tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post7912721789465036984..comments2024-03-27T13:20:02.905-07:00Comments on The Quotidian Reader: CogitationesWillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-78267452505894865902010-07-04T18:52:07.079-07:002010-07-04T18:52:07.079-07:00Thanks, Faith, for commenting -- we ought to start...Thanks, Faith, for commenting -- we ought to start a club or something : ). I guess we already have in a way! <br /><br />I had to read Husserl over and over again, and I do not think I understood it very well even so. I think part of it is the nature of philosophy, don't you? Every question leads to another one. Every time one thing seems clearer, it opens a door to another mystery. <br /><br />About that "authentically choosing to be inauthentic" -- one of the things I liked about reading Husserl is that he could avoid some of those types of pitfalls. <br /><br />I think that is a really interesting point about reason as a biological function. I guess Husserl avoids that aspect of it because he doesn't want to start from that more abstract "layer" if you see what I mean. It's sort of something you deduce, which is a scientific thing, if you don't just assume it, as a baby does. However, I was wondering if you could make some sort of argument from the very necessity in our minds of correlation with the outside world -- in other words, it's almost built-in, like the principle of non-contradiction. It's almost an intrinsic part of our experience as it comes in. Anyway, interesting questions.Willahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17374272000644968446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039160066439602962.post-3766559284027472312010-07-04T13:20:08.142-07:002010-07-04T13:20:08.142-07:00Hi Willa,
I have just started reading Aquinas by ...Hi Willa,<br /><br />I have just started reading Aquinas by Edward Feser. It's a Beginner's Guide. And my middle-aged brain is much murkier than yours for I have to go very slowly and painfully through these ideas as I can not seem to comprehend them without reading them over and over again! And this book is for novices! Whew! There's very little hope for me! However, your distinction between Aristotle's starting point: man reasons vs. Decartes' how do we know man reasons? is one of the first things Feser talks about. How modern and post modern philosopher's don't get Aristotle or Aquinas because they don't realize this very difference in approach. <br /><br />I totally get you about how the moderns have painted themselves into a corner. You can not rely on reason to determine whether you can rely on reason! It reminds me of studying Existentialism in college. Everything was about authentic choices. As long as the choice was 'authentic' it was good! But wait, what if I choose to be inauthentic! They were still positing a universal good, authenticity, even when they were saying what makes something good is whether you freely chose it. And also this puts Hitler's authentic choice on the same level as Albert Schweitzer's or some other humanitarian choice. We viscerally know this is wrong. It has sent a lot of people down ultimately absurd deadends and polluted our culture in the meantime. And this is the problem with the moderns, I think (I say from the vast depths of my ignorance!) they always inadvertently come up with assuming some sort of universal truth while trying very hard to deny that there is any universal truth!<br /><br />I think they have overthought what reason is. Reason to me is almost a biological function. We can not survive if what we think does not in some way correlate to reality. The more accurate the correlation the better the chance of survival. Of course our reasoning can never be perfect, but then do we ever experience perfection? Perfection does not exist in this realm. But that does not mean some things aren't obviously better or closer to perfection than other things.<br /><br />I would love to read more in philosophy but it is such a reading comprehension issue with me! I find it so dense and so hard to wrap my mind around. Words are defined differently and I find myself swimming in words. . .<br /><br />I really appreciated this post and will probably come back and reread it.<br /><br />Happy 4th of July!Faithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10169821331076296753noreply@blogger.com