If you think -- or try to argue the existence -- of God in terms of epistemology, rationality, and/or empiricism, then you are probably on shaky grounds. Because God, for the most part, or the most common-sense part, defies rational-empirical epistemology.
Better instead, to argue the existence of God in terms of 'religious and/or spiritual idealism'.
In this scenario, it is better also to take personal responsibility for the contents and direction of your self-projected spiritual idealism.
My form of self-projected, spiritual idealism comes mainly from the influence of such philosophers as Heraclitus, Spinoza, Hegel, and Schelling -- a romantic form of integrative (homeostatically balanced) dialectical negotiation, integration, unity, and wholism (the different spiritual parts of Man, Nature, and God all coming together into one 'multi-dialectic-humanistic-existential-unified whole'.
By this 'Heraclitean-Spinozian-Hegelian-Schellian' interpretation of the romantic integrative spirituality ofo Man, Nature, and God -- there are parts of God, Nature, and Man in all of us -- and we all need to 'triangulate the respective energies of these three life forces -- 1. God (Transcendence, Creativity, Becoming, The Wish to Soar High in the Universe...); 2. Nature (Being, Here and Now, Groundedness, Beauty, Homeostatic Balance, Multi-Dialectic Unity, Harmony and Wholism, Evolution...); and 3. Man (The Bridge between Man, Nature and God seeking elements of everything above -- a romantic-spiritual unity between these three sets of life forces).
In a nutshell then, according to my DGB vision of romantic-spiritual idealism...
Man must homeostatically balance elements of God, Nature, and his/her own creative needs of freedom, being and becoming within a social-political-natural environment of multi-dialectic-negotiation and integration.
-- dgb, July 25th, 2008.
4 comments:
Kant used to say that Hume's idea that there was only sequence not cause as such suffered from a defect. Kant gets round Humean skepticism by introducing cause as a concept of the understanding. Neither was it the only concept. It was one among several. The concepts of the understanding like the forms of intuition are introduced in the Kantian schema as a priori subjective categories. This would of course naturally bring back the Self. For more, if you like, refer http://www.eloquentbooks.com/Kant.html
Thank you Srikala for your knowledgeable feedback and your insights into both the philosophical thoughts of Hume and Kant. I'd also like to know your own opinions relative to what both Hume and Kant have said. Because your opinions matter too!
Personally and philosophically, I -- and by extension DGB Philosophy -- stand somewhere between both Hume and Kant: not a full Humean skeptic by any means. I am comfortable using the concept of 'self' or 'Self' and believing that this concept represents a 'real subjective-objective entity' with a 'Will to Self-Empowerment and Self-Fulfillment Acting in A Partly Friendly, Partly Hostile Natural and Social Environment'. I view DGB Philosophy as a 'humanistic-existential philosophy-psychology' in this regard.
However, at the same time, I have a real big problem with at least 3 of Kant's 'subjective a priori categories' -- and either you will have to remind me or I will have to go back and look up exactly how many 'a priori categories' Kant theorized.
But here is the problem I have with this type of categorization. And it brings us back to the same 'subjective-objective dialectic split' that Kant was battling with and trying to overcome. In this regard, as another reader has written me, Kant indeed lead Hegel right into the middle of 'dialectic philosophy'.
But irrespective of both Kant and Hegel (and I am certainly closer in my thinking to Hegel than Kant), I view these 3 a priori subjective categories that Kant was talking about not as such but rather as 'subjective-objective categories' and/or as both 'subjective' and 'objective' categories' where it is the responsibility of man -- from a survival and evolution point of view -- to represent accurately in his mind the same (or the structually similar) categories that also exist outside his mind in the 'real, objective world' -- which as Kant stated we can never 'know' and as I would correct Kant and say we can never 'fully know'. Still, our existence both indivdually and collectively as a human species absolutely depends on our being close enough to 'right' and close enough to 'truth' to continue to be alive -- and not dead. This is my Ayn Rand and my Nathaniel Branden and my Alfred Korzybski and my S.I. Hayakawa and my Bertrand Russell influence coming alive and excited within me -- at the expense of both Hume and Kant.
Man's continued existence -- both individually and collectively -- absolutely demands that he be closer to 'epistemologically right' than to 'epistemologically wrong', especially in contexts/situations of absolute danger.
Like if I step out into the middle of a busy highway, do you really think that I am only going to believe that the issues of 'time' and 'space' and 'cause' are only subjective figments of my imagination? Or is reality going to have the last word on me if I get my so called a priori categories all messed up and out of wack with what might be best referred to as 'accurate representation'.
Now relative to 'causes' -- causes may be 'causal generalalizations and interpretations and judgments' that we pick out of a crowd amongst a host of other 'dialectical and multi-dialectical factors' but still 'causal factors' exist not only subjectively in our heads but also realistically outside our minds in the world -- regardless, of what kind of horsebleep that Hume wants to try to throw at us in the name of 'logical and philosophical technicalities'.
To be sure, there are many causal factors and co-factors that may be tied up in a 'death' for instance.
For example, if I was an elephant and not a man, I might have more of a chance of living through a car or a truck hitting me at 60 or 80 or 100kms an hour. We can view a car vs. a truck, a human vs. an elephant, and the speed of the oncoming vehicle as all being 'causally relevant' in the result or consequence of the accident -- specifically, whether I am lying dead on the pavement or whether the elephant shakes his head and walks away from the accident.
But whether you are the legendary David Hume or the legendary Immanuel Kant don't try to tell me that all this 'causal' stuff and all this 'subjective a priori' stuff is all in my 'head'. Because if you do, I will say to you: I have a 'bat' here and a 'pillow'. Which one would you like me to hit you with?
The pillow indicates effeminacy and the bat indicates egoistic affirmation. The great Christian mystics are against too much pillow. Pillow may not lead to too much karma as bat does. But pillow does not get anywhere either. What we call human experience consists of a set of a priori conditions which are subjective.The objective determinant is 90 per cent previous karma. There is a sickening predetermination to it because none can escape the consequences of his actions. We cross the river Styx by the Will to Live which projects another body and gets into it. But that new body is itself determined by the effect of previous ethical decisions. The muslims bashed in all the heads of the Buddhas in Borobuddar and then went to sleep. The heads were retreived and by computer matching replaced on the Buddha torsos. UNESCO declared Borobuddar a world heritage site and asked the Jakarta government to control Islamic fundamentalists. So the uneasy peace rests.
Swords striking water only rusts
Post a Comment