Bryan Wandel has a good blog post here. Short, insightful, and well worth the read. One quibble however:
Without accounting for the relationship between these two, Weber’s demystification (and ours) only regards the logical explanation of things, and not the participation and commitment that creates any “moment” or thought worth having.
The way I would put it is: “demystification results from confusing a logical explanation of things with the logical explanation of things.” I think Bryan gives up too much ground to Weber.
More broadly, and aware that I’m stepping away from Bryan’s point, I marvel at our ability to be demystified by explanations. If anything, gaining a rudimentary understanding of cellular biology has made me more mystified about the wonders of the human body rather than less. Coming to understand evolution has made me more mystified by the diversity of life, while gaining a grasp on the connection between particle physics and mathematics has made me more mystified about the nature of creation.
October 17th, 2009 | 9:38 am
Will, This from Voegelin:
” The life of the individual cannot be explained through the life of the species, as the theory of series has attempted to do; the life of the species cannot be explained by the totality of the phenomenon of life, as the theory of evolution attempts to do; and the totality of the phenomenon of life can most definitely not be explained through the laws of non-living nature. In the substantially genuine movement of the spirit, the theory of evolution has come to an end in the Critique of Judgment— although in the history of derivative theories on this issue, theories that move ever farther away from the center of the spirit, evolutionary theory did not flourish until the following century.
Kant appended a note to his radical destruction of the explanatory value of any theory of evolution in which he conceded that the fact of bodily kinship was not impossible. It was not, he remarked, totally absurd and a priori impossible that, for example, certain water animals might gradually evolve into marsh animals and, after some further generations, into land animals. “However, experience gives no example of it; according to experience, all generation that we know is generatio homonyma. This is not merely univoca in contrast to the generation out of unorganized material, but it brings forth a product that is in its very organization like the one that produced it; and generatio heteronyma, so far as our empirical knowledge of nature extends, is found nowhere.” This sentence, written in 1790, still applies word for word today; biology has nothing to add to it. ”
I understand “adaptation,” but I still don’t get “evolution.” And, since you write, “Coming to understand evolution…” I was thinking maybe you’d take a minute and explain. I’m not being snarky here!
October 17th, 2009 | 3:13 pm
About the time an accumulation of dissected facts start a rumor that mystery is dead, the spectral body of mystery will refuse to putrefy and stink, thus making the claim either comic or tragic or perhaps both.
This is the common ground between science and faith that we attempt to ignore at hazard.
October 19th, 2009 | 4:33 pm
Hegel once wrote, “The Owl of Minverva flies only at dusk.”
Weber picked up on this theme (taking a que also from Nietszche), and he believed that once a culture was de-mythologized it was finsihed as a creative force. I never thought Weber believed that the de-mythologized West was a good thing. And since his time there has been a demarcation line between the Believers and the Knowers. And both hold eachother in contempt.
What is interesting is the degree of faith that many Knowers have in a multitude of theories that explain everything from biology to Climate. It was believed in the past that scientists would defend thier theories, but would surely not die for them. Scientific abstractions carry only so much wieght. Not everyone can be a Socrates. Perhaps that is why Sicence flourished so well in the West. Until recent decades, Science was kept to the Ivory Towers and labs; theoretical men and women didn’t have to answer to a clerisy (either secular or religious). But not anymore. The world is now full of partisans (would be Knowers) who can lecture the Masses on everything from Darwin to the latest IPCC Climate study. With links to Wiki, now everyone is an expert.
Belief conjurs up the irrational; Protestants and Catholics spilling eachother’s blood during the 30 Years War; or Islamic radicalism that has spread to every continent. Science flowed from an impulse that was orginally agnostic if not atheistic. The few Elites who could live without the comforts of a Redeemer or Salvation, and who had the intellect to guide them could chart entire new territories. The Knowers lived for only one thing -to Know. The miracle of the US was a kind of peace treaty between the Knowers and Believers. Many of the Founders had feet planted in both camps. Religion was one of the few Enumerated Rights. Both the Knowers and the Believers could live here without fear of the law.
First Nietzsche, then people like Weber and Heidegger came along and said the entire project was flawed. Culture (that is, High Culture) is formed not by Knowers, but by Believers. To de-mythologized a culture was to destroy it. Both Weber and Heidegger attempted to correct the flaws they found in the modern democratic project, but that flight into the irrational led to Fascism. Fascism, which posits Knowing with the irrational force of Belief was a disaster that is still with us.
I do agree with the above post, which state that ignoring the common ground between Faith and Science is frought with danger. I do hope I didn’t rant too much.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact