/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14393457]

Where exactly does he get refuted?

[Anonymous No.14393462]

In implicitly denying the superiority of Pope to Donne

[Anonymous No.14393472]

>>14393457
here in Crisis of the Modern World:

The same trend is noticeable in the scientific realm: research here is for its own sake far more than for the partial and fragmentary results it achieves; here we see an ever more rapid succession of unfounded theories and hypotheses, no sooner set up than crumbling to give way to others that will have an even shorter life— a veritable chaos amid which one would search in vain for anything definitive, unless it be a monstrous accumulation of facts and details incapable of proving or signifying anything. We refer here of course to speculative science, insofar as this still exists; in applied science there are on the contrary undeniable results, and this is easily understandable since these results bear directly on the domain of matter, the only domain in which modern man can boast any real superiority. It is therefore to be expected that discoveries, or rather mechanical and industrial inventions, will go on developing and multiplying more and more rapidly until the end of the present age; and who knows if, given the dangers of destruction they bear in themselves, they will not be one of the chief agents in the ultimate catastrophe, if things reach a point at which this cannot be averted?

Be that as it may, one has the general impression that, in the present state of things, there is no longer any stability; but while there are some who sense the danger and try to react to it, most of our contemporaries are quite at ease amid this confusion, in which they see a kind of exteriorized image of their own mentality. Indeed there is an exact correspondence between a world where everything seems to be in a state of mere ‘becoming’, leaving no place for the changeless and the permanent, and the state of mind of men who find all reality in this ‘becoming’, thus implicitly denying true knowledge as well as the object of that knowledge, namely transcendent and universal principles. One can go even further and say that it amounts to the negation of all real knowledge whatsoever, even of a relative order, since, as we have shown above, the relative is unintelligible and impossible without the absolute, the contingent without the necessary, change without the unchanging, and multiplicity without unity; ‘relativism’ is self-contradictory, for, in seeking to reduce everything to change, one logically arrives at a denial of the very existence of change; this was fundamentally the meaning of the famous arguments of Zeno of Elea.

[Anonymous No.14393480]

>>14393472
However, we have no wish to exaggerate and must add that theories such as these are not exclusively encountered in modern times; examples are to be found in Greek philosophy also, the ‘universal flux’ of Heraclitus being the best known; indeed, it was this that led the school of Elea to combat his conceptions, as well as those of the atomists, by a sort of reductio ad absurdum. Even in India, something comparable can be found, though, of course, considered from a different point of view from that of philosophy, for Buddhism also developed a similar character, one of its essential theses being the ‘dissolubility of all things ’. These theories, however, were then no more than exceptions, and such revolts against the traditional outlook, which may well have occurred from time to time throughout the whole of the Kali-Yuga, were, when all is said and done, without wider influence; what is new is the general acceptance of such conceptions that we see in the West today.

It should be noted too that under the influence of the very recent idea of ‘progress’, ‘philosophies of becoming’ have, in modern times, taken on a special form that theories of the same type never had among the ancients: this form, although it may have multiple varieties, can be covered in general by the name ‘evolutionism’. We need not repeat here what we have already said elsewhere on this subject; we will merely recall the point that any conception allowing for nothing other than ‘becoming’ is thereby necessarily a ‘naturalistic’ conception, and, as such, implies a formal denial of whatever lies beyond nature, in other words the realm of metaphysics— which is the realm of immutable and eternal principles. We may point out also, in speaking of these anti-metaphysical theories, that the Bergonian idea of pure duration’ corresponds exactly with that dispersion in instantaneity to which we alluded above; a pretended intuition modeled on the ceaseless flux of the things of the senses, far from being able to serve as an instrument for obtaining true knowledge, represents in reality the dissolution of all possible knowledge.

[Anonymous No.14393482]

>>14393457
he didn't

[Anonymous No.14393484]

>>14393472
>>14393480
wow I'm glad I didn't read him, sounds like an incel

[Anonymous No.14393485]

>>14393480
This leads us to repeat an essential point on which not the slightist ambiguity must be allowed to persist: intellectual intuition, by which alone metaphysical knowledge is to be obtained, has absolutely nothing in common with this other ‘intuition’ of which certain contemporary philosophers speak: the latter pertains to the sensible realm and in fact is sub-rational, whereas the former, which is pure intelligence, is on the contrary supra-rational. But the moderns, knowing nothing higher than reason in the order of intelligence, do not even conceive of the possibility of intellectual intuition, whereas the doctrines of the ancient world and of the Middle Ages, even when they were no more than philosophical in character, and therefore incapable of effectively calling this intuition into play, nevertheless explicitly recognized its existence and its supremacy over all the other faculties. This is why there was no rationalism before Descartes, for rationalism is a specifically modern phenomenon, one that is closely connected with individualism, being nothing other than the negation of any faculty of a supra- individual order. As long as Westerners persist in ignoring or denying intellectual intuition, they can have no tradition in the true sense of the word, nor can they reach any understanding with the authentic representatives of the Eastern civilizations, in which everything, so to speak, derives from this intuition, which is immutable and infallible in itself, and the only starting-point for any development in conformity with traditional norms

Whitehead's whole project ended in only 5 paragraphs

[Anonymous No.14393513]

>>14393457
He couldn't contend with the Eleatic doctrine of the coincidence of thought and Being. Considering this the infinite procession of actual occasions that characterizes Whiteheadian reality collapses in on itself forming an evenimential zero-point.

[Anonymous No.14393531]

>>14393472
>>14393480
>>14393485
Yup, I'm thinking he's based.
I'm gonna read him now.

[Anonymous No.14393539]

https://streamable.com/75jbt

[Anonymous No.14393561]

>>14393539
Context of this?

[Anonymous No.14393568]

>>14393539
that answer is pure cope, he couldn't explain why he said that because he knows that what he is denying is true

[Anonymous No.14393612]

>>14393561
https://youtu.be/6Wmh_rDErQA?t=295

[Anonymous No.14393652]

>>14393472
>'relativism’ is self-contradictory, for, in seeking to reduce everything to change, one logically arrives at a denial of the very existence of change; this was fundamentally the meaning of the famous arguments of Zeno of Elea.
Hold on, this is completely inaccurate on multiple levels. Zeno didn't try to refute the idea that literally everything changes constantly, he attacked the much more moderate and common sense idea that change exists at all, if anything this is a reductio ad absurdum of his own position, since it is undeniable that at least some things change.

[Anonymous No.14393661]

>>14393480
>implies a formal denial of whatever lies beyond nature, in other words the realm of metaphysics— which is the realm of immutable and eternal principles

oh? can you show me these mr Guenon? or will you simply preach?

[Anonymous No.14393691]

>>14393457
Right about HERE he gets refuted.

[Anonymous No.14393714]

>>14393661
if you read Shankara's commentaries he'll show you, that is if you have the intellectual capacity to understand them

https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf