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| AnonyAnonymous Join Date: 2013-06-23 Post Count: 6332 | #184114151Sunday, February 21, 2016 7:12 PM CST "Who are either of those people" Individuals who envied the superior pioneers of abstraction known as "mathematicians." |
Do you have a twitter or youtube?
V
What about all those people that had a shitty upbringing and childhood?
How your childhood is written in your face
The story of your life really is written on your face, according to new research by scientists.www.telegraph.co.uk
It's all about early upbringing and childhood. This is why self improvement is a bunch of bullshit.
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Brutal, no one can compete with your mental dysfunction.
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The quoted paragraph gives a nice sense of his strengths and weaknesses. Anticipating Darwin (and presumably relying on Hooke or Buffon), Voltaire clearly discerns that human caused animal extinction is a genuine possibility. This gives his thought an ongoing relevance.* In context he is attacking the (Platonizing) doctrine of the great chain of being. This doctrine is committed to (now quoting the Brittanica) "three general features of the universe: plenitude, continuity, and gradation. The principle of plenitude states that the universe is “full,” exhibiting the maximal diversity of kinds of existences; everything possible (i.e., not self-contradictory) is actual. The principle of continuity asserts that the universe is composed of an infinite series of forms, each of which shares with its neighbour at least one attribute. According to the principle of linear gradation, this series ranges in hierarchical order from the barest type of existence to the ens perfectissimum, or God."
Voltaire's argument against the chain of being is informed by reliance on empirical facts (and probable reasoning about them). For example, gradation is undermined by appeal to the size and orbits of planets.) Voltaire's argument is not resolutely empirical because it also relies on possible extrapolation from the facts. (In so doing it draws on a tendency inspired by Newton to turn metaphysical debates into empirical questions. (For that reason I call the general strategy, "Newton's Challenge to Philosophy.") In the article, Voltaire implicitly relies on Newton's arguments against a plenum. He then explicitly appeals to Newton:
Voltaire's daring is evident in his willingness to entertain the possibility of human extinction. (The main underlying target is clearly the Biblical narrative with its claim of sole descent from Adam.) But he does so by assuming racial diversity. Given that he is entertaining the (possible) extinction of human races this makes sense.
While the essay breathes the atmosphere of progress of Moderns over Ancients, I don't think that in this essay the point is to assert the superiority of whites** -- after all, the whole essay is an attack on the foolishness of Plato -- , and he is silent on the relative status of whites and blacks. That silence is somewhat surprising because he is a terrible racist toward blacks elsewhere, especially in his Traité de métaphysique!** But even in this essay Voltaire does introduce what we may call fetishistic and exotic images of the so-called Kaffirs and Samoyeds (I think the latter are meant to refer to Siberian tribes).+ If one takes rhetoric and aesthetics seriously, one wonders if those that wish to promote Voltaire and his Enlightenment are seduced by such imagery.
04/09/2018
Voltaire, The Great Chain of Being, and Enlightenment Racism
Even among professional historians of philosophy, Voltaire is rarely read these days. Of his works Candide is familiar, but little else. Among scholars there is a veritable and long-overdue revival of interest in his lover, Du Châtelet, but if French Enlightenment thought receives interest the focus is (not entirely correctly) on Diderot, Buffon, Montesquieu, and, of course, Rousseau. Yet, thanks to the awful Charlie Hebdo massacre, Voltaire's Treatise on Tolerance suddenly became a best-seller. And because there is an ongoing campaign to promote Enlightenment values/project (against creeping Islamification of Europe, the dangers of postmodernism, anti-clericalism, etc.) his name still evokes recognition.
The quoted paragraph gives a nice sense of his strengths and weaknesses. Anticipating Darwin (and presumably relying on Hooke or Buffon), Voltaire clearly discerns that human caused animal extinction is a genuine possibility. This gives his thought an ongoing relevance.* In context he is attacking the (Platonizing) doctrine of the great chain of being. This doctrine is committed to (now quoting the Brittanica) "three general features of the universe: plenitude, continuity, and gradation. The principle of plenitude states that the universe is “full,” exhibiting the maximal diversity of kinds of existences; everything possible (i.e., not self-contradictory) is actual. The principle of continuity asserts that the universe is composed of an infinite series of forms, each of which shares with its neighbour at least one attribute. According to the principle of linear gradation, this series ranges in hierarchical order from the barest type of existence to the ens perfectissimum, or God."
Voltaire's argument against the chain of being is informed by reliance on empirical facts (and probable reasoning about them). For example, gradation is undermined by appeal to the size and orbits of planets.) Voltaire's argument is not resolutely empirical because it also relies on possible extrapolation from the facts. (In so doing it draws on a tendency inspired by Newton to turn metaphysical debates into empirical questions. (For that reason I call the general strategy, "Newton's Challenge to Philosophy.") In the article, Voltaire implicitly relies on Newton's arguments against a plenum. He then explicitly appeals to Newton:
Of course, Voltaire does not explain why there cannot be other universal laws that are such connecting chains. This gives a sense of how frustrating Voltaire can be. (It is especially odd because, as I noted last week, in his article on final causes such universal laws do important work for Voltaire.)
Voltaire's daring is evident in his willingness to entertain the possibility of human extinction. (The main underlying target is clearly the Biblical narrative with its claim of sole descent from Adam.) But he does so by assuming racial diversity. Given that he is entertaining the (possible) extinction of human races this makes sense.
While the essay breathes the atmosphere of progress of Moderns over Ancients, I don't think that in this essay the point is to assert the superiority of whites** -- after all, the whole essay is an attack on the foolishness of Plato -- , and he is silent on the relative status of whites and blacks. That silence is somewhat surprising because he is a terrible racist toward blacks elsewhere, especially in his Traité de métaphysique!** But even in this essay Voltaire does introduce what we may call fetishistic and exotic images of the so-called Kaffirs and Samoyeds (I think the latter are meant to refer to Siberian tribes).+ If one takes rhetoric and aesthetics seriously, one wonders if those that wish to promote Voltaire and his Enlightenment are seduced by such imagery.
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdPUZUCHtQg
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It was in the past, so it'll hold permanently.
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