is any indication.
Quoting Wayfarer
That is one way of interpreting the situation. Another is that human hubris leads us to think we are superior to, and more important and entitled than, the other animals. And look at what devastation that attitude has brought to the welfare of the biome!
To think in terms of human specialness, privelege and superioirty is part, a huge part, of the problem, not part of the solution.
It is not that we need to give up being focused on material well-being but that we need to realize that material well-being comes down to adequate food and shelter, and does not rely on owning cars, getting everything done as quickly as possible, enjoying holidays overseas, eating foods from all around the world whenever we like, owning all the newest gadgets, having air-conditioning even if your age and health don't require it and so on.
It is an incredibly complex problem, and the answer is not for everyone to become religious believers; there are still plenty of those and they are just as consumerist and uncaring about the environment as everyone else, if not characteristically more so. The answer is for everyone to become more involved in the life of the community, the whole community, including our fellow animals; which even though unlikely until forced, is more likely than that people will start thinking about the transcendental, which is vanishingly unlikely as you acknowledge yourself
How would the difference between the different ways of being, which are proper to the different kinds of beings, be fundamentally different from the difference between the different ways of being which are proper to the different kinds of human beings? For example, beavers make dams while birds make nests, and engineers make dams while homemakers make nests. Each individual being has a different way of being.
It's not just humans though, each individual animal has its own way of being.
I would counter that there's an underlying issue here, which I struggle to adequately define. But to give it a shot I would call it the "poverty of the spirit", as I've done in the past, or just the old fashioned "human condition". It's not a case of "technology is neutral, we just need to be more responsible with it", it's actually "technology is a natural extension of the poverty of the human spirit (and therefore inherently negative, not neutral), the condition of moral entropy"; the natural selfishness of what it means to be human. It all unfolds along perfectly logical lines, given this poverty of the spirit. The idea that we need to just magically be more community minded is, to me, near-sighted and naive. But also practically ubiquitous in the world. We seem to default to that lie either willfully, to avoid reality, or because we're not aware of this reality. I don't have anything to prescribe as an alternative, I'm just trying to call it as I see it. Not the most philosophically precise answer, but just a thought off the top of my head.
Gotta work now anyway, so back later.