Jul
28
Wise words from Anthony Esolen:
For the progressive secularists are misnamed. They cannot possibly progress, since they have ruled out the notion that there is any end towards which we are to proceed; the admission of an end would bring back the dreaded transcendent; it would revive the sleeping metaphysical giant.
[Link: Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Parochialism of Time]
I sense a common theme lately. When it comes to reductionism, Hitchen’s is a piker compared to this Dewey guy. Species exist only in the minds of scientists that are too stupid to see the truth. In other news, the Emperor is said to be wearing some nice, new clothes.
Hi Tom,
excellent quote.
The whole notion of progress, from a secularist pov, is akin to placing a false bias on particular patterns of matter,prefering more complex patterns.
But there is no logical reason for this preference that I can see ?
A chair and a Person are just different patterns and so have no value difference for the secularist - this is inconsistent with how people generally behave towards chairs and other people.
So not only is there no basis for progress theres no basis for making value distinctions between the subject and the object.
True. This leads the secularist to the absurd conclusion that there is no basis to think scientific progress has value. Some on this blog think absurdities are an unreliable, emotional reaction to the facts. Well, here we have another absurdity. Does our incredulity speak to the facts of the matter?
In an attempt to get around the incredulity problem, the secularist will say science ‘works’, and that something that works has more value than something that doesn’t work. But that’s the same so-called emotional argument, only repackaged. In making this argument the secularist is once again reviving the sleeping metaphysical giant.