Pynchon & Math (Aristotle vs. Plato)

[Paul Mackin]

On 1/26/2013 12:24 PM, alice wellintown wrote:
> In once of his essays, maybe the Luddite Essay, Pynchon speaks of C.P.
> Snow, the Two Cultures, and of the forces of specialization (we might
> attribute these to Adam Smith & Co.).
>
> One of the great things about Aristotle, at least for me, is that his
> mode allows me to embrace Pluralism, my natural bent, without falling
> into the Sophistic mode, where all is arbitrary, relative, and without
> reducing things to tiny particles or atoms and the void, and without
> getting all caught up in some other worldly transcendentalisms
> (Plato).
>
> As a girl raised at home much like our hero in The Recognitions, I was
> trained in Western Meataphysics, Onto-Theology, but the Jesuits taught
> me that knowing is not the rejection of doubt, and more importantly,
> we know things by how we use them, how we are related to them, and
> these are multiple, and these are essential, and can take form from
> the multiple ways we form them, use them, as knowledge, make them, or
> better, actualize them. From this, my love of the Academic, of the
> traditions, of the Theoretical, the Poetic, and the Pragmatic.

Jesuits provide a good grounding.  Doubt too is good.  Descartes,  a 
Jesuit trained lad, was a doubter.  He doubted his very existence. This 
was strictly for investigative purposes, or course.

I had often wondered what had become of the Jesuits.  In my day (first 
half of 20th century) it was still the Middle Ages.  All of modern 
philosophy was an error, starting with Descartes.

So I checked the Georgetown philosophical courses now offered. Found all 
variety of names present.  Kant, Hegel, Sartre, Quine, etc.  Also all 
manner of approaches not least of which was gender equality--in my day 
girls weren't even admitted.

I think I  always knew Alice was Jesuit trained.

P

>