/lit/ - Literature

>>13899185
Probably this doctrine
was latent in the scholastic philosophy, but it did not
lead to its consequences till it met with the mentality of
northern Europe in the sixteenth century. But science,
as equipped by Descartes, gave stability and intellectual
status to a point of view which has had very mixed
effects upon the moral presuppositions of modern com-
munities. Its good effects arose from its efficiency as a
method for scientific researches within those limited
regions which were then best suited for exploration.
The result was a general clearing of the European mind
away from the stains left upon it by the hysteria of
remote barbaric ages. This was all to the good, and was
most completely exemplified in the eighteenth century. But in the nineteenth century, when society was undergoing transformation into the manufacturing system,
the bad effects of these doctrines have been very fatal.
The doctrine of minds, as independent substances, leads
directly not merely to private worlds of experience, but
also to private worlds of morals. The moral intuitions
can be held to apply only to the strictly private world
of psychological experience. Accordingly, self-respect,
and the making the most of your own individual opportunities, together constituted the efficient morality of
the leaders among the industrialists of that period. The
western world is now suffering from the limited moral
outlook of the three previous generations. Also the assumption of the bare valuelessness of mere
matter led to a lack of reverence in the treatment of
natural or artistic beauty. Just when the urbanisation
of the western world was entering upon its state of rapid
development, and when the most delicate, anxious consideration of the aesthetic qualities of the new material
environment was requisite, the doctrine of the irrele-
vance of such ideas was at its height. In the most advanced industrial countries, art was treated as a frivolitv.
A striking example of this state of mind in the middle
of the nineteenth century is to be seen in London where
the marvellous beauty of the estuary of the Thames, as
it curves through the city, is wantonly defaced by the
Charing Cross railway bridge, constructed apart from
any reference to aesthetic values. The two evils are: one, the ignoration of the true
relation of each organism to its environment; and , the ·
other, the habit of ignoring the intrinsic worth of the
environment which must be allowed its weight in any consideration of final ends.

>>13899190
Another great fact confronting the modern world is
the discovery of the method of training professionals,
who specialise in particular regions of thought and
thereby progressively add to the sum of knowledge
within their respective limitations of subject. In consequence of the success of this professionalising of knowl-
edge, there are two points to be kept in mind, which
differentiate our present age from the past. In the first
place, the rate of progress is such that an individual
human being, of ordinary length of life, will be called
upon to face novel situations which find no parallel in
his past. The fixed person for the fixed duties, who in
older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger. In the second place, the modern pro-
fessionalism in knowledge works in the opposite direc-
tion so far as the intellectual sphere is concerned. The
modern chemist is likely to be weak in zoology, weaker
still in his general knowledge of the Elizabethan drama,
and completely ignorant of the principles of rhythm in
English versification. It is probably safe to ignore his
knowledge of ancient history. Of course I am -speaking
of general . tendencies; for chemists are no worse than
engineers, or mathematicians, or classical scholars. Effective knowledge is professionalised knowledge, sup-
ported by a restricted acquaintance with useful subjects
subservient to it.
This situation has its dangers. It produces minds in a
groove. Each profession makes progress, but it is progress in its own groove. Now to be mentally in a groove
is 'to live in contemplating a given set of abstractions.
The groove prevents straying across country, and the
abstraction abstracts from something to which no further attention is paid. But there is no groove of abstractions which is adequate for the comprehension of human
life. Thus in the modern world, the celibacy of the
medieval learned class has been replaced by a celibacy
of the intellect which is divorced from the concrete
contemplation of the complete facts. Of course, no one is merely a mathematician, or merely a lawyer. People
have lives outside their professions or their businesses.
But the point is the restraint of serious thought within
a groove. The remainder of life -is treated superficially,
with the imperfect categories of thought derived from
one profession.

>>13899199
The dangers arising from this aspect of professionalism
are great, particularly in our democratic societies. The
direct,ive force of reason is weakened. The leading in-
tellects lack balance. They see this set of circumstances,
or that set; but not both sets together. The task of
coordination is left to those who lack either the force or
the character to succeed in some definite career. In
short, the specialised functions of the community are
performed better and more progressively, but the generalised direction lacks vision. The progressiveness in
detail only adds to the danger produced by the feeble-ness of coordination. This criticism of modern life applies throughout, in
whatever sense you construe the meaning of a com-
munity. It holds if you apply it to a nation, a city, a
district, an institution, a family, or even to an , individual. There is a development of particular abstractions, and a contraction of concrete appreciation. The
whole is lost in one of its aspects. It is not necessary
for my point that I should maintain that our directive
wisdom, either as individuals or as communities, is less
now than in the past. Perhaps it has slightly impr.oved.
But the novel pace of progress requires a greater force
of direction if disasters are to be avoided. The point
is that the discoveries of the nineteenth century were
in the direction of professionalism, so that we are left
with no expansion of wisdom and with greater need
of it.
Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced development. It
is this balanced growth of individuality which it should
be the aim of education to secure. The most useful
discoveries for the immediate future would concern the
furtherance of this aim without detriment to the neces-
sary intellectual professionalism.
My own criticism of our traditional educational
methods is that they are far too much occupied with
inteJIectual analysis, and with the acquirement of formularised information. What I mean is, that we neglect
to strengthen habits of concrete appreciation of the individual facts in their full interplay of emergent values,
and that we merely emphasise abstract formulations
which ignore this aspect of the interplay of diverse values

>>13899203
In every country the problem of the balance of the
general and specialist education is under consideration.
I cannot speak with first-hand knowledge of any country
but my own. I know that there, among practical educationalists, there is considerable dissatisfaction with the
existing practice. Also, the-
adaptation of the whole
system to the needs of a democratic community is very
far from being solved. I do not think that the secret of the solution lies in terms of the antithesis between
thoroughness in special knowledge and general knowledge of a slighter character. The make-weight which
balances the thoroughness of the specialist intellectual
training should be of a radically different kind from
purely intellectual analytical knowledge. At present our
education combines a thorough study of a few abstrac-
tions, with a slighter study of a larger number of abstractions. We are too exclusively bookish in our scholastic routine. The general training should aim at elicit-
ing our concrete apprehensions, and should satisfy the
itch of youth to be doing something. There should be
some analysis even here, but only just enough to illus-
trate the ways of thinking in diverse spheres. In the
Garden of Eden Adam saw the animals before he named
them: in the traditional system, children named the
animals before they saw them.
There is no easy single solution of the practical difficulties of education. We can, however, guide ourselves
by a certain simplicity in its general theory. The student
should concentrate within a limited field. Such con-
centration should include all practical and intellectual
acquirements requisite for that concentration .. This
is the ordinary procedure; and, in respect to it, I should
be inclined even to increase the facilities for concentra-
tion rather than to diminish them. With the concentration there are associated certain subsidiary studies, such
as languages for science. Such a scheme of professional
training should be directed to a clear end congenial to

>>13899209
the student. It is not necessary to elaborate the qualifications of these statements. Such a training must, of
course, have the width requisite for its end. But its
design should not be complicated by the consideration
of other ends. This professional training can only tooch
one side of education. Its centre of gravity lies in the
intellect, and its chief tool is the printed book. The
centre of gravity of the other side of training should
lie in intuition without an analytical divorce from the
total environment. Its object is immediate apprehension
with the minimum of eviscerating analysis. The type
of generality, which above all is wanted, is the apprecia-
tion of variety of value. I mean an aesthetic growth.
There is something between the gross specialised values
of the mere practical man, and the thin specialised
values of the mere scholar. Both types have missed
something; and if you add together the two sets of
values, you do not obtain the missing elements. What
is wanted is an appreciation of the infinite variety of
vivid values achieved by an organism in its proper environment. When you understand all about the sun
and all about the atmosphere and all about the rotation
of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the
sunset. There is no substitute for the direct perception
of the concrete achievement of a thing in its actuality.
We want concrete fact with a high light thrown on
what is relevant to its preciousness.
What I mean is art and aesthetic education. It is,
however, art in such a general sense of the term that
I hardly like to call it by that name. Art is a special
example. What we want is to draw out habits of aes-
thetic apprehensIon. According to the metaphysical
doctrine which I have been developing, to do so is to
increase the depth of individuality. The analysis of
reality indicates the two factors, activity emerging into
individualised aesthetic value. Also the emergent value
is the measure of the individualisation of the activity.
We must foster the creative initiative towards the main-
tenance of objective values. You will not obtain the
apprehension without the initiative, or the initiative
without the apprehension. As soon as you get towards
the · concrete, you cannot exclude action. Sensitiveness
without impulse spells decadence, and impulse without sensitiveness spells brutality. I am using the word
'sensitiveness' in its most general signification, so as
to include apprehension of what lies beyond oneself;
that is to say,_ sensitiveness to all the facts of the case.
Thus 'art' in the general sense which I require is any
selection by which the concrete facts are so arranged
as to elicit attention to particular values which are
realisable by them. For example, the mere disposing
of the human body and the eyesight so as to get a
good view of a sunset is a simple form of artistic selection. The habit of art is the habit of enjoying vivid values

>>13899217
But, in this sense,. art concerns more than sunsets.
A factory, with its machinery, its community of operatives, its social service to the general population, its
dependence upon organising and designing genius, its
potentialities as a source of wealth to the holders of
its stock is an organism exhibiting a variety of vivid values. What we want to train is the habit of apprehending such an organism in its completeness. It is very
arguable that the science of political economy, as studied
in its first period after the death of Adam Smith (1790),
did more harm than good. It destroyed many economic
fallacies, and taught how to think about the economic
revolution then in progress. But it riveted on men a
certain set of abstractions which were disastrous in their
influence on modern mentality. It de-humanised industry. This is only one example of a general danger in-
herent in modern science. Its methodological procedure
is exclusive and intolerant, and rightly so. It fixes atten-
tion on a definite group of abstractions, neglects every-
thing else, and elicits every scrap of information and
theory which is relevant to what it has retained. This method is triumphant, provided that the abstractions
are judicious. But, however triumphant, the triumph
is within limits. The neglect of these limits leads to
disastrous oversights. The anti-rationalism of science is
partly justified, as a preservation of its useful meth-
odology; it is partly mere irrational prejudice. Modern
professionalism is the training of minds to conform to the methodology. The historical revolt of the seventeenth
century, and the earlier reaction towards naturalism,
were examples of transcending the abstractions which fascinated educated society in the Middle Ages. These
early ages had an ideal of rationalism, but they failed
in its pursuit. For they neglected to note that the
methodology of reasoning requires the limitations involved in the abstract. Accordingly, the true rationalism
must always transcend itself by recurrence to the concrete in search of inspiration. A self-satisfied rationalism
is in effect a form of anti-rationalism. It means an
arbitrary halt at a particular set of abstractions. This
was the case with science.

>>13899223
There are two principles inherent in the very nature
of things, recurring in some particular embodiments
whatever field we explore-the spirit of change, and
the spirit of conservation. There can be nothing real
without both. Mere change without conservation is a
passage from nothing to nothing. Its final integration
yields mere transient non-entity. Mere conservation
without change cannot conserve. For after all, there
is a flux of circumstance, and the freshness of being
evaporates under mere repetition. The character of
existent reality is composed of organisms enduring
through the flux of things. The low type of organisms
have achieved a - self-identity dominating their whole
physical life. Electrons, molecules, crystals, belong to
this type. They exhibit a massive and complete same-
ness. In the higher types, where life appears, there is
greater complexity. Thus, though there is a complex.
enduring pattern, it. has retreated into deeper recesses
of the total fact. In a sense, the self-identity of a human
being is more abstract than that of a crystal. It is the
life of the spirit. It relates rather to the individualisation of the creative activity; so that the changing circumstances received from the environment are differentiated from the living personality, and are thought of
as forming its perceived field. In truth, the field of per-
ception and the perceiving mind are abstractions which,
in the concrete, combine into the successive bodily
events. The psychological field, as restricted to sense objects and passing emotions, is the minor permanence,
barely rescued from the nonentity of mere change; and
the mind is the major permanence, permeating that
complete field, whose endurance is the living soul. But
the soul would wither without fertilisation from its transient, experiences. The secret of the higher organ-
isms lies in their two grades of permanences. By this
means the freshness of the environment is absorbed into
the permanence of the soul. The changing environment
is no longer, by reason of its variety, an enemy to the
endurance of the organism. The pattern of the higher
organism has retreated into the recesses of the individualised activity. It has become a uniform way of
dealing with circumstances; and this way is only strengthened by having a proper variety of circumstances to deal
with.

words words words words

>>13899232
This fertilisation of the soul is the reason for the
necessity of art. A static value, however serious and
important, becomes unendurable by its appalling mo-
notony of endurance. The soul cries aloud for release
into change. It suffers the agonies of claustrophobia.
The transitions of humour, wit, irreverence, play, sleep,
and-above all--of art are necessary for it. Great art
is the arrangement of the environment so as to provide
for the soul vivid, but transient, values. Human beings
require something which absorbs them for a time, some-
thing out of the routine which they can stare at. But
you cannot subdivide life, except in the abstract analysis
of thought. Accordingly, the great art is more . than
a transient refreshment. It is something which adds to
the permanent richness of the soul's self-attainment. It
justifies . itself both by its immediate enjoyment, and
also by its discipline of the inmost being. Its discipline
is not distinct from enjoyment, but by reason of it. It
transforms the soul into the permanent realisation of
values extending beyond its former self. This element
of transition in art is shown by the restlessness exhibited
in its history. An epoch gets saturated by the master-
pieces of any one style. Something new must be dis-
covered. The human being wanders on. -Yet there is
a balance in things. Mere change before the attainment
of adequacy of achievement, either in quality or output,
is destructive of greatness. But the importance of a
living art, which moves on and yet leaves its permanent
mark, can hardly be exaggerated.
In regard to the aesthetic needs of civilised society
the reactions of science have so far been unfortunate.
Its materialistic basis has directed attention to things as
opposed to values. The antithesis is a false one, if taken in a concrete sense. But it is valid at the abstract level
of ordinary thought. This mispla<;ed emphasis coalesced
with the abstractions of political economy, which are
in fact the abstractions in terms of which commercial
affairs are carried on. Thus all thought concerned with
social organisation expressed itself in terms of material
things and of capital. Ultimate values were excluded.
They were politely bowed to, and then handed over to
the clergy to be kept for Sundays. A creed of competitive
business morality was evolved, in some respects curiously
high; but entirely devoid of consideration for the value
of human life. The workmen were conceived as mere
hands, drawn from the pool of labour. To God's question, men gave the answer of Cain-'Am I my brother's
keeper?'; and they incurred Cain's guilt. This was the
atmosphere in which the industrial revolution was accomplished in England, and to a large extent elsewhere.

>>13899242
The internal history of England during the last half
century has been an endeavour slowly and painfully
to undo the evils wrought in the first stage of the new
epoch. It may be that civilisation will never recover
from the bad climate which enveloped the Introduction
of machinery. This climate pervaded the whole commercial system of the progressive northern European
races. It was partly the result of aesthetic. errors of
Protestantism and partly the result of scientific materialism, and partly the result of the natural greed :of
mankind, and partly the result of the abstractions of
political economy. An illustration of my point is to be
found in Macaulay's Essay criticising Southey'S Colloquies on Society. It was written in 1830. Now Macaulay
was a very favourable example of men living at that date,
or at any date. He had genius; he was kind-hearted,
honourable, and a reformer. This is the extract:-'We
are told, that our age has invented atrocities beyond the
imagination of our fathers; that society has been brought
into a state compared with which extermination would
be a blessing; and all because the dwellings of cotton-
spinners are naked and rectangular. Mr. Southey has
found out a way he tells us, in which the effects of
manufacturers and agriculture may be compared. And
what is this way? To stand on a hill, to look at a cottage
and a factory, and to see which is the prettier: Southey seems to have said many silly things in his
book; but, so far as this extract is concerned, he could
make a good case fo; himself if he returned to earth
after the lapse of nearly a century. The evils of the early
industrial system are now a commonplace of knowledge.
The point which I am insisting on is the stone-blind eye
with which even the best men of that time regarded the
importance of aesthetics in a nation's life. I do not believe that we have as yet nearly achieved the right estimate. A contributory cause, of substantial efficacy to
produce this disastrous error, was the scientific creed
that matter in motion is the one concrete reality in
nature; so that aesthetic values form an adventitious,
irrelevant addition.
There is another side to this picture of the possibilities
of decadence. At the present moment a discussion is
raging as to the future of civilisation in the novel circumstances of rapid scientific and technological advance.
The evils of the future have been diagnosed in various
ways, the loss of religious faith, the malignant use of
material power, the degradation attending a differential
birth rate favouring the lower types of humanity, the
suppression of aesthetic creativeness. Without doubt,
these are all evils, dangerous and threatening.

>>13899265
But they
are not new. From the dawn of history, mankind has
always been losing its religious faith, has always suffered
from the malignant use of material power, has always
suffered from the infertility of its best intellectual types,
has always witnessed the periodical decadence of art.
In the reign of the Egyptian king, Tutankhamen, there
was raging a desperate religious struggle between Modernists and Fundamentalists; the cave pictures exhibit a
phase of delicate aesthetic achievement as superseded by
a period of comparative vulgarity; the religious leaders,
the great thinkers, the great poets and authors, the whole
clerical caste in the Middle Ages, have been notably
infertile; finally, if we attend to what actually has happened in the past, and disregard romantic visions of
democracies, aristocracies, kings, generals, armies, and
merchants, material power has generally been wielded
with blindness, obstinacy and selfishness, often with
brutal malignancy. And yet, mankind has progressed.
Even if you take a tiny oasis of peculiar excellence, the type of modern man who would have most chance of
happiness in ancient Greece at its best period is prob-
ably (as now) an average professional heavy-weight
boxer, and not an average Greek scholar from Oxford
or Germany. Indeed, the main use of the Oxford scholar
would have been his capability of writing an ode in
glorification of the boxer. Nothing does mo.re harm in
unnerving men for their duties in the present, than the
attention devoted to the points of excelLence in the past
as compared with the average failure of the present day.
But, after all, there have been real periods of deca-
dence; and at the present time, as at other epochs, so-
ciety is decaying, and there is need for preservative
action. Professionals are not new to the world. But in
the past, professionals have formed unprogressive castes.
The Foint is that professionalism has now been mated
with progress. The world is now faced with a self evolving system, which it cannot stop. There are dangers .
and advantages in this situation. It is obvious that the
gain in material power affords opportunity for social
betterment. If mankind can rise to the occasion, there
lies in front a golden age of beneficent creativeness.
But material power in itself is ethically neutral. It can
equally well work in the wrong direction. The problem
is not how to produce great men, but how to produce
great societies. The great society will put up the men·
for the occasions. The materialistic philosophy emphasised the given quantity of material, and thence derivatively the given nature of the environment. It thus
operated most unfortunately upon the social conscience
of mankind. For it directed almost exclusive attention
to the aspect of struggle for existence in a fixed environment.

>>13899281
To a large extent the environment is fixed, and
to this extent there is a struggle for existence. It is folly
to look at the universe through rose-tinted ·spectacles.
We must admit the struggle. The question is, who is
to be eliminated. In so far as we are educators, we have
clear ideas upon that point; for it settles the type to be
produced and the practical ethics to be inculcated. But during the last three generations, the exclusive
direction of attention to this aspect of things has been a disaster of the first magnitude. The watchwords of the
nineteenth century have been, struggle for existence. competition, class warfare, commercial antagonism be-
tween nations, military warfare. The struggle for exist-
ence has been construed into the gospel of hate. The
full conclusion to be drawn from a philosophy of evolution is fortunately of a more balanced character. Successful organisms modify their environment. Those organ-
isms are successful which modify their environments so
as to assist each other. This law is exemplified in nature
on a vast scale:. For example, the North American In-
dians accepted eir environment, with the result that a
scanty population barely succeeded in maintaining themselves over the whole continent. The European races
when they arrived in the same continent pursued an
opposite policy. They at once cooperated in modifying
their environment. The result is that a population more
than twenty times that of the Indian population now
occupies the same territory, and the continent is not yet
full. Again, there are associations of different species
which mutually cooperate. This differentiation of species
is exhibited in the simplest physical entities, such as the
association between electrons and positive nuclei, and in
the whole realm of animate nature. The trees in a Brazilian fgrest depend upon the association of various
species of organisms, each of which is mutually dependent on the other species. A single tree by itself is dependent upon all the adverse chances of shifting circum-
stances. The wind stunts it: the variations in tempera-
ture check its foliage: the rains denude its soil: its leaves
are blown away and .are lost for the purpose of fertilisation. You may obtain individual specimens of fine trees
either in exceptional circumstances, or where human cul-
tivation has intervened. But in nature the normal way
in which trees flourish is by their association in a forest.
Each tree may lose something of its individual perfection of growth, but they mutually assist each other in
preserving the conditions for survival. The soil is preserved and shaded; and the microbes necessary for its
fertility are neither scorched, nor frozen, nor washed
away. A forest is the triumph of the organisation of
mutually dependent species. Further a species of microbes which kill the forest, · also exterminates itself.

>>13899297
Again the two sexes exhibit the same advantage of differentiation. In the history of the world, the prize has not gone to those species which specialiser:! in methods
of violence, or even in defensive armour. In fact, nature
began with producing animals encased in hard shells for
defence against the ills of life. It also experimented in
size. But smaller animals, without external armour,
warm-blooded, sensitive, and alert, have cleared these
monsters off the face of the earth. Also, the lions and
tigers are not the successful species. There is something in the ready use of force which defeats its own object.
Its main defect is that it bars cooperation. Every organ-
ism requires an environment of friends, partly to shield
it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its
wants. The Gospel of Force is incompatible with a social
life. By force, I mean antagonism in its most general sense. Almost equally dangerous is the Gospel of Uniformity.
The differences between the nations and races of mankind are required to preserve the conditions under which
higher development is possible. One main factor in the
upward trend of animal life has been the power of wan-
dering. Perhaps this is why the armour-plated monsters
fared badly_ They could not wander. Animals wander
into new conditions. They have to adapt themselves or
die. Mankind has wandered from the trees to the- plains,
from the plains to the seacoast, from climate to climate,
from continent to continent, and from habit of life to
habit of life. When man ceases to wander, he will cease
to ascend in the scale of being. Physical wandering is
still important, but greater still is the power of man's
spiritual adventures-adventures of thought, adventures
of passionate feeling, adventures of aesthetic experience.
A diversification among human communities is essential
for the provision of the incentive and material for the
Odyssey of the human spirit. Other nations of differ-
ent habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to
be understood, something sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough to comman. admiration. We must not expect, however, ,all the vir-
tues. We should even be satisfied if there is something
odd enou'gh to be interesting.
Modern science has imposed

>>13899307
Modern science has imposed on humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its; progressive technology make the transition through time,
from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure. The very benefit of wandering is that it is dangerous and needs skill to avert evils.
We must expect, therefore, that the future will disclose
dangers. It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips
the future for its duties. The prosperous middle classes,
who ruled the nineteenth century, placed an excessive
value upon placidity of existence. They refused to face
the necessities for social reform imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face the
necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new
knowledge. The middle class pessimism over the future
of the world comes from a confusion between civilisation and security. In the immediate future there will be
less security than in the immediate past, less stability.
It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability
which is inconsistent with civilisation. But, on the whole,
the great ages have been unstable ages.
I have endeavoured in these lectures to give a record
of a great adventure in the region of thought. It was
shared in by all the races of western Europe. It de-
velopeci with the slowness of a mass movement. Half a
century is its unit of time. The tale is the epic of an
episode in the manifestation of reason. It tells how a
particular direction of reason emerges in a race by the
long preparation of antecedent epochs, how after its
birth its subject-matter gradually unfolds itself, how it
attains its triumphs, how its influence moulds the very
springs of action of mankind and finally how · at its
moment of supreme success its limitations disclose themselves and call for a renewed exercise of the creative
imagination. The moral of the tale is the power of
reason, its decisive influence on the life of humanity.
The great conquerors, from Alexander to Caesar, and
from Caesar to Napoleon, influenced, profoundly the
lives of subsequent generations. But the total effect of
this influence shrinks to insignificance, if compared to
the entire transformation of human habits and human
mentality produced by the long line of men of thought
from Thales to the present day, men individually powerless" but ultimately the rulers of the world.

Okay I am stopping here. Sorry for how much I posted and for the format. Hopefully it resonates with someone else as much as it did with me or at least someone reads it.

Someone retroactively refuted all of this but I can't remember who

>3... 2... 1....

>>13899185
Heidegger is the most based “phenomenologist” that ever was or will be

>>13899378
Guenon and Parmenides did

>>13899384
Heidegger is too heavy, morbid, pompous, self-obsessed, and doom-laden. There is no ounce of gaiety or humor in him. He takes up the worst aspects of Nietzsche. I’ve never been able to decide which part of Heidegger is worse: the existential part, all about authenticity and resoluteness and the earth and the dwelling and being-towards-death (i.e. the Nazi side), or the ontological part, with its endless dissection of concepts by returning to their etymological roots, its walking on forest paths, its idiotic hatred of technology, its mythology of Language, its waiting and hearkening, its twisting of its own formulations into an endless process of self-confirmation through self-undoing (i.e. the deconstructionist side). Whitehead is different. His language is dry, gray, and highly abstract. (Occasionally a joke shimmers through, but rarely; you have to work hard in order to make it to the jokes; and as soon as you’ve gotten one, it is on to something else). But in this degree-zero, “academic,” fussy and almost pedantic prose, Whitehead is continually saying the most astonishing things. His “coldness” (in a Deleuzian sense) or “neutrality” (in a Blanchotian sense) is in fact the enabling condition of his discourse: it is what permits him the freedom to analyze, to construct, to reorient, to switch direction, to re-ignite the philosophic sense of “wonder” at every step. Whitehead’s style is a kind of strategic counter-investment: it allows him to step away from his own particular passions and interests, without thereby falling into the pretense of a universal, above-it-all, higher knowledge. It’s a kind of detachment that continues to insist upon that from which we have become detached: particulars, singularities, perspectives that are always incomplete and partial (in both senses of this word: partial as opposed to whole, but also partial in the sense of partiality or bias). There is no universal, transcendent point in Whitehead’s cosmos; there are only partialities. But each of these partialities “transcends” all the others. The cliche objection to “relativism” has always been to point out that the statement “everything is relative” is itself an absolute one, so that any relativist necessarily contradicts him/herself. Of course this is a bogus objection: because the argument depends upon separating the assertion “everything is relative” from the contexts of its utterance, in order to turn it into a universal statement. Whitehead’s neutral style is precisely a way of pointing out how everything is relative, without turning this observation (or really, a potentially infinite series of observations) into a universal.

>>13899384
>>13899452
Whitehead’s philosophy is all about change, creativity, and the production of novelty. There are no entities in the universe according to Whitehead, but only events. Or rather, events (which he usually calls “occasions”) are themselves the only entities. These “occasions” are each of them radically new — each of them is something that never existed before — and indeed, it is only because of this perpetual creativity and novelty that we are even able to think in terms of a “before” and an “after,” of time passing and irreversible — and yet each of them is radically intertwined with, affected by and affecting in its own turn, everything else. Everything is singular, but nothing is isolated. Whitehead doesn’t ask (as Heidegger does) “why is there something rather than nothing?” (which ultimately a nihilistic question: since it is demanding a reason for existence itself, when it is only within existence, and from an existing standpoint, that questions of value and purpose make any sense), but rather: “how is it that there is always something new, rather than just the same old same-old?”. He doesn’t “hearken” to Language, as Heidegger and his deconstructionist heirs are always doing, but rather notes language’s inadequacies alongside its unavoidability. He doesn’t yearn for a return before, or a leap beyond, metaphysics, but (much more subversively) justdoesmetaphysics, inventing his own categories and working through his own problems, in order to make metaphysics speak what it has usually denied and rejected (the body, inconstancy and change, the relativeness of all perspectives and of all formulations). And he doesn’t “critique” the history of philosophy, but rather twists it in wonderfully ungainly ways, finding, for instance, arguments in Descartes that are themselves already the best response to Cartesian dualism, or anti-idealist moves in Plato.

God awful format holy shit

>>13899452
Heidegger doesn't neurotically hate technology, he hates technological thinking, as a mode of existence

>There is no universal, transcendent point in Whitehead’s cosmos; there are only partialities. But each of these partialities “transcends” all the others.

I still maintain Deleuze and Whitehead's systems are primarily philosophical expositions of Indra's Net

IF I WANTED TO READ I WOULDN'T BE ON /LIT/

>>13899362
I enjoyed it, thank you. Wait til you get to Whitehead's metaphysics, his "fallacy of misplaced concreteness" and his rejection of panpsychism in favor of pan-experientialism is still something I'm mulling over.

>>13899460
Yea sorry that is how it appeared when I copypastad it from the pdf. The format is fine in the pdf.

>>13899185
>Whitehead is fucking based thanks to whoever memed him.
this

the retarded guenonfag pushing his silly 'what did whitehead mean by this.. *reset IP* ...RETRO PHARMACY' is backfiring, anons are starting to learn of Whiteheads ideas ever more.

>>13899378
a monkey and parmesan cheese

>>13899536
Can you please post the PDF?

>>13899623
https://b-ok.cc/book/915933/fb5314
Here
The passages posted are from 194-208

>>13899452
He’s only pompous because of the vast gulfs between the average dasein’s intellect and his own. Heidegger’s sublime refutatation of Husserl’s stale and self obsessed idealism and godlike rays of insight into tools and equipment are without parallel in the last century of western thought. His hatred of jews is definitely fairly neurotic, and he should have known better given his relationship with Hannah Arendt, but his distrust of the American and Soviet obsession with technology is definitely not.

>>13899645
Thank you!

Bump

>>13899185
What are the best podcast/audiobooks about him ?

>>13899522
Isnt panexperientialism a form of panpsychism? How does he reject panpsychism?

>>13900048
It sounds like the difference that makes no difference but it is a huge distinction, at least for me.

Whitehead's point is that if you take self-consciousness as we know it (the Western/rationalist cogito) as the crown of nature, we inadvertently demean the rest of Nature. Non-human organisms become "steps" on the way to the summit of human cognition, and I don't think I need to tell you the kinds of problems that cooks up

Whitehead uses the fallacy of misplaced concreteness to make the point (in agreement with Searle, I would say) that human consciousness is just that, distinctly human.

Human consciousness becomes relativized, and rational, calculative thinking becomes more a sign of its closure than its God-given openness (if your familiar with Bakker's writings on neuroscience it is scarily accurate, and honestly somewhat existentially terrifying. Also, Heidegger: man is rational precisely because he's an animal, and not because is anything more)

so we deny self-consciousness in (lower) animals, but do not deny them a measure of "inner life" or intensity, a "prehensive center" that relates and is related to its environment.

A microbe "experiences" a world, but it does not abstract the concept of worldhood as such from its experiences. Everything is alive in different ways, nature is not a pyramid but a flat plane

>>13900140
Where is the line between experience and abstraction though? I don’t see any way to distinct between animals and man without condemning many men as animals.

>>13900167
Well I do see a way but not a rigorous way

He's a fucking boring minor philosopher like Nietzsche, Croce, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and the rest who squander their lives treading well worn paths because they never grappled with the great scholastic controversies of Ockham, Scotus, Bacon, Magnus, etc

>>13900167
Then you're going to have to condemn many men as animals, that's not exactly a controversial position in some philosophical circles

I would be wary about re-constituting the Cartesian hierarchy of nature as a new spectrum that runs from "experience" to "abstraction". The ability to abstract is a radically human property (insofar as human denotes a particular gradient of biological complexity) and heterogenous with everything else.

Now I suppose you could say, then, that the new spectrum is one of complexity, and I suppose you could, but always be on the lookout for a Chain of Being trying to sneak in through the back door

>>13900185
Go on.

>>13900199
What else is there to say? This stuff has already been done to death. Objects vs processes, mutability, theodicy, etc. Just read the scholastics

>>13900267
You could try throwing Spinoza in his face or something

>>13900362
i should have included him

>>13900185
The scholastics are boring as fuck no one cares about christcuck philosophy

>>13900600
Damn this board is full of hilariously simple people

>>13899440
you keep posting the meme, but explain

>>13900267
Alternatively, read someone who read the scholastics.

Bump

>>13899185
this nigga looks like a scientologist

>>13900048
This is a good description of why he uses the language of feeling the way he does.

>>13901516
Cool thanks. What book is this?

>>13899185

Cool story, now don't laugh.

Whitehead is based, but Bergson and Spinoza are based-er

>>13899185
Didn't your teacher ever tell you to put things in your own words? Also
>retroactively

>>13901663
"The Metaphysics of Experience" by Elizabeth Kraus. Here's the first 17 pages: https://imgur.com/a/ZtLDYJT

I like to read as few books as possible, ones that compel me to read them; I never force myself to read. If a book doesn't romance me into loving it by fascinating rumors what it intends to describe, I don't really consider it. Nothing but passion guides my intellectual and creative endeavors. My greatest passion is a romance with creativity, both by the perverted desire to strip it into clearer depths of nakedness, and the desire to perform with it, to live life as a living dance of art.

Whitehead speaks more poetically about the passion of creativity than anyone I had ever read. He loved it just as much as I do, and while our individual adventures are so radically different, the truth of the world as alive with meaning in living beings rings true. His poetry speaks of the same pricelessness of life from experiencing a most intimate love for the world. There is no way he could have inspired to imagine creativity and love so intimately without having such a passion. His work is absolute proof of his love.

TL;DR Whitehead is wholesome AF.

>>13899460
Why not combine scholastic substance philosophy with Whiteheadian process?

>>13900842
pleb

>>13902217
>>13900842
>>13900267

>>13902045
>...He and his ideas seemed to permeate everything. By an odd quirk of imagination he became identified with one of the noble passages in music, those pages in the finale of Brahms's Fourth Symphony, that great passacaglia, where the them is sounded by horns in goldenly glowing sustained notes above sonorous argeppii in the darker registers of the string choir, violencelli and violas (the measures from 113 to 129). Apprently there was no other connection except that of grandeur.
>Then *he* disappeared. Oh yes, there remained his voice, clear, resonant, kindly, deliberate and perfectly articulated, British in tone and accent; there was his face, serene, luminous, often smiling, the complexion pink and white, the eyes brilliant blue, clear and candid as a child's yet with the depth of the sage, often laughing or twinkling with humour. And there was his figure, slender, frail, and bent with its lifetime of a scholar's toil. Always benign, there was not a grain of ill will anywhere in him; for all his formidable armament, never a wounding word.
He was very moe

>>13902045
>>13902277
There's a reason why he's really popular in newage circles.

>>13902308
cope
https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/china-embraces-alfred-north-whitehead

>>13902525
>meanwhile, Western Whiteheadians
https://youtu.be/o6Gf5Q6EwOo

>>13902661
they are experiencing the dyonisian aesthetic what is the problem here? I knew guenonfag was an incel.

>>13902690
Getting your tarot read and chakras aligned is not "experiencing the Dionysian aesthetic" you schizo lmao

>>13902525
>In less than a decade, the Chinese government has encouraged the creation of 18 university-based centres for the study of Whitehead’s philosophy.
WTF??!

He already has 18 institutions based around him? How is that possible if he got 'BTFO' by some nobodies.

>>13902821
That article was written 11 years ago and nothing's happened since. I wonder if they've moved on from Whitehead?

>>13902821
It's a meme, anon.
>>13902849
There is a lot of research being done pairing up Whitehead, Marx, ecology, and their Eastern traditions.

>>13899981
kek this pleb

>>13902877
>There is a lot of research being done
Any links? Preferably academic journals

>>13902525
>constructive postmodernism
lmao what the fuck is this

>>13902974
it explains it in the article

>>13902895
Can you read Chinese?

>>13902997
No, but you can link me to the secondary sources from which you learned about this research.

May someone here provide a chart for reading Whitehead's works?

>>13904222
>all of western and eastern philosophy up until Whitehead ----> Whitehead (chronological order)
don't need a chart for that

>>13904222
Just read a introduction, commentary and have a philosophy dictionary at hand

>>13904233
>>13904237
Alrighty then. Thanks.

>>13904233
Modes of Thought>Science and the Modern World>Adventures of Ideas>Process and Reality

Bump

Bump

>>13902308
I'm an atheist who considers Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan as my greatest spiritual teachers.

I'm a complete slut for creative inspiration. I fucking live for it, and have gorged myself on it like a true polyamorous slut, my face a bukkake plate for the mixing of paint.

This kind of talk makes me SO WET: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxVVm75k_8Q

Fuck yeah art, science, philosophy, and sex.

>>13906658
What book is that? And how does process philosophy reconicle being and becoming?

>>13906856
https://principiadiscordia.com/
The Principia Discordia is process philosophy as experimental art. The medium of parody religion is an essential part of the message.

>And how does process philosophy reconicle being and becoming?

I can only speak about my own experiences, but it involves reconciling our perception as being comprised of two reference frames of relational change: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tao_of_Calculus/comments/9rpnrl/space_taoism_101/

This isn't just thinkery I'm talking about, it's an experienced created rhythm that I can only describe as engaging with one's life as a co-creative multiplicity, an immense tapestry of creative occasions. For this reason Whitehead should be considered above everything as a POET, with the goal of seeking to inspire philosophically creative inspiration. He didn't want people to get stuck on him, to stop at Whitehead, he wanted to be surpassed in every way, and knew he could: there is no position which is unpassable.

The reconciliation between being and becoming is a process of self-reconciliation and self-realization.

>>13907732
inspire philosophically creative imagination^

Whitehead's philosophical work is a love letter to the creative art of philosophy.

Whitehead didn't want to pick or choose which particular philosophical engagements were "worth" or "unworthy," he saw philosophical pursuit itself as virtuous, and so the entire field of it's explorations as speaking of the virtue of philosophical adventures. He loved human creativity so much, he was in wondrous love with life.

Philosophy is beautiful.

https://youtu.be/2K_aHCJbxN0

TL;DR you can't retroactively debunk Whitehead because he retroactively assumed his own ability to be dunked, and so tried to pass the torch away from him as far as possible. He knew that he could be topped, and wanted to be topped.

>>13906658
Holy reddit

>>13907815
Yea but dont associate guenon and other literal nobodies with him. There has not been much progress since him also the Speculative Revolution has yet to commence.

>Whitehead saw God as necessary for his metaphysical system. His system required that an order exist among possibilities, an order that allowed for novelty in the world and provided an aim to all entities. Whitehead posited that these ordered potentials exist in what he called the primordial nature of God. However, Whitehead was also interested in religious experience. This led him to reflect more intensively on what he saw as the second nature of God, the consequent nature. Whitehead's conception of God as a "dipolar" entity has called for fresh theological thinking.


NOOOOO ATHEISTBROS NOT ANOTHER ONE!

>>13906658
kek

>>13908210
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEI-NCTsiPE&
Very relevant.

Should I finish reading Deleuze before starting Whitehead?

>>13908210
Prototypical Next Movements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm7Xt2Qsjcg

>>13908659
Generally it's a good idea to finish what you started, Whitehead isn't easy read.