Sander's Reflexions

“And if there is a man among the younger generation
That never strives for vacancy nor seeks an occupation
Who sets his mind on science and shows a thirst for knowledge
Or God himself fills him with inspiration
To creativity in art,
They scream: «Disaster! Fire!» and acknowledge
The man to be a dreamer and dangerous at that.”
Gore ot Uma from Griboyedov

I wanted to make a short remark on Enlightenment. Before I posted it I checked some resources. That was two weeks ago. The little remark grew… Last Saturday during my monthly course on philosophy I read this quote from Gore Griboyedov. I found the links to my remark on Enlightenment in Russian literature. Curious, isn’t it? Yes, because Russia was not really involved in the Age of Enlightenment. That’s what makes the quote so interesting. It contains Enlightenment (“Who sets his mind on science and shows a thirst for knowledge”) and Romanticism (“with inspiration to creativity in art”). Enlightenment and Romanticism, the sisters that need each other in strife. Ratio and emotion.

Age of Enlightenment? The name given to the 18th century with thinkers like Voltaire, Newton, Spinoza, Locke, Hume and Rousseau. But is there a philosophy of this enlightenment? In philosophical treatises I could not find a movement of enlightened philosophy. It’s not one movement. It’s a period of divergence! The first movement is Rationalism, started by Descartes. It emphasises reason. With systematic reasoning one gets knowledge. It is very idealistic. Through thinking we can discover the idea, the truth. The second movement is Empiricism, with Locke, Hume and Berkeley. They emphasise that we learn through experience.
Rousseau is also often mentioned among the philosophers of the Enlightenment. But he was the beginning of the Romantic philosophy, the third movement. Romanticists belief that men are good by nature and damaged by culture. Romanticism encourages people to follow there impulses and be primitive. Knowledge is innate.

Although Romanticism is quite different, I like to include it in the overall development of Enlightenment in the Western world, because all the movements I mentioned above have one very common characteristic. They abandon tradition. The sophisticated culture of people wearing wigs is attacked by revolutions. They also abandon the old religious dogma’s. Society and church are no longer considered to be the major forces directing our lives. Since the Enlightenment the individual is directing himself.


First remark
Now the remark I wanted to make. It’s a short statement to open the discussion (please comment). I’ll try to elaborate it in some future postings. My first remark is that since the enlightenment we think that we are individuals directed by (low level) physical impulses and (high level) rational thoughts. We simply ignore the enormous impact of the social environment. We do and say many things that the people around us do and say. We want to be accepted. We are reflections of our social environment.


It is interesting to read Kant’s explanation of Enlightenment:
„Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit, wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung und des Mutes liegt, sich seiner ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Sapere aude! Habe Mut dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen! ist also der Wahlspruch der Aufklärung.“
KANT: (1783) Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (An Answer To The Question: 'What Is Enlightenment?')

I like to introduce a metaphor. The physical level can be located in the lower part of the belly. The rational thoughts are located in the head. The social level is located just in between, in the heart. Kant says that we do not lack intelligence (head). We need determination (will, belly) and courage (heart). So enlightenment is not just a thing of the head.


Second remark: are we enlightened?
In a eastern or mystical meaning of the word, being enlightened means to have insight. To Know. Some characteristics of enlightenment are peacefulness, contentment, wonderment.
In a Buddhist description:
“Enlightenment is sometimes described as complete and perfect sanity, or awareness of the true nature of the universe. At this moment, all greed (lobha), aversion (dosa), delusion (moha), ignorance (avijjā), craving (tanha) and ego-centered consciousness (attā) are extinguished.”


Looking at our society I see materialism and stress. Did we have an Age of Enlightenment?


Some more links:
Encarta on the Age of Enlightenment.
Wikipedia on the Age of Enlightenment.
Wikipedia on Enlightenment.

Hi hi readers, I’m still there. I’ve just been very busy with many different things, sports, dancing, philosophy, music. Enough input for many reflexions, but not enough time to write.

Have you every heard of Kayak? Yes? Then you’re probably not the youngest here. They are not the youngest either, but they still make good music. Heavy, bombastic, just the way symphonic rock should be. Delicious! They have made a new rock opera, ‘Nostradamus – The Fate of Man’.
A rock opera telling the story of Nostradamus, the famous astrologer. Man is always intrigued by his prophecies and doom scenarios. Do you need more inspiration for two hours of music? Ok, just add the Templars to the story. The Templars are popular, you know. Dan Brown used them for a best seller. Rudy Cambier’s linked Templars and Nostradamus in his book ‘Nostradamus and the Lost Templar Legacy’. At least it is a very interesting plot for a symphonic rock opera.

My favourite books on the Templars is still Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. In the beginning of this book Belbo discusses the characteristics of imbeciles, fools and lunatics who write a book. A characteristic of the lunatic is that sooner or later he conjures up the Templars….

My favourite quote from ‘Nostradamus – The Fate of Man’: “There is no proof stronger than faith”.

Proof? Faith? More on that tomorrow!

Today she called on the phone. I couldn’t answer her call. She had to speak a voicemail. “Papa?…. Papa??? … Papa!!….” “Just tell papa how you’re doing,” says her mothers voice. “Papa, you’re very sweet. No problems here. .” Voicemail is magic for a 4 year old child.

She’s in Israel now. Her first journey to another country. Her first travel by air. “Aren’t you afraid? She’s so far. Isn’t it dangerous?” These questions I hear regularly. No, I’m not afraid. Well there is a higher risk to get an accident there. The taxi drivers really drive like idiots. Other people as well. Looking at the figures one has to be worried about the traffic. That other risk? Well, London has a high terrorism risk rating like Jerusalem. A few years ago I was in London just some months after an IRA bombing. One could really feel the fear in the city. Luggage depots were closed. In Israel I could store my luggage at a bus station. Ok, my backpack got checked at every station and shopping centre. And there are lots of men hanging around with little earphones. Maybe that’s why it’s such a chaos on the roads. They can’t pay attention to everything.

Of course I checked the news more often than usual. I was very happy to hear her voice.

# posted by Sander @ 22:29 1 comments

With my daughter I was reading one of those books that teach children how to count and add numbers. She’s always interested in numbers and very often picks books with numbers in it. In this book there was a picture of two flowers, one with 4 leafs and one with 3 leafs. The question was, how many leafs have these two flowers? The answer: “One flower is missing a leaf!” Another picture shows 3 smiling bears and 2 sad bears. The answer: “The two bears should smile. Why are they sad?” Without the book she would immediately give the right answer when you ask her to add 4 and 3. The problem is that many books add to much distracting details. Adding detail is not the way to simplify computation. Simplification is the way. It remembers me of a fragment of the book ‘Mr God, this is Anna.’ Anna is also having computation lessons at school. Her teacher asks her, “if you’ve got 4 sweets in one hand and 5 in the other, how many sweets do you have?” “I’ve got none,” replies Anna. “And your question is not fair. It’s mean to say I’ve got sweets when I’ve none.”
Computation is not easy to learn. It is very abstract. It doesn’t help to write stories and add details that move away from the abstraction. For me, mathematics became more difficult when new methods were introduced that wrapped the questions in little stories. In general it took me one minute to cross out the details and 2 seconds to answer the mathematical question.

There is another thing that most books do not teach children. It is one of the fundaments of mathematics. I was very pleased when my daughter started discovered it herself some time ago. She started counting with 0. Her reasoning was simple. Before you’ve got one thing (apple, finger, balloon or whatever you’re counting) you’ve got zero. So you start without anything, thus zero, and then comes one. I’ve never found it in one of her books. I don’t know if somebody else told her, but I was surprised. This week I was even more surprised. “Daddy, 0 + 0 = 0,” she said with a special look in her eyes. She noticed that there was something special with this computation. I complimented her for this discovery. I did not explain her how essential this computation is for mathematics. I’m also not going to explain it here. I just state that there is a need for the identity operation in mathematics.

Mister God, this is Anna.

Just a little note about the book I mentioned above. It is written in 1974 and I would characterise it as a romantic tale that illustrates many mystical insights. It’s romantic in the sense of the noble savage. In this book it is the pure child Anna who has unbelievable mystical insights. I still have the intention to make an analysis of all the mystical insights and philosophical ideas that presented in this book. There is a section on mirrors and reflections…

I like the Introduction by Vernon Sproxton, especially where it comes to the Truth question.
Some reviews at amazon.com

Never underestimate an infant. Yesterday she concluded that escalators are very practical for people that have a broken leg. I fully agreed. “People with a wheelchair can also use it”, she said. I said that it would not be possible, because the wheels do not fit on the steps. She looked at me. “They have to use a flat one without steps,” she replied sharp-wittedly. “Like the one we used with skis.” (A ski belt conveyor lift).

In the next few weeks I’ll be more late than usual. I already have an excuse. My daughter has taught herself to knot shoelaces. She is very proud of it and wants to demonstrate it every day with the shoes she finds. Unfortunately, when I want to leave I have to untwine shoelaces that have been transformed into a big knot.
Children often do the same things as their parents. Some things they copy. Other things are innate. My mother can tell nice stories about my skills to make knots everywhere and in everything. Listen to the stories of your own childhood and you know how your children will be. How long will it take until my daughter has transformed the laundry in one big knot?