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August 2018

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Subject:
From:
Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 6 Aug 2018 08:58:00 -0600
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ToKers:

Fascinating that Gregg spent his cruise reading Will Durant's 1926  
"The Story of Philosophy" -- written by perhaps the most successful  
popularizer of philosophy in English in the 20th century (yes, other  
language-groups have taken different approaches.)

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__archive.org_stream_TheStoryOfPhilosophyWillDurant_The-2520Story-2520Of-2520Philosophy-2DWill-2520Durant-5Fdjvu.txt&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=Gi558V7akAF49_fYVk8NPsXj47ErPLlFy-AxuhS33n4&e=

As it turns out, Durant (1885-1981) was trained by Jesuits in High  
School and College, a century ago in the same town where I now live,  
Jersey City, NJ -- at St. Peter's (a college next-door to which my son  
recently bought a house.)

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Will-5FDurant&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=D7dlXDE0TXzoMtwD_uxG2RVFq8r1wZqG1IPsJhlaQDI&e=

But, arguably, Durant's real focus was on history (as only partly  
illustrated through philosophy.)  Along with his wife Ariel (who he  
"fell in love with" when she was 15 and his student, perhaps helping  
to explain why he didn't become a priest), he wrote the 11-volume "The  
Story of Civilization" -- which narrates 2000+ years of Western history.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_The-5FStory-5Fof-5FCivilization&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=I86zN_ZlbT0j0XnwMq74clZMbeWZNzhdL3-DkQ7UAcE&e=

Another version of this was the 6-volume "The Great Ages of Western  
Philosophy," which constructs the following life-cycle: Belief (Anne  
Freemantle) --> Adventure (Giorgio de Santillana, my other  
"godfather") --> Reason (Stuart Hampshire) --> Enlightenment (Isaiah  
Berlin) --> Ideology (Henry Aiken) --> Analysis (Morton White.)

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Great-2DAges-2DWestern-2DPhilosophy-2DVOLUMES_dp_B001GDE68C&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=itLk2UgipKZ7uXRDGeL80y0pklFVeJTaLn2O-quKyKk&e=

Much like simple living organisms (Life, 2nd on Gregg's chart) and  
"higher animals" (Psychology, 3rd on Gregg's chart), Cultures (4th on  
Gregg's chart) come and go.  They have a "life-cycle" that follows a  
particular arc.  This theme was emphasized by Oswald Spengler in his  
1918 "Decline of the West" and then picked up by Arnold Toynbee in his  
multi-volume "A Study of History" &al.  This quote from Durant's SoC  
volume one is instructive (particularly when considered in the light  
of his Catholic upbringing) --

"Hence a certain tension between religion and society marks the higher  
stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid  
to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people  
that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to  
statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost  
cause of the past. For as knowledge grows or alters continually, it  
clashes with mythology and theology, which change with geological  
leisureliness. Priestly control of arts and letters is then felt as a  
galling shackle or hateful barrier, and intellectual history takes on  
the character of a "conflict between science and religion."  
Institutions which were at first in the hands of the clergy, like law  
and punishment, education and morals, marriage and divorce, tend to  
escape from ecclesiastical control, and become secular, perhaps  
profane. The intellectual classes abandon the ancient theology  
and—after some hesitation—the moral code allied with it; literature  
and philosophy become anticlerical. The movement of liberation rises  
to an exuberant worship of reason, and falls to a paralyzing  
disillusionment with every dogma and every idea. Conduct, deprived of  
its religious supports, deteriorates into epicurean chaos; and life  
itself, shorn of consoling faith, becomes a burden alike to conscious  
poverty and to weary wealth. In the end a society and its religion  
tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death.  
Meanwhile among the oppressed another myth arises, gives new form to  
human hope, new courage to human effort, and after centuries of chaos  
builds another civilization." (p. 71)

Yes, this "cyclical" approach -- which seems to apply to Life and  
Psychology, as well as Cultures -- is at odds with the "Omega Point"  
theme brought to this list by Jamie.  Is the West finished (with China  
on the rise)?  Or, is it just "pausing"?  Or, is it "evolving" into  
some version of "heaven on earth" (as the Book of Revelation would  
have it)?

My guess is that a Theory of Knowledge based on these "dimensions of  
complexity" will also need to deal with Durant &al's "rise-and-fall"  
arc and, in the process, provide us with the tools to assess the  
current state of ours and its most likely future trajectory (yes, this  
would also be where the topic of technology enters the analysis,  
unfortunately a subject not well understood by Durant &al and, for  
which, McLuhan becomes necessary) . . . <g>

Mark

P.S. Most who have considered Spengler -- who kicked all this off,  
provoking scores of responses, including UofChicago's Great Books,  
Marshall McLuhan, JRR Tolkien and Narnia, the New Age/Aquarian  
Conspiracy &c -- don't take the next step to read his final summary,  
the 1931 "Men and Technics."  It was only recently that a thorough  
biography (based on recent scholarship) of Spengler appeared in  
English.  I highly recommend it for a backdrop of the 20th-century and  
how we have been delivered to our current predicament . . . !!

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Prophet-2DDecline-2DSpengler-2DPolitical-2DTraditions&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=93s7EDuYe9SZXJnfNSbcMPYUuGptwMTY-OPbiMpW4r8&e=

P.P.S. When asked if he was a pessimist or an optimist, McLuhan  
answered, "Neither, I'm an apocalyptist" -- by which he meant that his  
work involved *revelation* (the meaning of the term "apocalypse") and  
shouldn't be taken as a "prediction" that could be mistaken as "good"  
or "bad."  He went out of his way to emphasize that "moralizing" (i.e.  
attaching positive/negative "values" to reality and its causal  
processes) is the surest way to block one's ability to understand what  
is actually going on.  If we "want" something, then, as the Rolling  
Stones told us, you probably won't get it -- instead, what actually  
happens is what you "need" (which may be quite different.)

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DoqMl5CRoFdk&d=DwIDaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=pyETWxn2CmLxyi5WMuga1-70Wt2xZS_j2rQtKaxaG_E&s=Q8ObTcOfqoy6c1jRRNU9quJzaFMwAZOqgz9f4GDdL0U&e=

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