LISTEN
T 14 - ML Intro
1. Ruse was raised with what strong belief, and became a philosophical specialist in what? (ix-x)
2. What did David Hume do to free himself of the burden of his metaphysical speculations? 2
3. What French philosopher advised "pushing down" our skeptical doubts? 5
4. Who were Schopenhauer's 20th and 21st century counterparts in questioning the value of existence and the meaning of life? 6
5. Ruse thinks of himself as a what? 9
DQ
- Any COMMENT on the famous lines from Macbeth? If a day at the seaside does not "signify nothing," is it reasonable to generalize about life in general "signifying nothing"? 1
- Are you consoled by the fact that "we're all in it together"? 3 What if the transhumanists succeed in "curing" us of death someday, and we're not all then liable to our finite four score or so?
- Is religious conversion truly a "spiritual birthday" for those who believe? (What would Hagglund say? And what do you say to Hagglund and Ruse?)
- If life is an accident, is it not a "glorious accident" and not something that strips us of value and meaning? (see the eponymous Dutch video series, ep.7 below)
- COMMENT: "Man is just a lump of slime"... "Shakespeare was right about us just being walking shadows." Why just? Why shouldn't a Darwinian like Ruse (never mind William Lane Craig) choose to emphasize the Darwinian "grandeur" of our species' rise from humble beginnings?
- Did Wittgenstein just not understand evolution? 8
- Ruse calls his own variety of non-theism naturalism. Is there any way of conceiving theism naturalistically, aside from noting the extent to which it might in some sense seem "natural" for many humans to entertain belief in a god?
- Was Camus "in the suicide business" or even an anti-natalist, in light of what he says in "The Myth of Sisyphus" (that we must imagine Sisyphus happy)?
The Case for Not Being Born
by Joshua Rothman
David Benatar may be the world’s most pessimistic philosopher. An “anti-natalist,” he believes that life is so bad, so painful, that human beings should stop having children for reasons of compassion. “While good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place,” he writes, in a 2006 book called “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence.” In Benatar’s view, reproducing is intrinsically cruel and irresponsible—not just because a horrible fate can befall anyone, but because life itself is “permeated by badness.” In part for this reason, he thinks that the world would be a better place if sentient life disappeared altogether... (continues)
Does human life have any meaning? Does the question even make sense today? For centuries, the question of the meaning or purpose of human life was assumed by scholars and theologians to have a religious answer: life has meaning because humans were made in the image of a good god. In the 19th century, however, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution changed everything-and the human organism was seen to be more machine than spirit. Ever since, with the rise of science and decline of religious belief, there has been growing interest - and growing doubt - about whether human life really does have meaning. If it does, where might we find it?
The historian and philosopher of science Michael Ruse investigates this question, and wonders whether we can find a new meaning to life within Darwinian views of human nature. If God no longer exists-or if God no longer cares-rather than promoting a bleak nihilism, many Darwinians think we can convert Darwin into a form of secular humanism. Ruse explains that, in a tradition going back to the time of Darwin himself, and represented today by the evolutionist E. O. Wilson, evolution is seen as progress -- "from monad to man" - and that positive meaning is found in continuing and supporting this upwards path of life. In A Meaning to Life, Michael Ruse argues that this is a false turn, and there is no real progress in the evolutionary process. Rather, meaning in the Darwinian age can be found if we turn to a kind of Darwinian existentialism, seeing our evolved human nature as the source of all meaning, both in the intellectual and social worlds. Ruse argues that it is only by accepting our true nature - evolved over millennia - that humankind can truly find what is meaningful. g'r
*Th 16 - ML ch 1
LISTEN... Winterton Curtis and the spirit of science...
Does human life have any meaning? Does the question even make sense today? For centuries, the question of the meaning or purpose of human life was assumed by scholars and theologians to have a religious answer: life has meaning because humans were made in the image of a good god. In the 19th century, however, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution changed everything-and the human organism was seen to be more machine than spirit. Ever since, with the rise of science and decline of religious belief, there has been growing interest - and growing doubt - about whether human life really does have meaning. If it does, where might we find it?
The historian and philosopher of science Michael Ruse investigates this question, and wonders whether we can find a new meaning to life within Darwinian views of human nature. If God no longer exists-or if God no longer cares-rather than promoting a bleak nihilism, many Darwinians think we can convert Darwin into a form of secular humanism. Ruse explains that, in a tradition going back to the time of Darwin himself, and represented today by the evolutionist E. O. Wilson, evolution is seen as progress -- "from monad to man" - and that positive meaning is found in continuing and supporting this upwards path of life. In A Meaning to Life, Michael Ruse argues that this is a false turn, and there is no real progress in the evolutionary process. Rather, meaning in the Darwinian age can be found if we turn to a kind of Darwinian existentialism, seeing our evolved human nature as the source of all meaning, both in the intellectual and social worlds. Ruse argues that it is only by accepting our true nature - evolved over millennia - that humankind can truly find what is meaningful. g'r
*Th 16 - ML ch 1
LISTEN... Winterton Curtis and the spirit of science...
1. Disease, injury, plague, filth, discomfort, hunger, ignorance (etc.) being the conditions of everyday life in the middle ages, ____ seemingly had a point about life's pointless futility. (12)
2. What "messes with us epistemologically" as well as ethically? 20
3. In what realm did modern philosophy "gnaw away at traditional belief"? 28
4. In transitioning away from traditional Anglican faith, Darwin first became a what? 34
5. About what was Darwin inclined to agree with his cousin? 41
5. About what was Darwin inclined to agree with his cousin? 41
DQ
- Do you think religion's appeal historically has been largely a function of the pains and inadequacies of terrestrial life? If life could be permanently and universally improved, would religion wither away?
- "Above all there was Easter..." 14 COMMENT: Is the supernatural mystery of resurrection a greater source of interest in religion for most (if not for you personally) than its secular counterpart, the idea of the natural and regular renewal of life?
- "The end of life was the social event of one's whole existence." 15 Is this still the case for some, especially in small towns where funerals remain central to social life?
- COMMENT: "When Christianity was functioning properly, life made a lot of sense." 16 Are you nostalgic for a time when Christianity was more widely perceived to "function properly"? (Like Henry Adams, for example, in his Education of Henry Adams?-"Without Mary, man had no hope except in atheism, and for atheism the world was not ready. Hemmed back on that side, men rushed like sheep to escape the butcher, and were driven to Mary; only too happy in finding protection and hope in a being who could understand the language they talked, and the excuses they had to offer.”
- COMMENT: In Epicurus, Democritus, Lucretius et al the world is "all a happy accident." 17
- COMMENT: What are the implications of an "emphasis on faith alone--sola fidelis..." for the integrity of intellectual life? 19
- Why was (is?) Christianity threatened by "cosmic pluralism"? 21
- Is "the whole world one big organism," literally or figuratively? 23
- Is it deflating or insightful and progressive to think of the universe as a "celestial machine"? 25
- Why was Kant "nasty about biology"? 31 Why does biology get less respect, still, from some?
- Why doesn't Erasmus Darwin get more credit for pioneering evolutionary thinking? 33
- "Metaphors like 'selfish genes' don't help much." 48 What would have been a better phrase to convey the idea of genes as persistent self-replicators?
If Evolution is necessary for human beings to find meaning, it seems that only those who experience the climax of that evolutionary process would have ever known true meaning.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree. The concluding paragraph of Origin of Species* seems to me to speak (or at least imply) volumes about the meaning of our lives as human beings, and as links in a long chain of life from humble beginnings to who knows what "climax". John Dewey reflected that sense of evolutionary meaning at the end of "A Common Faith" as well, when he said "the things in civilization we most prize are not of ourselves" but are the product of the labors and sacrifices of earlier generations, and that we have the meaningful opportunity to pay that forward to future generations. But of course, each of us must create our own personal sense of meaning and value.
DeleteI share the views expressed by Gould and Dennett, a few minutes in to the Evolution video above. Natural selection is the "best idea anyone ever had," and it touches profoundly on the meaning of our shared species life insofar as science can address that. As to specific personal meanings, that is of course more idiosyncratic and, well, personal. That's a point well-made by Hagglund and Ruse.
==
*It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Are you consoled by the fact that "we're all in it together"? 3 What if the transhumanists succeed in "curing" us of death someday, and we're not all then liable to our finite four score or so?
ReplyDeleteI am not consoled by the fact that we are in this together I am more consoled by the fact that what was said in the bible are coming to pass. I rest in that assurance that i already know how it is going to end.
Please don't spoil the end for me! ;)
DeleteCOMMENT: "When Christianity was functioning properly, life made a lot of sense." 16 Are you nostalgic for a time when Christianity was more widely perceived to "function properly"?
ReplyDeleteI believe when society has a universal moral code it creates a sense of normality and doesn't leave it up to society to determine. Which is what we have now. It seems that anything goes as long as the majority believes it and goes along with it. And I dont miss the days when Christianity was the main base line because those so called "Christians" where anything but christlike they were more Anti Christ , however anything that involves people is going to be imperfect.
The tie between specific religious doctrines and moral rectitude is not so tight as some religious teachers would have us believe. See, for instance, the Five Books recommendation of some of the best books discussing morality without god, above. Virtue is rooted in human nature and its evolutionary pressures upon our ancestors to cooperate and unify. Our enduring moral codes ultimately are not imposed by the "total authority" of a divine lawgiver or its human proxy, but emerge from our common experience and natural history together. Religion in its various forms comes later.
DeleteDid Wittgenstein just not understand evolution?
ReplyDeleteWittgenstein almost certainly understood evolution; it would be shocking if someone with his level of education just failed to understand evolution. From my understanding he was critical of Darwin for reducing the importance of certain things to utility e.g. emotions.
Can you say more about that? How did Darwin reduce the importance of emotion to utility?
DeleteDo you think religion's appeal historically has been largely a function of the pains and inadequacies of terrestrial life? If life could be permanently and universally improved, would religion wither away?
ReplyDeleteI think that the “pains and inadequacies of terrestrial life” has definitely contributed significantly to religion’s historical appeal but also the desire to explain things and find patterns has contributed historically to religion’s appeal. Personally I’m not sure if anything can cause religion to “wither away”, higher rates of education typically means lower rates of religion but I think religion will probably exist until the end of humanity.
The end of life was the social event of one's whole existence.’ (pg. 15) Is this still the case for some, especially in small towns where funerals remain central to social life?
ReplyDeleteI don’t think this is just the case in small towns, it’s just more significant when someone dies in a small town because more than likely a higher percentage of the population knows the person when compared to the death of a person in a larger town/city. In many large towns/cities the end of life is still the social event of one’s whole existence for many people’s families and such.
Why was (is?) Christianity threatened by ‘cosmic pluralism’? (pg. 21)
ReplyDeleteI think the reason Christianity was/is threatened by ‘cosmic pluralism’ is that it makes us as a species and a planet “no longer seem quite so important” which contradicts a huge theme of Christianity which is really about how important we as God’s creations are, but if God has all of these other creations and we seem significantly less important.