Bacon & Dregs

[Markekohut]

VERY LIKE! witty. 

Sent from my iPad

On Aug 23, 2013, at 7:49 AM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, Knowledge is Power. And knowledge, as Bacon defined it, against
> the Dregs and Aristotle, is the foundation of Empire. And, Bacon's
> Empire, built on the foundation of knowledge and power, on NAtural
> Science, has been built. The Industrial Revolution, steam,
> electricity, these are the manifestations of Bacon's dream of Empire.
> The father of induction confronted the Dregs. And in like manner, the
> clash, the culture, custom, clash, against traditions, beliefs, all
> that was muddy and prone to a foggy way of seeing things, to a
> slugishness of mind, was driven by a curiosity about new and different
> ideas. The fear of others, of far of places, of all that ancient Dregs
> had invented about the unknown and yet discovered places, must be met
> with direct experience, with contact and more contact, with more and
> more repudiation of the ancient Dregs at home, and where adventure and
> exploration was.
> 
> Bacon tastes great.
> 
> On 8/23/13, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bacon's struggle to overcome intellectual blockades and the dogmatic
>> slumber of his age and of earlier periods had to be fought on many
>> fronts. Very early on he criticized not only Plato, Aristotle and the
>> Aristotelians, but also humanists and Renaissance scholars such as
>> Paracelsus and Bernardino Telesio.
>> 
>> Although Aristotle provided specific axioms for every scientific
>> discipline, what Bacon found lacking in the Greek philosopher's work
>> was a master principle or general theory of science, which could be
>> applied to all branches of natural history and philosophy (Klein
>> 2003a). For Bacon, Aristotle's cosmology, as well as his theory of
>> science, had become obsolete and consequently so too had many of the
>> medieval thinkers who followed his lead. He does not repudiate
>> Aristotle completely, but he opposes the humanistic interpretation of
>> him, with its emphasis on syllogism and dialectics (scientia operativa
>> versus textual hermeneutics) and the metaphysical treatment of natural
>> philosophy in favor of natural forms (or nature's effects as
>> structured modes of action, not artifacts), the stages of which
>> correspond—in the shape of a pyramid of knowledge—to the structural
>> order of nature itself.
>> 
>> 
>> Bacon began to struggle with tradition as early as 1603. In Valerius
>> Terminus (1603?) he already repudiates any mixture of natural
>> philosophy and divinity; he provides an outline of his new method and
>> determines that the end of knowledge was “a discovery of all
>> operations and possibilities of operations from immortality (if it
>> were possible) to the meanest mechanical practice” (Bacon III [1887],
>> 222). He opposes Aristotelian anticipatio naturae, which favored the
>> inquiry of causes to satisfy the mind instead of those “as will direct
>> him and give him light to new experiences and inventions” (Bacon III
>> [1887], 232).
>> 
>> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-bacon/#NatStrTra
>> 
>> It may surprize some to learn that Bacon's great obstacle was
>> Aristitole ands how Arisitole was adopted, but we when we remember
>> that Aristotle stressed that only that which was already known could
>> be learned, that is, that the growth of learning, of knowledge
>> involved simply bringing together, a synthesis, of the universal truth
>> of reason and the particular of sense. Growth of knowledge belonged to
>> "becoming", that is, to change, and is thus inferior to what is known,
>> to knowledge that, through reflexivity, that is the manipulation of
>> this in syllogistics or demonstration.
>> 
>> So, as Aristotle struggled against the Dregs, now Bacon must struggle,
>> and the Ancient Dregs include Aristotle and his fellow travelers.
>> 
>> Demonstration of the old truths is the stuff of school boys in a lab.
>> Bacon would fly out inot the unknown and probe the mysteries of
>> Nature, unlock her secrets.
>> 
>> But is Bacon good? Sure tastes great. Not good for your hyertension.
>> Low dosium, Turkey Bacon, anyone?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 8/22/13, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Slavery is a poor example. Too easily mangled by a sophist's rhetoric,
>>> too
>>> terribly tangled in the web of history. A sophomore can make a eat pie
>>> out
>>> of Greeks without reading them by turning on the slavery switch.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Still, there seems to be a side to this idea, to this argument, even if
>>> no
>>> one has got its back. I hesitate to identify it. It is common enough. The
>>> stuff that someone as un-lettered as me might absorb sitting in on an
>>> introduction to philosophy course, or pick up in one of those popular
>>> online courses, like the philosophy of science, or the history of ideas
>>> in
>>> the west, or, probably where I got it from, by reading what looks cool in
>>> the discarded books and magazines bin at the public library.
>>> 
>>> Of course, so western, so limited by its just coming from the west, that
>>> is, and it is doubtful....if anything ever really does come just from the
>>> west, but still...if we are gonna get Spengler out,  we might bite
>>> into crispy, salty, yummy...Bacon.
>>> 
>>> Like Newton, Tesla, Adam Smith, Malthus,  the list seems
>>> endless....Marx....Bacon struggled and suffered from the mixture of the
>>> ancient foolishness, religion and irrational ideas, and the modern ideas,
>>> some of them foolish and irrational too. So that to read him we must wade
>>> through mud and murky waters before we get to the fountain that sprang
>>> for
>>> us. It shot up, we read, from his use of induction, but it was his
>>> adventurous spirit, and this is, so the story goes, Captured in his
>>> famous aphorism, "knowledge is power", and this, this idea, and the
>>> spirit
>>> that set out gain to knowledge, not from the ancient sages or holy books,
>>> but from his pragmatic rejection of the past in favor of the mystery, of
>>> the unknown, of the yet to be discovered world, and so, and now we may
>>> need
>>> a more focused course, on American Pragmatism, say, Bacon tastes best
>>> with
>>> American philosophy...and, as history would have it, the Americans, those
>>> pragmatists, are linked, by a strange blood sausage, to Bacon, by
>>> Emerson.
>>> 
>>> Emerson looked East, yes, but in a narcissistic self reliant rugged
>>> individualistic turn, he made Bacon a dish for the pragmatists.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thursday, August 22, 2013, Bekah wrote:
>>> 
>>>> My point is that these days we are horrified.  Two hundred years ago our
>>>> US ancestors kept slaves legally - and in the minds of some it was the
>>>> morally right thing to do.  Whether or not the US should legalize
>>>> slavery
>>>> has never been seriously debated since the 13th Amendment in 1864.
>>>> 
>>>> Also,  your point may be one of the types of things Pinker is criticized
>>>> for - he tends to use percentages rather than actual numbers.
>>>> 
>>>> Bekah
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Aug 22, 2013, at 11:35 AM, Lemuel Underwing <luunderwing at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> If I recall correctly there are more slaves today than there were two
>>>> hundred years ago, and I'm not talkin' bout Industrial Slaves either
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 11:25 AM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> But today we are horrified by slavery anywhere.  Today we abhor many
>>>> things that centuries ago,  or decades for that matter,  were taken as a
>>>> matter of course -  lynchings for example,  but also direct warfare
>>>> between
>>>> major powers,  capital punishment (in most of the western world,
>>>> anyway),
>>>> the abuse of women, children, ethnic minorities, gays,  - even of
>>>> animals.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Steven Pinker's book,  The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence
>>>>> Has
>>>> Declined [2011],  is flawed in many respects,  but he makes some
>>>> interesting points.
>>>>> 
>>>>> That said,   I'm not taking a side here because I think capitalism and
>>>> elements of fascism play into the equation.  Otoh,  the devastation of
>>>> Hiroshima and the atrocities of the Holocaust had an impact.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Bekah
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Aug 22, 2013, at 8:59 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yes . Very reasonable points about our collective abilities. But my
>>>> argument is that we often ascribe to ourselves as individuals what we
>>>> only
>>>> have as part of a system. The gap between the wisdom of moderns and the
>>>> wisdom of the ancients still seems more self congratulatory than
>>>> substantive.  The young girls that make shirts in nasty and dangerous
>>>> factories in Pakistan seem little different than slaves. As far as the
>>>> status of women, this freedom has not been extended to other cultures
>>>> colonized by the Euro and patriarchal powers in the same way as to the
>>>> wives and daughters and mothers of the democracies. The link between
>>>> "our"
>>>> purportedly enlightened and technically advanced system and crude forms
>>>> of
>>>> exploitation that rival any in history is shown in the factory
>>>> conditions
>>>> of people making parts for Apple products.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I am not saying people used to be wiser. I am arguing for realistic
>>>> humility in claims to advancement, because so much of the history of
>>>> that
>>>> advancement has been directly at the expense of  militarily and
>>>> culturally
>>>> vulnerable cultures. In these kinds of advancements there is as much
>>>> injury
>>>> and loss as advance.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> We inherit through the written word and technology a tremendous
>>>> inheritance of potential wisdom and possibility, but we also inherit
>>>> some
>>>> really destructive habits and colonialist historic patterns that are
>>>> built
>>>> around treating the biosphere and its inhabitants as a can of materials
>>>> to
>>>> be mined, used and discarded.  What I see is more of a runaway train
>>>> than
>>>> a
>>>> wise, sustainable  and advanced modern culture. We are generating
>>>> powerful
>>>> warnings and solutions but so far they are not really slowing the
>>>> destructive juggernaut. I hope I am wrong and that what we are going
>>>> through now will as you also hope enable and compel the changes that are
>>>> needed.  I am just really saying that some humility is in order and is
>>>> part
>>>> of the needed change.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Aug 21, 2013, at 12:05 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I am loathe to take issue with you Joseph, I agree in so many ways,
>>>> but there are a couple of points I want to add to color your choler
>>>> with.
>>>> First, the "we" thing. As regards your examples of things we can and
>>>> cannot
>>>> do, "we" can build computers and cell phones and such. I can't make the
>>>> entire product, you can't, and neither can he or she, but they can, and
>>>> we
>>>> can do things they cannot. I've worked making the batteries for tech
>>>> devices in the past, for example, which is something Bill Gates couldn't
>>>> do. Among the things we can't do are making an axe from chert and wood;
>>>> using the entire carcass of an animal we have killed with a bow and
>>>> arrow,
>>>> or atlatl, or snare we likewise could not have made; we couldn't build a
>>>> castle of stone that can stand for a year, much less for 500 or a 1000
>>>> years. We no longer have the skills to live in the ways that the people
>>>> among whom the wisdom traditions evolved did; still, as you say, we
>>>> could
>>>> certainly learn skills from them. Could we learn to keep slaves as they
>>>> did? To demean and disempower women as they did? To leave the weak to
>>>> suffer and die as they did? Well, obviously "we" can, but could you?
>>>> Could
>>>> I?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Permaculture, peak oil communities, intentional communities, etc.,
>>>> are all good starts t
>>