COGITANDO SIC, method of evolution — Part Two
The METHOD OF EVOLUTION, of "working what's been thought-through, and thinking through again what's been worked through" [cogitata perficiendo, cogitando sic perfecta] has been proposed in the earlier strand "cogitando sic, method of evolution".
To carry the above rationale of evolution one step further, I propose the method of accommodation (REFLECTIVE SYMBIOSIS), that is, the purposeful method of the application of the "analogies of reciprocals" principle.
Louis Dupré says: “Reason…functions in a system [evolutionary] where everything has become end and means.” (“The Enlightenment & the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture” pg. 17, © 2004, Yale University Press, New Haven and London) In effect, everything in an evolutionary system functions interactively as subject/ object, which is to say, "subject qualifies object as object qualifies subject". This states the principle of the ANALOGY OF RECIPROCALS and the METHOD OF EVOLUTION.
By this method of evolution, dialog is enabled by which polar opposites come to be accommodated and a middle ground established (reflective "symbiosis"). The example, "subject supposes object as object supposes subject" illustrates the "both/and" rationale of accommodation as opposed to the "either/or" rationale of stalemate. Case in point: objectivity supposes subjectivity as subjectivity supposes objectivity; absolutism supposes relativism as relativism supposes absolutism; and, the Religious Right supposes the Religious Left as the Religious Left supposes the Religious Right.
When polar opposites turn toward each other and acknowledge each other, the possibility of dialog and accommodation exists, and the possibility of finding the middle ground of accommodation. Is this a possible path toward peace and reconciliation, toward the avoidance of violence and war, toward "social evolution"?
Let there be Peace! Merry Christmas one and all!
*sylvester*; well, not to
*sylvester*; well, not to quibble, but actually Hegel, in his work on GEIST (spirit), understood that all reality is mediated by a dialectical tension (not his word; he would say something more like 'movement' [cum process]) that 'seals' the affinity between thought and object. His historical dialectic then became a conceptual method of understanding the progress of Law and Right in the (profane) world. [You also might be interested in Hume & Locke on this but nobody beats Hegel, in my reading, for the religious implications of Spirit-in-the-world].
Hegel and Kant are often considered 'philosophers in opposition' to each other. Kant's metaphysical idealism was repudiated by Hegel, as was his (Kant's) approach to morals, [to some extent due to Hegel's being born 1/2 century later and living in a very different intellectual milieu than Kant's (1874 -1831 compared to Kant's EARLY 17th century appearance & life...)]
Both did share a 'modernist' sense of the phenomenology that you refer to but it wasn't until Husserl [1859-1938] that we begin to get the real sense of a phenomenology that suggests the kind of 'conformity' you mean and even then we await the twentieth century existential movement in Europe to see the full blown effects of a genuine phenomenology, in my reading of intellectual history.
I want to address this because it is always important to contextualize properly both the philosophical interplay and the historical periods of the exchange of ideas. This is especially important when examing 'God and the World', I think.
God's peace,
e+
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness ..." (Isaiah 58)
Thank you very much Rev. Dr.
Thank you very much Rev. Dr. E. for enlightening the development of dialectics in the intentional purposes of social evolution.
This strand is of importance because of the importance of social evolution to everyone. Cultured dogmatism eschews the fluidity of evolution; cultures stagnate and retrograde if they fixate in the past. That is a problem for dominion theology and patriarchal politics, which underlie Western (Abrahamic) cultures.
It is important that the philosophy (rationality) and theology (fidelity) of spirituality collaborate (dialog) pro-actively toward purposes of social betterment, human and ecological. The detour of subjective consciousness into sideroads of ideological fixes is not conducive to personal/ social growth and wellbeing. Thus, attention and intention should be focused on the social purposes of evolution, and its "method". It's something in which we all need to participate actively.
Yes, as always, itinerancy
Yes, as always, itinerancy and provisionality seem to be the best defences against cultured dogmatism ...
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness ..." (Isaiah 58)
From William Madges, "God
From William Madges, "God and the World", copyright 1999, pg 123, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y., U.S.A.
"Like Kant, Hegel held that the mind stamps its seal on all knowledge... Hegel held that the rational is real and the real is rational. THINGS THOUGHT ARE COMPLETELY PRESENT IN THINKING; AND IN THINKING, THOUGHT IS COMPLETELY PRESENT IN THE THINGS THOUGHT. (Emphasis added.) Objective truth for Hegel, then, is the conformity of objects to their concepts."