/lit/ - Literature

>The simpleminded use of the notions "right" or "wrong" is one of the chief obstacles to the progress of understanding.
So is this right or wrong?

Is Professor Pimple right or wrong here?

"The notion of a mere fact is the triumph of the abstractive intellect....A single fact in isolation is the primary myth required for finite thought, that is to say, for thought unable to embrace totality. This mythological character arises because there is no such fact. Connectedness is of the essence of all things of all types. It is of the essence of types, that they be connected. Abstraction from connectedness involves the omission of an essential factor in the fact considered. No fact is merely itself. The penetration of literature and art at their height arises from our dumb sense that we have passed beyond mythology; namely, beyond the myth of isolation.
It follows that in every consideration of a single fact there is the suppressed presupposition of the environmental coordination requisite for its existence. This environment, thus coordinated, is the whole universe in its perspective to the fact. But perspective is gradation of relevance; that is to say, it is gradation of importance. Feeling is the agent which reduces the universe to its perspective for fact. Apart from gradations of feeling, the infinitude of detail produces an infinitude of effect in the constitution of each fact. And that is all that is to be said, when we omit feeling. But we feel differently about these effects and thus reduce them to a perspective. 'To be negligible' means 'to be negligible for some coordination of feeling'. Thus perspective is the outcome of feeling; and feeling is graded by the sense of interest as to the variety of its differentiations.
In this way the finite intellect deals with the myth of finite facts. There can be no objection to this procedure, provided that we remember what we are doing. We are presupposing an environment which, in its totality, we are unable to define. For example, science is always wrong, so far as it neglects this limitation. The conjunction of premises, from which logic proceeds, presupposes that no difficulty will arise from the conjunction of the various unexpressed presuppositions involved in these premises. Both in science and in logic you have only to develop your argument sufficiently, and sooner or later you are bound to arrive at a contradiction, either internally within the argument, or externally in its reference to fact." cont

>Whether or not it be for the general good, life is robbery. It is at this point that with life morals become acute. The robber requires justification.
Why does the robber require justification??

Look upon this face and despair

>“No one now holds that, apart from some further directive agency, mere individualistic competition, of itself and by its own self-righting character, will produce a satisfactory society”
He was right. Why are people still overrating competition?

What is an event?

Post philosophers and their literary equivalents (or vice versa)
Whitehead=Musil

becoming is for the purpose of being (signification in the universe), and being is for the purpose of novel becoming (the emergent individual self).

Is Whitehead right in these remarks?

>"The point is, that speculative extension beyond direct observation spells some trust in metaphysics, however vaguely these metaphysical notions may be entertained in explicit thought. Our metaphysical knowledge is slight, superficial, incomplete. Thus errors creep in. But, such as it is, metaphysical understanding guides imagination and justifies purpose. Apart from metaphysical presupposition there can be no civilization." However he also writes that the project cannot be crowned with any “triumphs of finality. We cannot produce that final adjustment of well-defined generalities which constitute a complete metaphysics”

>“No one now holds that, apart from some further directive agency, mere individualistic competition, of itself and by its own self-righting character, will produce a satisfactory society”

>When a form of civilization is exhausted: “In that case, a quick period of transition may set in, which may or may not be accompanied by dislocations involving widespread unhappiness”

>“Philosophy is not a mere collection of noble sentiments. A deluge of such sentiments does more harm than good. Philosophy is at once general and concrete, critical and appreciative of direct intuition. It is not—or, at least, should not be—a ferocious debate between irritable professors. It is a survey of possibilities and their comparison with actualities. In philosophy, the fact, the theory, the alternatives, and the ideal, are weighed together. Its gifts are insight and foresight, and a sense of the worth of life, in short, that sense of importance which nerves all civilized effort. Mankind can flourish in the lower stages of life with merely barbaric flashes of thought. But when civilization culminates, the absence of a coördinating philosophy of life, spread throughout the community, spells decadence, boredom, and the slackening of effort.”

>He thinks that materialism means meaningless dead stuff
Uh hello? This isn't the 19th century. No serious scientist or philosopher endorses this brand of materialism. Stop believing in hacky spiritualism and flimsy ideology and read a book for once.

https://streamable.com/75jbt
How will guenonfag recover?

>dude aesthetics as first philosophy lmao
was he cringe or based?

>>14261594
>this thread
>serious replies
>mfw

Whitehead on religion. Was he right?
This is from his Religion and Science chapter in Science and the Modern World. 1/5

Will just post this here.
The present state of religion among the European races illustrates the statements which I have been making. The phenomena are mixed. There have been reactions and revivals. But on the whole, during many generations, there has been a gradual decay of religious influence in European civilisation. Each. revival touches a lower peak than its predecessor, and each period of slackness a lower depth. The average curve marks a steady fall in religious tone. In some countries the inc terest in religion is higher than in others. But in those countries where the interest is relatively high, it stilI falls as the generations pass. Religion is tending to degenerate into a decent formula wherewith to embellish a comfortable life. A great historical movement on this . scale results from the convergence of many causes. I wish' to suggest two of them which lie within the scope of this chapter for consideration. In the first place for over two centuries religion has been on the defensive, and on a weak defensive. The period has been one of unprecedented intellectual progress. In this way a series of novel situations have been produced for thought. Each such occasion has -found the religious thinkers unprepared. Something, which has been proclaimed to be vital, has finally, after struggle, distress, and anathema, been modified and otherwise interpreted. The next generation of religious apologists then congratulates the religious world on the deeper insight which has been gained. The result of the continued repetition of this undignified retreat, during many generations, has at last almost entirely destroyed the intellectual authority of religious thinkers. Consider this contrast: when Darwin or Einstein proclaim theories which modify our ideas, it is. a triumph for science. We do not go about saying that there is another defeat for science, because its old ideas have been abandoned. We know that another step of scientific insight has been gained. gained. Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. Its principles may be eternal, but the expression of those principles requires continual development. This evolution of religion is in the main a disengagement of its own proper ideas from the adventitious �otions which have crept into it by reason of the expression of its own ideas in terms of the imaginative picture of the world entertained in previous ages.

Give me the redpill on Alfred North Whitehead. What did he want?

Whitehead on professionalism

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. The dangers arising from this aspect of professionalism are great, particularly in our democratic societies. The directive force of reason is weakened. The leading intellects 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 feebleness of coordination.

>the fallacy of misplaced concreteness
does this basically mean believing in spooks?

The Leibnizian theory of the best of possible worlds is an audacious fudge produced in order to save the face of a Creator constructed by contemporary, and antecedent, theologians.

Is Whitehead right about free will?
>"I think that although in the final act we are so conditioned by unconscious previous thought that it looks automatic, as a matter of fact we have been determining that act by an enormous amount of rejection and selection. It all depends on what ideas are entertained and how we entertain them; some may be dismissed at once as horrible and repugnant, others dwelt upon as pleasant. After this rejection and selection has gone on for a sufficiently long period, the final act is conditioned, but we have had a large share in doing it."

I actuallu agree with this desu

Here is Whitehesd on something similar.
"Also we must recollect the basis of our procedure. I hold that philosophy is the critic of abstractions. Its function is the double one, first of harmonising them by assigning to them their right relative status as abstractions, and secondly of completing them by direct comparison with more concrete intuitions of the universe, and thereby promoting the formation of more complete schemes of thought. It is in respect to this comparison that the testimony of great poets is of such importance. Their survival is evidence that they express deep intuitions of mankind penetrating into what is universal in concrete fact. Philosophy is not one among the sciences with its own little scheme of abstractions which it works away at perfecting and improving. It is the survey of sciences, with the special objects of their harmony, and of their completion. It brings to this task, not only the evidence of the separate sciences, but also its own appeal to concrete experience. It confronts the sciences with concrete fact."

“Philosophy is not a mere collection of noble sentiments. A deluge of such sentiments does more harm than good. Philosophy is at once general and concrete, critical and appreciative of direct intuition. It is not—or, at least, should not be—a ferocious debate between irritable professors. It is a survey of possibilities and their comparison with actualities. In philosophy, the fact, the theory, the alternatives, and the ideal, are weighed together. Its gifts are insight and foresight, and a sense of the worth of life, in short, that sense of importance which nerves all civilized effort. Mankind can flourish in the lower stages of life with merely barbaric flashes of thought. But when civilization culminates, the absence of a coördinating philosophy of life, spread throughout the community, spells decadence, boredom, and the slackening of effort.”

>>14052445
Where does he debate WLC? I would be interested in that.

(although if "curb stomps" means "Makes a video straw-manning his opponent's position" I really am disapointed in OP.

>No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.
Is he right?

"Also we must recollect the basis of our procedure. I hold that philosophy is the critic of abstractions. Its function is the double one, first of harmonising them by assigning to them their right relative status as abstractions, and secondly of completing them by direct comparison with more concrete intuitions of the universe, and thereby promoting the formation of more complete schemes of thought. It is in respect to this comparison that the testimony of great poets is of such importance. Their survival is evidence that
they express deep intuitions of mankind penetrating into what is universal in concrete fact. Philosophy is not one among the sciences with its own little scheme of abstractions which it works away at perfecting and improving. It is the survey of sciences, with the special objects of their harmony, and of their completion. It brings to this task, not only the evidence of the separate sciences, but also its own appeal to concrete experience. It confronts the sciences with concrete fact."

>My favorite philosopher is Alfred North Whitehead
What type of person do you imagine?