THEY 2 0f 10

[cathy hawley]

footnote (aplogies for inaccuracies):

Aristotle wrote of the term mimesis as the encapsulation of a broad cultural
and moral philosophy emphasising the unity and integrity of the world; based
upon the assumption that human reason can comprehend and correlate with
natural reason. Kant though elevates above this ‘Phantasia’ ( I think this
was the term), a ‘second nature’ evolved not only from imitation (mimesis)
but through a creative act carried out upon the raw material of actual
nature: a heroic act?  
(This I belive Aristotle accepted only grudgingly, as long as it was part of
a moral imperative)
 
Paul Ricouer attempted to dissect the question of tradition and fate
(including the fate of the hero) and the mediation between ‘grand
narratives’ (primarily transmitted from history) and modernity; for him one
of the challenges of ‘modernity’ (in its rationalised state?) is to form a
creative relationship between tradition and Utopia.

c




On Wed, 12 Jul 2000 05:20:09 -0400, Terrance wrote:

>  THE LAW OF CONTRADICTION
>  
>              What is the Law of Contradiction?
>  
>           Law of Contradiction and Law of Knowledge
>  
>  "Now the best established of all principles
>               may be stated as follows: The same attribute
>               cannot at the same time belong and not
>               belong to the same subject in the same
>               respect ... This I repeat, is the most certain
>  of
>               all principles..." (Aristotle in Metaphysics). 
>               "There is a principle in existing things about
>               which we cannot make a mistake; of which,
>               on the contrary, we must always realize the
>               truth -- that the same thing cannot at one and
>               the same time be and not be, nor admit of
>               any other similar pair of opposites..."
>               (Aristotle in Metaphysics). 
>               "The most certain principle of all is that
>               regarding which it is impossible to be
>               mistaken; for such a principle must be both
>               the best known ... and non-hypothetical. For
>               a principle which every one must have who
>               understands anything that is, is not a
>               hypothesis; and that which every one must
>               know who knows anything ... Evidently then
>               such a principle is the most certain of all ...
>  It
>               is, that the same attribute cannot at the
>               same time belong and not belong to the
>               same subject and in the same respect."
>               [Aristotle in Metaphysics] 
>  
>           Aristotle is reported to have written this in his
>           Metaphysics. Aristotle further said that "everyone
>           in argument relies upon this ultimate law, on which
>           all others rest." He said this principle or law of
>  logic
>           "must be known if one is to know anything at all."
>           He also said, "if everything is and at the same
>  time
>           is not, all opinions must be true."
>  
>  
>  RATIONALIZATION OR ROUTINIZATION AND THE CHARISMATIC HERO
>  
>  The world of modernity, Weber stressed over and over again,
>  has been deserted by
>  the gods. Man has chased them away and has rationalized and
>  made calculable and
>  predictable what in an earlier age had seemed governed by
>  chance, but also by
>  feeling, passion, and commitment, by personal appeal and
>  personal fealty, by grace
>  and by the ethics of charismatic heroes.
>  
>  Weber attempted to document this development in a variety of
>  institutional areas.
>  His studies in the sociology of religion were meant to trace
>  the complicated and
>  tortuous ways in which the gradual "rationalization of
>  religious life" had led to the
>  displacement of magical procedure by wertrational
>  systematizations of man's
>  relation to the divine. He attempted to show how prophets
>  with their charismatic
>  appeals had undermined priestly powers based on tradition;
>  how with the emergence
>  of "book religion" the final systematization and
>  rationalization of the religious sphere
>  had set in, which found its culmination in the Protestant
>  Ethic.





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