"This is evident in how popular and unquestioned the persistent belief is that we simply need to push harder with science and technology, as well as in various techno-utopian visions that place their hopes on emerging technologies"
This is so true. Most people don't have the wherewithal to assess the information that comes down to them, which means they have no choice but to rely on popular media to interpret things for them. This is of course nothing new, but it places a great deal of burden on the media to know what they're talking about and to represent things appropriately. Unfortunately, they're the ones most caught up in the "techno-utopian vision". The science writer's fantasies become, in the reader's mind, factual reporting. Never mind that the articles are often so nonsensical you don't have to be an expert in anything to see the flawed logic. But the general public's faith in science is so strong only a few readers even notice when what they're reading makes zero sense. Then again, perhaps they can't be blamed. Science isn't supposed to make sense, or so we're told. It isn't meant to provide explanations that jive with lived experience or "folk psychology". But then I wonder, why do they bother making up bizarre metaphors if it's really just the math that matters? Telling incomprehensible stories only makes us numb to nonsense, and that can't be good.
"We are still struggling with this transformation because the delusion of scientism continues to strongly influence and shape our thought patterns."
That cannon example you wrote about in your book would fit in nicely here. I was amazed that I was able to sense the right answer, even though I have no scientific or mathematical background.
Change is slow to arrive in institutional philosophy too, if anecdotal evidence is any guide. Recently I enquired into the offerings of the local philosophy department at a major university near me. For 20th-century thought, they consist mainly of courses in analytic philosophy. I searched in vain for courses on phenomenology, process philosophy, or even pragmatism.
However, while visiting the offices, I came across a selection of free books. One of them was a collection of essays comparing Goethe and Wittgenstein. Since first hearing about "Goethean science" during my research into "two-eyed seeing," I've encountered numerous references to it, most recently in your book _Spirit Calls Nature_. This is my first chance to look into it properly. But I find it encouraging that the articles draw comparisons between Goethe's revolutionary way of seeing and the cryptic genius of Wittgenstein. The latter's contributions are constantly being re-evaluated, and the importance of his thought for the "evolutionary transition of mankind" is, I think, starting to be recognized. It may even help to guide analytic philosophy in a new direction.
Regarding the evolutionary transition of mankind, there appears to be a mythology of change in the air, perhaps best suggested in popular culture by the "dawning of the Age of Aquarius," but found earlier in works like Lancelot Law White's _The Next Development in Man_, and developed in books like Gilligan's _A Different Voice_, Nagel's _The View from Nowhere_, Kimmerer's _Braiding Sweetgrass_, Charles Eisenstein's _The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible_, Ken Wilber's _Trump in a Post-Truth World_, and of course the magisterial works of Iain McGilchrist, to name a few on the leading edge.
I myself am expecting a paradigm shift! I tell myself it is rationally explicable as a development from postmodernism toward "metamodernism," but I'm aware that to some extent my thinking is subject to confirmation bias. I want change, and I believe that I can sense change; and I am willing to look for, and able to find, signs of it.
I have written about “teleological optimism” in the field of Medicine. I think the eventual failure to provide perpetual enhancement is the question of the century.
"This is evident in how popular and unquestioned the persistent belief is that we simply need to push harder with science and technology, as well as in various techno-utopian visions that place their hopes on emerging technologies"
This is so true. Most people don't have the wherewithal to assess the information that comes down to them, which means they have no choice but to rely on popular media to interpret things for them. This is of course nothing new, but it places a great deal of burden on the media to know what they're talking about and to represent things appropriately. Unfortunately, they're the ones most caught up in the "techno-utopian vision". The science writer's fantasies become, in the reader's mind, factual reporting. Never mind that the articles are often so nonsensical you don't have to be an expert in anything to see the flawed logic. But the general public's faith in science is so strong only a few readers even notice when what they're reading makes zero sense. Then again, perhaps they can't be blamed. Science isn't supposed to make sense, or so we're told. It isn't meant to provide explanations that jive with lived experience or "folk psychology". But then I wonder, why do they bother making up bizarre metaphors if it's really just the math that matters? Telling incomprehensible stories only makes us numb to nonsense, and that can't be good.
"We are still struggling with this transformation because the delusion of scientism continues to strongly influence and shape our thought patterns."
That cannon example you wrote about in your book would fit in nicely here. I was amazed that I was able to sense the right answer, even though I have no scientific or mathematical background.
Change is slow to arrive in institutional philosophy too, if anecdotal evidence is any guide. Recently I enquired into the offerings of the local philosophy department at a major university near me. For 20th-century thought, they consist mainly of courses in analytic philosophy. I searched in vain for courses on phenomenology, process philosophy, or even pragmatism.
However, while visiting the offices, I came across a selection of free books. One of them was a collection of essays comparing Goethe and Wittgenstein. Since first hearing about "Goethean science" during my research into "two-eyed seeing," I've encountered numerous references to it, most recently in your book _Spirit Calls Nature_. This is my first chance to look into it properly. But I find it encouraging that the articles draw comparisons between Goethe's revolutionary way of seeing and the cryptic genius of Wittgenstein. The latter's contributions are constantly being re-evaluated, and the importance of his thought for the "evolutionary transition of mankind" is, I think, starting to be recognized. It may even help to guide analytic philosophy in a new direction.
Regarding the evolutionary transition of mankind, there appears to be a mythology of change in the air, perhaps best suggested in popular culture by the "dawning of the Age of Aquarius," but found earlier in works like Lancelot Law White's _The Next Development in Man_, and developed in books like Gilligan's _A Different Voice_, Nagel's _The View from Nowhere_, Kimmerer's _Braiding Sweetgrass_, Charles Eisenstein's _The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible_, Ken Wilber's _Trump in a Post-Truth World_, and of course the magisterial works of Iain McGilchrist, to name a few on the leading edge.
I myself am expecting a paradigm shift! I tell myself it is rationally explicable as a development from postmodernism toward "metamodernism," but I'm aware that to some extent my thinking is subject to confirmation bias. I want change, and I believe that I can sense change; and I am willing to look for, and able to find, signs of it.
I have written about “teleological optimism” in the field of Medicine. I think the eventual failure to provide perpetual enhancement is the question of the century.
Please take a look.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thethoughtfulintensivist/p/talkin-bout-a-revolution?r=20qrtz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
(Please use the free trial and cancel it after reading)