Q&A: Has the World Advanced Philosophically?
Has the World Advanced Philosophically?
Question
Does scientific progress necessarily indicate philosophical-intellectual progress? If not, do you think the world has advanced philosophically compared to, say, 100 years ago?
Thank you, and have a peaceful Sabbath.
Answer
This is too general a question. Who is “the world”? Have we learned new things? Yes. We have what has been learned over the past hundred years, which those before us did not have. So by definition we have advanced. And perhaps you mean to ask whether, on average, the world and the people in it have become more philosophical? Maybe that too, although sometimes their philosophy itself descends into prostitution under the heading of “philosophy.” I’m not sure. But why is that interesting?
Discussion on Answer
Was that an explanation? Unfortunately I didn’t understand it. Can you formulate a clear question (preferably without “the essence of being” and so on)?
Intuition is part of the world of human thought.
I found a quote attributed to Einstein: “Intuition is a sacred gift, and rational thinking is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift…”
In relation to the idea that philosophy is based on intuition (I assume?), has science nowadays abandoned intuition (on average), compared to previous generations that dealt with science?
If so, is abandoning intuition considered less rational? (According to the quote, without intuition there is no real value to its servant [= rationality].)
It’s possible that the previous questions are different from what is being asked here, and it’s possible you won’t like relying on a quote that may not even have been said, or depending on what context it was said in. Still, the quote helped me illustrate what I meant. Hope it really did help.
Thank you.
Einstein’s quote is well known and overused. Still, in my opinion the question is not defined. There is intuition everywhere, and it can’t be abandoned. It has to be tested and cross-checked against data and against other intuitions. I don’t know how to measure when people use more intuition.
The Rabbi holds that philosophy can be investigated by means of intuition.
Likewise, he also holds that in this field there is such a thing as correctness, and not only a pluralism of logically possible options.
If so, does he think that today the outlook of the average philosopher is closer to the truth than it was in the time of the Greeks?
I’m not really well-versed in the terms, and it’s possible I’m mixing things up. Still, I’ll try to explain, but I’ll be careful with my wording.
The world of science as a whole (and not the global average of human beings. Maybe the average of scientists / the ideas of scientists?)
has learned some things (maybe all?) on the basis of what those before us discovered, so it’s hard to compare here.
What I mean is: have the scientists of our world (which relies on philosophy) become thinkers in a stronger sense (in a more effective way, on the philosophical side) than those in the past? It’s hard to illustrate, but I’ll try with the example of a “Sinai” and an “uprooter of mountains.” By “uprooter of mountains” here I don’t necessarily mean new discoveries, because it’s hard to discover new things that haven’t already been discovered.
Maybe the wording is this: have we become less intuitive than those in the past? Maybe we know how to philosophize, etc., about findings that exist here and now, without wondering about their very being, because their very existence is trivial to us? (Which presumably wasn’t the case in the past.)
It’s interesting whether what seems like progress from our point of view might actually constitute decline in an aspect that we aren’t even aware of at all (and that itself is problematic).
Now I’ve noticed that I really ran into a problem in formulating the question itself, which made me wonder whether the question isn’t difficult at all.