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richard
1 Posts |
 Posted - 31/10/2005 : 09:44:43
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We are confronted with immense, globalwide problems which look increasingly likely to overwhelm us all unless we find within ourselves a capacity to change and work together never yet experienced by the human species.
The JMF Committee is now looking at possible topics for our 2006 Conference. Could this topic be one? What parts of John Macmurray's work are relevant?
I would start with the role of fear which so often reduces our capacity for creativity. JM's redefinition of reason, including the emotional, may be crucial.
What do you think?
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ivansayer
20 Posts |
Posted - 13/11/2005 : 00:00:00
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At the moment, this is more of a question than a topic.
My own strongest experience of personal change came from
direct involvement in the cause of the Timorese. We have
new things to learn which can mostly only be learned in
action. If you want a slogan - 'engagement teaches'.
This is in keeping with MacMurray's philosophy of action
and the view of immediate experience set forth in
'Interpreting the Universe' but it carries you beyond it.
While my opinion of his epistemology is high, I find his
historical judgment rather weak for reasons I've partly
explained in another topic. (It is, however, a *shared*
weakness - he wasn't, by any means the only leftie who
overvalued the communist experiment in Russia or who
desperately wanted to believe that Europe was going to
turn a major corner in his lifetime.)
Yes, we have all sorts of problems, mostly very complex,
rising across the horizon. We may learn from them and
settle to a more sensible way of life, or we may be
destroyed by them. I find the former slightly more
probable, but I cannot know, and, as I'm sixty-three,
I anticipate no serious stable solutions emerging in
my lifetime.
While I'm a lifelong MacMurrayan, I'd have to recommend
him on the basis of his epistemology and recommend other
reading and direct political/social involvement for
learning about contemporary problems. I'm not even sure
that I would recommend him at all. It would depend on
who was at the receiving end of the recommendation.
Greetings
Ivan Sayer
You cannot give what you do not have |
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ivansayer
20 Posts |
Posted - 14/11/2005 : 18:19:03
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Hi All,
As an addendum to my last rather pessimistic post I thought I'd
add more about the reasons why I think our philosopher's purchase
on our contemporary problems is strictly limited.
Most of our problems have either an ecological nub or, even
where they are human/social/spiritual they have a solidly
ecological backdrop.
MacMurray's philosophy is not consciously ecological. I suggest
one topic for any serious study of MacMurray is precisely the
relation (or lack of) between his philosophy and and recent
ecological thought. It may be that he wished to include emotion
in the definition of rationality. But our emotions have an at
least partly organic basis - and he was wont to either deny
that human beings are organisms or to concede that they were
but assert that that fact was not 'of the essence'. He turned
away from what he called 'philosophy of organism' rather than
trying to extract what there was of value in it and take that
on to a new synthesis. Of course, this criticism is made with
due humility - after all, if I knew how to do that I'd be on
the presses and bookshelves.
It strikes me as wholly remarkable that Albert Schweizer was
just as sceptical as MacMurray of European Civilization *before*
the first world war had even happened; and that the phrase which
encapsulates his personal response is 'Reverence for Life'.
Ivan
You cannot give what you do not have |
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ivansayer
20 Posts |
Posted - 16/06/2006 : 20:43:37
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Hi Again,
I feel constrained to add a short remark to what I've said
already. There is at least one problem that is both wholly
objective and deeply personal in the range of problems to
which I have pointed - namely the problem of sustainable
population levels. At the moment, in most countries,
population levels are the combined result of private
decision and after the fact administrative decisions based
on statistics. Of course, what constitutes a sustainable
population depends on the kind of life that population lives
or plans. As I see it, our philosopher's thought offers
small purchase on this extremely intricate problem. He
discusses personal relations normally as between equals or
in one chapter of 'Persons In Relation' between mother and
child. Relations across more than two generations as
personal do get brief mention - e.g. in the last chapter of
'Self as Agent' - but only that, brief.
Ivan
You cannot give what you do not have |
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Working on our capacity to change
