Subject: Re: Caesarian sections
From: Jim Rovira (jrovira@drew.edu)
Date: Mon Nov 26 2001 - 16:12:33 GMT
Of course, Scottie, I have to disagree :) I think a brief survey of the
history of literature and philosophy would demonstrate that quite often
the impetus for different scientific thinking came from the humanities.
C.S. Lewis, for example, argues at the end of _The Discarded Image_ that
evolutionary thought was existent in philosophy for some time before
Darwin made it scientific dogma.
I think you'd see the value of literary criticism more if you read more
of it yourself...my experience has been that much of it is infuriating,
annoying, stupid, and worthless, but the gems out there more than make
up for the straw. A good piece of literary criticism can shed a whole
new light on how we think about an author, about the literature of a
specific time period, and sometimes about the world itself. This new
thinking can bleed over into the sciences.
Another problem with your argument, though, is that it has as its
premise that material benefits or advances are the only real advances.
While an engineer can tell us how to build a better bridge, he can't
tell us how to make sense of our lives, find meaning in them, or live
them better.
We need, and have always needed, literature to do that. The modern
humanities scholar stands in the shoes of yesterday's priests and
philosphers. Sometimes unknowingly, sometimes knowingly -- and certainly
sometimes better than others. But our literature is probably the most
important expression of our values, desires, fears, and hopes. Those
who study it don't uncover the mysteries of the universe, but the
mysteries of the human heart.
A very important task indeed.
Jim
Scottie Bowman wrote:
>
> Whatever my genes may try to insist, my mind
> is that of an Englishman. This explains why I shudder
> away in horror at the word ‘intellectual’ – and all
> its connotations (which include Frenchmen sitting around
> in cafes gabbing about Foucault, student debaters,
> leather-patched blokes in book-lined rooms, academics
> & scholars of all types but ESPECIALLY American
> women with ‘edu’ at the end of their e-addresses.)
>
> It’s a matter of taste & snobbery, of course. But more
> seriously, there seems to me to be a profound difference
> between two kinds of scholarship: that of ‘the humanities’
> & that of ‘science’.
>
> In the latter, the worker is contributing in tiny or
> huge ways (depending on his talents & his luck) to
> an accumulation of knowledge which is subject to
> endless examination, confirmation & correction.
> That accumulation will go on growing, no matter what,
> no matter how slowly. If Einstein isn’t born this year, OK.
> Sooner or later, the principles of relativity will emerge
> because they have been there all the time, just waiting
> to be clarified. Not infrequently, great ideas have become
> apparent to two or three great scientists around the same time
> – simply because their time had come & because the work
> of countless anonymous people had established their base.
>
> But this is not true for the man who studies the arts or
> history or philosophy or (even, I’d suggest) consciousness.
> The power of statements in these disciplines depends
> wholly on the persuasiveness of the individual making them.
> There’s really no mechanism for testing or validating.
> Take your pick: Aristotle or Leavis, Marx or Jesus, Raphael
> or Disney, Beethoven or McCartney. Argue your piece
> & you may or may not (depending on the current fashion)
> find adherents. No one will be able to prove you wrong
> – as they would if, for instance, you maintained the phlogiston
> theory of combustion. The sad thing is that it doesn’t
> really matter very much what you think. No aeroplane will
> fall out of the sky because you've misunderstood the problem
> of metal fatigue. No child will die because you’ve given him
> the wrong intravenous fluids. All that’s at stake is the approval
> of the next seminar or the next NY review or the bored silence
> on the mailing list.
>
> The finicky section man is a ludicrous figure since he seems
> pompously to be asserting an authority where there can be
> no authority. (I hope I understand just what is meant
> by ‘section man’.) But I don’t see the ‘genuine’ scholar as any
> less ludicrous. They’re both dealing, essentially, in their own
> hot air. (Sez he at the end of 430 unnecessary words.)
>
> Scottie B.
>
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