Archaic vs. Rational Thought: Philosophy and Science
Archaic Thinking
Historically, humans relied on archaic thinking, where the world and its events were enigmas. Decisions were based on faith, imagination, and the value of tradition. This was common until about 2500 years ago.
Distinctive features of archaic thinking:
- Unfounded thought: Limited to making unsubstantiated claims without any demonstration.
- Uncritical thinking: Did not provide reasons for itself, nor did it explain or analyze its methodology.
- Anthropomorphic character: Explained the world by projecting human motivations and experiences onto it.
- Emotionally committed: All events were attributed to gods and had a direct relationship with humans, preventing objective analysis.
Archaic thinking did not analyze facts and concepts that could be defined and related in theory. Instead, it relied on customs seen as caused by spirits or gods.
Rational Thought
Rational thought emerged when people stopped believing in myths and began to value reason as a primary human faculty. They used it to interpret themselves, nature, and respond to the riddles posed.
Philosophy vs. Science
The fundamental difference between philosophy and science lies in their scope. Philosophy is concerned with the totality of reality as a whole, while science focuses on specific areas or parcels of that reality.
However, both use reason as an instrument. Initially, conclusions were based on reason without considering sensory observation.
Later, the experimental method was adopted to study nature and reality. This method is based on reason, but it starts with observation and attempts to explain observed facts rationally.
Distinctive Features of Philosophical Reflection
- Love of knowledge: A constant pursuit of knowledge, always questioning and seeking more, as Socrates exemplified.
- Universal: Addresses all aspects of reality, leaving no problem outside its scope. Philosophical questions are linked to the value and meaning of things.
- Critical: Does not take anything for granted and challenges usual assumptions.
- Radical: Concerned with the fundamental nature and value of things, not just how they work.
- Rigorous but not verifiable: Philosophical claims are rigorous but not empirically verifiable in the same way as scientific claims.
Distinctive Features of Scientific Knowledge
- Intersubjective and transmissible: Any individual with the necessary means can perform experiments and understand scientific theories.
- Regional: Deals with specific areas of reality (e.g., astronomy).
- Critical but takes things for granted: Uses a methodology to analyze a reduced sector of reality and synthesizes or reconstructs it.
- Practical: Aims to understand and manipulate nature for human benefit.
- Rigorous and verifiable: Scientific claims are rigorous and can be verified through experimentation.
Reflection on Rationality: Science and Philosophy
Science aims to understand reality to anticipate events and, if possible, intervene. Philosophy makes rational claims based on arguments and provides reasons for its perspectives.
Philosophy reflects on the alleged progress of science, and science serves as a starting point for philosophical inquiry.
Formal Sciences: Mathematics, Logic, and Reality
Mathematics and logic are formal sciences that do not refer to facts. They use axioms, self-evident truths requiring no proof.
Mathematics
Mathematics consists of deductive systems characterized by consistency. These systems are composed of axioms from which a set of propositions follow. If these propositions do not lead to contradictions, the systems are considered ideal.
The experimental method starts with the observation of facts, continues with the creation of imaginative hypotheses, applies mathematical systems to develop these hypotheses, and concludes with experimentation to verify the consequences in reality.
Practical Rationality: Ethics, Morality, and Politics
Practical rationality deals with the problems of moral language, human behavior, life, culture, and politics.
Philosophy and Practical Rationality
Philosophy ponders ethics, economics, technology, and politics, seeking happiness and justice for all, including future generations.
Reason and Life: Moral Intellectualism
Moral intellectualism suggests that if a person knows what is good, they will inevitably behave well. However, ethical theory does not always lead to moral practice. Human beings may do evil despite knowing better. Ethics is not a geometrical system demonstrable by axioms and theorems. Desires, passions, and affections significantly influence moral choices. Therefore, to live well morally, humans must control their primitive impulses.
Thinking Better and Living Better
Thinking better is more complex than reasoning well about a technical problem. It requires ethical intelligence, introducing moral values into thinking and acting.
The Need for Practical Reflection
Philosophical reflection helps internalize personal desires and life plans. Practical rationality, exercised through moral, social, and political philosophy, can help individuals better target their objectives and life goals.
The Good Life
The good life is both individual and collective. It involves both personal and social aspects of human existence, including moral life and politics.
Happiness, Pleasure, and Pain
Aristotle believed that happiness varies among individuals. What brings happiness to one person may bring pain to another. True happiness involves not only meeting biological needs but also engaging in intellectual and theoretical pursuits.
Happiness requires a minimum of dignity and individual freedom for all human beings to develop their life plans.
Just Individuals and Communities
The dilemma between happiness for some and justice for all is a central issue in social, moral, and political philosophy. Humans live in societies governed by legal and moral laws, social pressures, and state control.
Rousseau believed that democracy, with equal formal rights and liberties, would remedy inequality. He saw the sovereignty of the people as a legitimate means to match citizens’ rights and political freedoms.
Libertarian Communism
Nineteenth-century anarchists viewed humans as free individuals capable of living in freedom and cooperating with their peers.
Human Questions and the Nature of Problems
Humans raise many questions, but some are more important than others. Existential questions, those concerning what to do with one’s life and how to live with others, are crucial for living life personally.
Thinking vs. Reasoning
Thinking is not the same as reasoning. Reasoning involves adapting to reality, bringing order, and following rules. A prudent person reflects on all elements of a situation before acting.
Philosophy helps to reason, combine concepts and propositions, and guide actions. Reasoning is necessary to achieve certainty and know what to expect in life.
Other Ways of Thinking
Historically, humans have used faith, imagination, and tradition, rather than reason, to understand the world.
Problems
A problem is a difficulty or issue that needs solving. Humans think because they perceive reality as problematic. Problems often take the form of questions, but not all questions aim to solve problems. A well-posed problem is largely a solved problem.
Types of Problems
- Subjective problems: Difficulties concerning oneself.
- Objective problems: Challenges in themselves.
- Theoretical problems: Affect the scope of reality (scientific, technical).
- Practical problems: Pertain to behavior.
Philosophical problems are both theoretical and practical. They have three characteristics:
- They do not refer to material objects.
- Possible responses involve or affect each other.
- They concern humans in general and every human in particular.
Without these features, it would not be a philosophical problem.
Formal, natural, and experimental sciences use axioms based on assumptions. While scientific questions have a limit, philosophical questions do not. Questions can be used to receive information or to understand and contrast problems.