<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:8px"><div><span>Or, another way to put it is that Christianity was responding to the recalcitrance of its philosophical scene in the Medieval age, as it does in most ages.</span></div><div></div><div> </div><div>Dr. Stan A. Lindsay, Ph.D.
<br>Teaching Professor
<br>Professional Communication
<br>College of Applied Studies
<br>Florida State University
<br>slindsay@pc.fsu.edu
<br>http://www.stanlindsay.com
<br>http://www.lindsayDIS.COM</div><div><br></div> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 8px;"> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div dir="ltr"> <hr size="1"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> "wessr@onid.orst.edu" <wessr@onid.orst.edu><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Gregory Desilet <info@gregorydesilet.com> <br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> "kb@kbjournal.org" <kb@kbjournal.org> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Thursday, November 13, 2014 12:23 PM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [KB] "Deacon"-structing Burke Part Whatever<br> </font> </div> <div class="y_msg_container"><br>Stan, thanks for the Burke references, and to
everyone, thanks for the <br clear="none">responses.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">By noting the relative historical belatedness of philosophy, I was <br clear="none">stressing that the philosophical level is difficult to get to. <br clear="none">Typically, you have to push to get there. With respect to religion, I <br clear="none">wasn’t suggesting that religious people are typically anxious to get <br clear="none">to philosophy (like Greg, I’m not a fan of religion). I was <br clear="none">suggesting, rather, that religion speaks directly about ultimate <br clear="none">questions, so that its subject matter makes it easier to push to the <br clear="none">philosophical level if you're so inclined. You might encounter <br clear="none">resistance, but that is a different issue. Medieval philosophers were <br clear="none">exceptional in being both religious and ready to push
religious <br clear="none">questions to a philosophical level.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Medieval philosophy comes centuries after the Dark Ages. It brings <br clear="none">Greek ideas, especially Aristotle's, back into the tradition of <br clear="none">western philosophizing (e.g., Aquinas). But in any case, my point was <br clear="none">not that we need to go back to medieval philosophy but that medieval <br clear="none">philosophy gives you good examples of pushing religious questions to a <br clear="none">philosophical level. That’s all.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Yes, the pentad is a good place to go to use Burke in this connection. <br clear="none">Personally, I’d start at GM 71: did (1) God will “the good because it <br clear="none">is good”? or (2) is “the good good because God willed it”? Burke <br clear="none">translates a religious question about God into a
philosophical one by <br clear="none">explaining that (1) privileges “scene,” while (2) privileges “agent,” <br clear="none">each with a different logic.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Burke's point about monotheism, which I referenced last time, is that <br clear="none">monotheism was IMPLICIT AND PRIOR in polytheism, but unrecognized; <br clear="none">Burke adds that with monotheism, polytheism is transformed into <br clear="none">differences of interpretation based in part on differences in situation.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">More later, specifically on Greg's "difference and change," mainly to <br clear="none">use his discussion to illustrate addressing questions of ULTIMATE <br clear="none">PRIORITY with argumentative rigor, which is what is most <br clear="none">characteristic of philosophy, at least for me.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">In the mean time: Greg, what is your USGA
handicap? I'll understand if <br clear="none">you don't want to answer that question.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Bob<br clear="none"><div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br><br></div><div class="yqt3786501721" id="yqtfd24178"><br clear="none">Quoting Gregory Desilet <<a shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:info@gregorydesilet.com" href="mailto:info@gregorydesilet.com">info@gregorydesilet.com</a>>:<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> Bob—as I sit under the covers, wrapped in a blanket (and, yes, the <br clear="none">> heat is also on) and the temperature outside is 6 degrees with a <br clear="none">> wind chill taking it to -3 degrees, and I was just last weekend <br clear="none">> playing golf in shirtsleeves, I find myself feisty, resentful, <br clear="none">> oppressed by cabin fever, and in peak argumentative form. So please <br clear="none">> forgive me for taking stubborn but amicable issue with you
on a <br clear="none">> point or two you make in your recent post. It may just be a symptom <br clear="none">> of weather induced orneriness.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">> I agree that philosophy is more fundamental than religion. But I <br clear="none">> would argue that most religions, as practiced in their <br clear="none">> institutionally codified and highly influential forms, do NOT get to <br clear="none">> the philosophical issues more quickly. In fact, I would argue the <br clear="none">> reverse. Such religions are among the primary obstacles to getting <br clear="none">> at core philosophical issues because they very effectively block <br clear="none">> open philosophical inquiry by an overly narrow disposition toward <br clear="none">> what counts as evidence justifying belief. The medieval period of <br clear="none">> “philosophy” was
not called the “dark ages” for nothing. Human <br clear="none">> inquiry effectively stalled for over a 1000 years and many valuable <br clear="none">> insights gained during the Hellenic period were lost or buried under <br clear="none">> mountains of dogma and authoritarian induced ignorance.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">> As for monotheism, I don’t believe it is philosophically more <br clear="none">> coherent or defensible, nor is the more philosophically abstract <br clear="none">> position of monism. Instead, these positions are overly reductive <br clear="none">> and consequently become incoherent with respect to addressing issues <br clear="none">> of essential difference.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">> These points are, of course, debatable. So I offer an excerpt from <br clear="none">> some recent relevant musings of mine, which also provide
a <br clear="none">> definition of metaphysics and postmodernism that may be of use to <br clear="none">> some participants in this forum. Sorry for the length of this post, <br clear="none">> but you can also blame that on the weather. So if this post seems <br clear="none">> wearisome, please pray for better weather in Colorado and elsewhere.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">> Definition of Postmodernism<br clear="none">><br clear="none">> Postmodernism presents a significant break from traditional and <br clear="none">> modern metaphysics.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">> Definition of Metaphysics<br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">> Metaphysics is the philosophy of the nature of being through which <br clear="none">> every speculation about the nature of being involves a grounding <br clear="none">> assumption about the
primary structure of oppositional relations. <br clear="none">> Technically speaking, there can be no monistic metaphysics because <br clear="none">> the job of metaphysics is to explain the phenomena of difference and <br clear="none">> change, which always requires at the bare minimum schism or the <br clear="none">> existence of two. If there were but ONE, there could be only stasis <br clear="none">> and nothing could HAPPEN; there could be no EVENTS and there could <br clear="none">> be nothing like CONSCIOUSNESS. In this sense every coherent <br clear="none">> metaphysics amounts to a metaphysics of the nature of being as <br clear="none">> becoming.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">> In pre-modern or traditional metaphysics the primary structure of <br clear="none">> oppositional relation consists of the view that one side of the <br
clear="none">> pairing is accidental, inessential, illusion, or contamination (for <br clear="none">> example, Platonic metaphysics of being/time where being is pure, <br clear="none">> stable, and unchanging and is then contaminated by time, which <br clear="none">> introduces impurity, instability, and change and is fundamentally <br clear="none">> inessential to the nature of being). Call this metaphysics: <br clear="none">> antagonism, describing a tension permanently erosive of a <br clear="none">> fundamental essence.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">> In modern metaphysics the primary oppositional structure posits one <br clear="none">> side as essential to the pairing but always subordinate to the other <br clear="none">> (for example, Cartesian and Kantian subject/object relations where <br clear="none">> the object is subordinate to
the subject by virtue of the act of <br clear="none">> cognition wherein the subject effectively appropriates the object). <br clear="none">> Call this metaphysics: subagonism, describing a tension of permanent <br clear="none">> dominance of one side between different essences.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">> In postmodern metaphysics the primary oppositional structure <br clear="none">> consists of an understanding of oppositional relations whereby each <br clear="none">> side is essential to the other and one side cannot be reduced to the <br clear="none">> other (for example, the particle/wave relation in physics where <br clear="none">> particles cannot be reduced to waves and waves cannot be reduced to <br clear="none">> particles and even when one manifests itself without the other, the <br clear="none">> other exists alongside it in
superposition). Call this metaphysics: <br clear="none">> synagonism, describing a tension of interaction, alternation, and <br clear="none">> exchange among sides equal but not mutually erosive in essence; one <br clear="none">> side may dominate the other in changing contexts but neither is <br clear="none">> essentially dominant.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">> Thus, postmodernism, as a philosophically distinct orientation, may <br clear="none">> be defined as the adoption of a metaphysics applying synagonal <br clear="none">> structure to key oppositions or displacing key oppositions with new <br clear="none">> synagonal oppositions.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">> Greg<br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none">><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br
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