tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50674383328384774212024-03-18T12:59:45.951-07:00Synopsis of Western PhilosophyBy Tom MaguireUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5067438332838477421.post-19868080138999533492020-05-26T02:18:00.118-07:002023-09-17T07:53:23.053-07:00Overview<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUskXrxfXpNw2wuQJZLwRdFoFtpOAsD-XuPQzwq3qSvpUzx-HTf_dKNoR_K9yhYon8x2kFj5yyzKnFhNws6d0n28dhw-qUILeaQtzeRFFfXXYkMwi-ji6RRRwvoHt5xYv0Rt7pzXwzdDI/s722/heading.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUskXrxfXpNw2wuQJZLwRdFoFtpOAsD-XuPQzwq3qSvpUzx-HTf_dKNoR_K9yhYon8x2kFj5yyzKnFhNws6d0n28dhw-qUILeaQtzeRFFfXXYkMwi-ji6RRRwvoHt5xYv0Rt7pzXwzdDI/s320/heading.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span>The history of western thought can be traced following the different syntheses along its path because the progression of philosophical ideas works in a binary format: two contrasting ideas are discussed and sometimes a third idea arises uniting the two. Then an opposing idea leads to another synthesis, or not.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span><span>The first ideological opposition can be traced to </span><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/la-cultura-minoica-con-capital-en-la.html" target="_blank">the homeric poems</a><span>,</span><span> </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "libre baskerville", "palatino linotype", "book antiqua", Palatino, serif;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/the-iliad-by-homer.html" style="color: #3e00bb;" target="_blank"><span>The Iliad</span></a></i><span> and </span><i>The Odyssey</i><span>, dated before the VII century B.C. Both texts recount the relationships between </span><b><i>the human</i></b><span> and </span><b><i>the divine</i></b><span> represented by Achilles, Ulysses and the gods. The Illiad tells the tale of divine interventions and manipulation of human lives. The Odyssey, on the other hand, emphasises a hero who is able to look after himself without much divine intervention. As a sequel to </span><i><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/the-iliad-by-homer.html" target="_blank">The Iliad</a></i><span><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/the-iliad-by-homer.html" target="_blank">,</a> </span><i>The Odyssey</i><span> evolves as a story moving from one of godly pupeteering to one of human freedom. This evolution is that of an epic hero who is capable of solving his own problems and it prefigures the later Greek tradition of investigating their world without reference to the divinities. It is a precursor of the polemic between a </span><i><b>vertical </b></i><span>and a </span><i><b>horizontal </b></i><span>worldview.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/we-could-say-that-western-philosophy.html" target="_blank"><b>The Presocratics</b></a>, living in small island states in the Aegean between the VII and V centuries B.C., inherited the mental categories of Greek mythological explanation mixed with the homeric outlook of self-made humanity. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">They proposed syntheses between <b><i>logos </i></b>and <b><i>mitos </i></b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">through the concept of </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Kosmos(</b><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">order)</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">, the idea that the universe could be analysed and explained through rational thought as well as mythology. </span></p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">They concentrated more on the rational aspect rather than the myths. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Their aim was to explain the essence of nature(<i>physis). </i>The pythagorean sect proposed <i>mathematics</i> as the essential explanation; Thales contended it was <i>water</i>; Anaximander argued that it was <i>air</i>. These rational descriptions of the physical world led to a new proto-scientific explanation of the physical world which paralleled the traditional metaphysics of mythology. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This <b><i>horizontal</i></b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> worldview continued the homeric vision and was enriched through rationalisation of the physical; in the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b><i>vertical</i> </b>view </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">mythology still powered the metaphysical </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">explanation of reality as in the <i>Illiad</i> or the <i>Theogony</i> of Hesiod. This flat versus upward vision would pervade western thought </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the <a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/socratic-from-5th-to-4th-century-b.html" target="_blank"><b>Socratic </b></a>world of </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span>the next two centuries, V to IV B.C., t</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">he tensions </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">were ethical, epistemological and physical. They were each formulated in pairs of </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>vertical </b></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">and </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>horizontal </b></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">patterns: </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span>Socrates focused his interest in </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span>the ethical </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">question</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">social coexistence: h</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">ow could people in the city state(<i>polis)</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> of Athens live </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">together in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">harmony? The answer would influence the beginnings of political thought. Once again this reflexion on ethics was shaped by an up/down blueprint. Sparta resolved the conflict through </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>top down</i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> military organisation, Corinth through oligarchy and the Athenians in the </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>bottom up</i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> concept of </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>democracy</i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Plato, introduced a new problem: how do we know? For him the question of knowledge preceded the ethical problem of social cohesion. This new conflict is couched in terms of an opposition between a </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">perfect mental representation in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">forms(</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>morphe</b></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">), ideas, and the sensory reality of </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">physical matter(<i><b>physis</b></i>)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He summarises </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">his solution in <i>The Allegory of the Cave</i></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> where he values idealism over matter.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Aristotle, on the other hand, recognised the bias in Plato in favour of thought and against matter and he proposed an empirical investigation of nature through </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">physical classification of the <b>Kosmos</b>. This was an open recognition of the opposition between <b><i>physis </i></b>and <i><b>metaphysis</b>. </i>Although he did not come up with a synthesis of idealism and empiricism he pointed the way towards future solutions through conversation <i>(dialectics)</i>, a confrontation of opposing views with the goal of synthesising them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the Italian Renaissance painting <a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/the-school-of-athens-by-raphael.html" target="_blank">'<i><b>The School of Athens</b></i>'</a> Raphael summarised the central binary views of western thought patterns by </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">depicting</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Plato pointing </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>vertically </b></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">while Aristotle points </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>horizontally</b></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLQv_K6FhZ085MAc6h2U4n5gnS9VXY0sC60L5QD_Gypimv-rqKhA61x-VXMgmSl6-SMR6ZBbAnplwKqwdxDvsXgvMjlr-Vl6Di6ChXQ26BILHOwEA-epoOXuHF-hlpZ4HYW4EI6tlLZ_k/s800/Platon%252C+aristoteles+rafael.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLQv_K6FhZ085MAc6h2U4n5gnS9VXY0sC60L5QD_Gypimv-rqKhA61x-VXMgmSl6-SMR6ZBbAnplwKqwdxDvsXgvMjlr-Vl6Di6ChXQ26BILHOwEA-epoOXuHF-hlpZ4HYW4EI6tlLZ_k/s320/Platon%252C+aristoteles+rafael.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Hellenistic</span></b></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1" target="_blank"><b> period</b></a> began when </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Alexander the Great invaded Persia then expanded his empire to Egypt in 332 B.C</span>. Ruling Egypt were the Ptolemies, a Macedonian family who had inherited the Greek tradition of investigation which inspired them to found the Library of Alexandria</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">. It attracted scholars from all over the empire who took advantage of the hellenistic acceptance of syncretism. This mix of empirical and theoretical knowledge from the vast empire was the internet of its time producing an information synthesis between speculation and calculation in the form of mathematics.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When the <a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/roman-1st-century-b.html" target="_blank"><b>Roman empire</b></a> came to power it inherited Greek culture and continued its philosophies. The ethical and social question of coexistence posed by Socrates obtained differing philosophical solutions </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">adopted by Roman intelectuals from the Greek tradition</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">: Stoicism tended towards a synthesis of vertical and horizontal thinking the Kosmos, world order, is governed by a divine logos. Epicurianism concentrated more on the here and now thinking that the gods were distant and uninterested in humanity. Skepticism was a response to Plato's question on knowing. The skeptics represented doubt, even about sensory input, while still using logic to think about politics. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Neoplatonism</b>, however, which emerged in the middle of the 3rd century at the time of Roman imperial crisis, w</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">as the philosophy that offered a dominant synthesis </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">of the Hellenistic tradition to the late </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Greco-Roman world. It overtook other philosophies offering a comprehensive theory of the universe and the place of the individual in it derived from hellenistic philosophy, religion and literature. Neoplatonism synthesised a thousand years of intellectual </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">investigación </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">systematically bringing together in dialogue(</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">dialectics</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">) <i><b>empirical, moral and metaphysical</b> </i>theories from Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics. Neoplatonic thinking did not include epicurian notions perhaps because they did not coincide with traditional platonic emphasis on the metaphysical. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Augustine of Hippo embraced neoplatonism in his <i>Confessions </i>(397-400 A.D.). Subsequently his life's work would be an effort to synthesise <b><i>christianity </i></b>and <b><i>neoplatonism</i></b>. In morality Augustine follows the neoplatonic ethics of the virtuous life which means to become like God. As a neoplatonist Augustine viewed the problem of evil in a binary fashion as a privation of good, not something substantial in itself. Mystical contemplation as a means of directly encountering God also came from his neoplatonic readings. His philosophical theology of original sin, free will, and the nature of man was influenced by Neoplatonism, too. His concept of God and the soul as <i><b>immaterial</b></i>, as opposed to the <b><i>material </i></b>body, is also neoplatonic. This <i><b>body/soul</b></i> opposition echoes Plato's <b><i>matter/ideas</i></b> binomial and the traditional <i><b>vertical/horizontal</b></i> opposition. However, in line with traditional platonic thinking the neoplatonic worldview emphasised the <b><i>metaphysical </i></b>rather than the <b><i>physical.</i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><b><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/entre-70-a.html" target="_blank">Medieval western philosophy's</a> </b>main challenge was still to bring together the vertical and the horizontal visions, now called <b><i>faith </i></b>and <i><b>reason</b></i>. The dichotomy consisited of the conflict between biblical revelation from the theological tradition and sensory information from aristotelian empiricism. Averroës proposed the double truth theory arguing that the two types of knowledge were opposed. Thomas Aquinas rejected this approach, proposing that both types of knowledge were compatible: revelation guiding reason and reason clarifying and demystifying faith. In his <b>Summa Theologica</b>, composed between 1265 and 1274, Aquinas synthesises aristotelian natural philosophy and Christian theology. This conflict between <i><b>aristotelian empiricism</b></i> and <i><b>revelation </b></i>parallels the tension between the traditional <i><b>horizontal/vertical</b></i> interpretations of reality.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/renaissance-italy-from-12th-to-14th.html" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" target="_blank"><b>The Renaissance period</b></a> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">started in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">14th century</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> Italy. It was l</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">ess a synthesis and more a new beginning, a new vision based on </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">studia humanitatis</i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">, research on traditional subjects but from Latin and Greek texts. In politics it included a gradual wresting of power from the religious authorities to promote a secularising vision of social organisation and a progressive use of the vernacular language to replace church latin. Italy had opted for a more <b>horizontal </b>vision in politics and historical interpretation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_30.html?m=1" target="_blank"><b>In the rest of 15th and 16th century northern Europe</b></a> christian sources were maintained as a driving force and the individual was promoted, but within religion. Humanism was a response </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">to social change because the established religion couldn't cope. Erasmus directed criticism equally against the Popes' corruption, scholasticism, and Protestant dogma on predestination. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">T</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">he 16th century <b>Reformation </b>was a religious response to social literacy and Catholic abuses of power. T</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">he split took on the names of two horizontal approaches: <i><b>empirical science</b></i> and <i><b>the aristotelian tradition</b></i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">. It was Bacon, Kepler and Copernicus who demonstrated that empiricism, not aristotelism, was the way forward. Northen Europe was gradually siding with the empirical against revelation in the humanist tradition of the Renaissance but also initiating political change fueled by religion.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Transalpine Europe had opted for social and scientific <i><b>horizontal </b></i>change while retaining the </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>vertical </i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">reference of reformed religion.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/modern-age-southern-europe-xv-and-xvi.html" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" target="_blank">In southern Europe</a></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> the Counter Reformation was a Catholic reaction to Protestant unorthodoxy. The dichotomy was between </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>traditional and empirical knowledge</i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">. Scholasticism, Aristotle, and the Bible, were still held to be the sources of scientific knowledge. The Catholic south maintained a conservative epistemology based on a <b><i>vertical </i></b>vision and rejected the <b><i>horizontal</i></b>, empirical version. Scientists like Bruno had to accept this matrix or die at the stake. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span>The Age of Reason in </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">the 17th century</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> saw a continuation of </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">the <b>vertical/horizontal</b> division. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/age-of-reason-northern-europe-17th.html" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" target="_blank"><b>In northern Europe</b></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">, already in favour of an empirical approach, this split concerned politics, not religion which had been settled during the Reformation. In England the opposition played out in a Civil war: Hobbes favoured the </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>vertical vision</i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> seen in his support of absolutism and the divine rights of the king; Locke represented a </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>horizontal outlook</i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> proposing the social contract and the separation of powers among the executive, Parliament and the judicial system.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/age-of-reason-southern-europe-17th.html" target="_blank"><b>In southern Europe</b></a> verticality and horizontality went under the names of <i><b>revelation </b></i>and <i><b>reason</b></i>. Descartes believed in God but his division was within the human individual: <b><i>thought</i></b><i><b>/existence</b></i>, another expression of the opposing metaphysical or physical definitions.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> Pascal opposed both empiricism and reason with revelation. Malebranche aimed to synthesise rational cartesian thought with Augustin's religious neoplatonism. He linked divine ideas to sensory perception in a synthesis of platonic <i><b>idealism </b></i>and physical <b style="font-style: italic;">experience </b>called <b>occasionalism</b>.</span><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">During the Enlightenment in 18th century</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/la-ilustracion-europa-norte-siglo-xviii.html" target="_blank"><b>northern Europe</b></a> <b><i>scientific empiricism</i></b> won the battle of the traditional </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">opposition beween the <i><b>physical </b></i>and the <i><b>metaphysical</b></i>. Physics proposed a deterministic reality as the </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">approach to understanding nature, replacing revelation.<i><b> </b></i>However that left philosophers without a goal since they did not employ the scientific method. This led to a return to Plato's epistemological question: how do we know? The answers were premised purely from a <b><i>horizontal worldview:</i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In an extreme form of empiricism</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Berkeley argued that we cannot directly know anything outside our minds. Hume also adopted a more limited empirical approach saying that the brain constructs sense from an otherwise chaotic reality. Adam Smith's economic theory proposed a free market, which although it appeared chaotic was guided by an invisible hand. Kant proposed a vision (in the homeric tradition of immanence) arguing that knowledge </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">resulted from a synthesis of <i><b>experience </b></i>and <b><i>concepts</i></b>. He also placed limitations on human knowability stating that we could know appearances<i>(phenomenon) </i>but not the thing in itself(</span></span></span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">noumenon).</span></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/the-enlightenment-southern-europe-18th.html" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en"><b>In southern Europe</b></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en"> the Enlightenment synthesis between </span></span></span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>religious transcendence</b></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en"> and </span></span></span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>rational materialism</b></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en"> took the intermediary form of <b>metaphysical materialism</b>. </span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">This relates to the presocratic tradition of searching for the essence of Nature in fire, water, air, numbers... Using skepticism to question authority Voltaire argued</span></span></span><span> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">for free will against determinism, yet recognised that humans are governed by natural laws. In ethics he sustained that correct action was guided by reason. Skepticism also motivated Diderot in his writings for <i>l'Encyclopédie. </i>He combined <b><i>rationalism </i></b>with <i><b>faith in the human min</b></i><b><i>d</i></b>, although recognising its limitations. His goal was to radicalise empiricism towards a materialistic metaphysics through eclecticism but avoiding dogma.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/edad-contemporanea-usa-siglos-19-20-la.html" target="_blank"><b>The 19th and 20th centuries in the USA</b></a> created three syntheses</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The <b>Romantic </b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">tradition<i><b> </b></i>retained a synthesis between the <i><b>vertical </b></i>and the <i><b>horizontal</b></i>, <i><b>Nature </b></i>and <i><b>God</b></i>. Thoreau saw the physical domain as an integral part of the spiritual. William </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">James reconciled science and religion in <b>theism</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">However other syntheses dispensed with the vertical and concentrated on the <b style="font-style: italic;">horizontal oppositions </b>and emphasised their limitations. Yet this led to an uneasy certainty: there are limits to our understanding. <b>Pragamatism </b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">synthesised <b><i>reasoning </i></b>and <i><b>empiricism </b></i>in Pierce's thought. He claimed that neither the empirical method nor the rational could achieve certainty, that reality is in flux and cannot be precisely determined. James argued that our perception of the physical world is unclear. <b>Darwinism</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><b> </b>influenced the theory of knowledge since if reality was changing we could only know it at the point of observation, not in its entirety.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/contemporary-age-northern-europe-19-20.html" target="_blank"><b>In the 19th & 20th centuries in northern Europe</b></a> the opposition was between <i><b>philosophy </b></i>and <i><b>science</b></i>. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Under the growing influence of scientific certainty philosophers began to seek a solid basis for their thinking. In ethics Bentham's <b>utilitarianism </b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">argued that </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the happiness of the greatest number was a solid basis for legality, society and morality. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Fichte and Hegel proposed a model for human thought reminiscent of Aristotle's <b>dialectics</b>: </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">thesis, antithesis then synthesis. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Husserl's proposed </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>phenomenology </b>as a philosophical base arguing for a study of consciousness within the flow of experience. Charles Darwin based his theory of evolution, <b>darwinism, </b>on the science of biology disregarding theological explanations but the theory was then applied as a philosophical explanation for social phenomena, psychology and the concept of change. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Nietzsche argued for <b>perspectivism:</b> knowledge and understanding are conditioned by how we are seeing objects but from our perspective which is from one place at a time and from a specific angle and we don't see the whole thing. He argued that knowledge of the totality is illusory. Russell agrees with perspectivism and thinks that </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">our senses tell us lies because they perceive snapshots, not change so he promoted a 'skepticism of the senses'. Wittgenstein cautions that p</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">hilosophical skepticism itself has its limits: excessive doubt undermines rationality and so the basis for doubting. Heidegger introduced a holistic vision of cartesianism explaining <b><i>existence </i></b>and <b><i>thought </i></b>as two sides of one coin. H</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">umans relate to the external reality by constructing theories about it. The philosophers of this era searched for a solid basis for their philosophy and ended up questioning the limits of their own knowledge.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/contemporary-age-southern-europe-19th.html" target="_blank"><b>In southern Europe</b></a> the emphasis was on relegating <b><i>metaphysics </i></b>in favour of the <b><i>empirical</i></b>. Comte's theory of positivism rejected metaphysics and theology as epistemologies and proposed <b>scientific empiricism</b>, not for absolute truth but for credible knowledge. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Sartre's existentialism followed Heidegger to argue that ideas come from experience thus synthesising the cartesian dichotomy of <b><i>existence </i></b>and <i><b>thought</b></i>. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The <b>structuralist </b>model by </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">Levi-Strauss synthesises different kinds of knowledge like myths, rituals and data in anthropological studies. </span>Merleau-Ponty synthesises </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">structuralism and phenomenology. He makes the transition from analysing perception to the study of existence itself using the tools of structuralism and language. In post-structuralism Foucault followed Kant arguing that in contrast to the classical vision initiated by Descartes language is not an instrument of thought but independent from thought. In the cartesian model <b><i>thinking </i></b>and <b><i>being </i></b>are linked, but Kant states that thinking is not representing since ontology and mental perception are unrelated because reality is always more than its representation. Yet Foucault criticises Kant contending that the 'I' cannot be simultaneously the object and source of transcendental representations. He adds that modern philosophers haven't demonstrated Kant's hypothesis. Derrida's <b>deconstruction </b>sets out to subvert the binary thinking behind western philosophy but proposes no synthesis in its place.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en"><a href="https://synopsiswesternphilosophy.blogspot.com/p/contemporary-age-quantum-mechanics-20th.html" target="_blank"><b>In contemporary western thought</b></a><i><b> </b></i></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><b><i>classical physics</i></b> is opposed to </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">the <b><i>quantum mechanics</i></b> model. </span>The first is deterministic according to Einstein but the Copenhagen interpretation presents quantum physics as random. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bohm suggested a holistic theory of <b>non-locality</b>: that the universe is physically interconnected at the quantum level which no human will be able to access. This is in line with the skeptical tradition which the Enlightenment deepened that as humans we cannot know reality. It is also not unlike the mystical traditions which encourage humility faced with the wholeness of the universe. Chinese Dao in <b>Taoism </b>refers to the non-subject non-object holistic unity yet this can’t be measured. It appears that the <b><i>horizontal </i></b>cannot be understood without a reference to the <b><i>vertical</i></b>.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In 1930 Paul Dirac published the book “<i>Principles of Quantum Mechanics</i>” in which he synthesised Heisenberg’s work on <b><i>matrix mechanics</i></b> and Erwin Schrödinger’s work on <i><b>wave mechanics</b></i> into a single mathematical formalism called the Dirac equation. This brought together two of the most important ideas in science: <b><i>quantum mechanics</i></b>, which describes the behaviour of tiny objects; and Einstein's <b><i>special theory of relativity,</i></b> which describes the behaviour of fast-moving objects. Dirac's equation describes how particles like electrons behave when they travel close to the speed of light. The Dirac equation also predicted the existence of antimatter – the mirror image of all known particles. Antimatter was later found to exist in the real world. (Is all matter fundamentally binary?)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Rovelli has put forward </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the <b>Loop Quantum Gravity</b></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> theory to integrate time and space from classic into quantum </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">physics. Space is chain mail and time its movements.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>String theory</b> is another attempt to combine the <i><b>General theory of relativity</b></i> and <i><b>Quantum mechanics</b></i>. Veneziano </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">observed that the force uniting protons and neutrons could be explained using the Euler beta function. Veneziano's mathematics describe the vibration of energy filaments like strands of string. This theory aims to synthesise <b><i>macro </i></b>and <b><i>micro physics</i></b> through <b>gravity</b>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><b><i>Conclusion</i></b>: </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Rovelli insists that progress in scientific thought has worked through synthesising contradictions. He gives these examples: </span><span>"<i>Newton discovered universal gravity by combining Galileo’s parabolas with the ellipses of Kepler. Maxwell found the equations of electromagnetism by combining the theories of electricity and magnetism. Einstein discovered relativity by way of resolving an apparent conflict between electromagnetism and mechanics.</i>" <i>Seven Brief Lessons on Physics</i> (2014). </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It appears that philosophical thought works in the same way. Perhaps humans simply think in a <b>binary </b>fashion whether of science or of philosophy.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0