Why we are stuck in the weeds of Philosophy (when it comes to UFOs)
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I'm a little surprised that my pal Bryan Sentes hasn't subjected us to this insight- ful essay from and by Allen W. Wood, the Ruth Norman Halls Professor at Indiana Univerisity and Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor emeritus at Stanford University for TLS [Times Literary Supple- ment].
Here's their essay and some excerpts from it that pertain to the back-and-forth that Bryan and I (and a few others) contend with:
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/immanuel-kant-what-lies-beyond-the-senses/
"It is easy to find Kant mystifying or off-putting unless you have the time, patience and sympathy to discover and properly reflect on his remarkably original work.
"We must learn to think for ourselves rather than deferring to the authority of books, doctors, lawyers and clergy and letting them take the place of our understanding and our conscience.
"It is all too easy to suppose Kant is recommending that we be idiosyncratic contrarians, contemp- tuous of tradition, authority and the thoughts of others. But that isn’t so. By “thinking” Kant means the use of understanding or reason subject to the basic standard of universal validity. To think for oneself, by Kant’s lights, means to think from the standpoint of all others. Kant argues that the only way for individuals to become enlightened is to communicate freely with one another, so that each acquires the ability and confidence to think by using the thoughts of others as both an incitement and an (always fallible) external criterion for correct thinking.
"We do, and should, raise questions about realities transcending the sensible world, but must resign ourselves to our incapacity to answer them."
My hesitation to apply Kant or any other Philosopher's thinking to the UFO problem lies in the face of philosophy's insistence, when all else is noted, as above, that thinking comes down to human morals and ethics, which the essay linked ends up hashing for its final, protracted paragraphs.
Bryan Sentes knows his Kant, and a lot of other things, but I'm insisting that the UFO phenomenon is not subject to discourse about ethics/morality or anything else with a human overlay.
That UFOers, me included, keep trying to ram psychology, philo- sophy, sociology, and other people-oriented disciplines into the phenomenon which has caused it to remain beclouded and diffuse, unexplained.
Kant may be a wonderful prescription for the human condition, which is in dire trouble right now (for a number of reasons), but the UFO phenomenon has nothing to do with any of that, nothing.
RR
Here's their essay and some excerpts from it that pertain to the back-and-forth that Bryan and I (and a few others) contend with:
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/immanuel-kant-what-lies-beyond-the-senses/
"It is easy to find Kant mystifying or off-putting unless you have the time, patience and sympathy to discover and properly reflect on his remarkably original work.
"We must learn to think for ourselves rather than deferring to the authority of books, doctors, lawyers and clergy and letting them take the place of our understanding and our conscience.
"It is all too easy to suppose Kant is recommending that we be idiosyncratic contrarians, contemp- tuous of tradition, authority and the thoughts of others. But that isn’t so. By “thinking” Kant means the use of understanding or reason subject to the basic standard of universal validity. To think for oneself, by Kant’s lights, means to think from the standpoint of all others. Kant argues that the only way for individuals to become enlightened is to communicate freely with one another, so that each acquires the ability and confidence to think by using the thoughts of others as both an incitement and an (always fallible) external criterion for correct thinking.
"We do, and should, raise questions about realities transcending the sensible world, but must resign ourselves to our incapacity to answer them."
My hesitation to apply Kant or any other Philosopher's thinking to the UFO problem lies in the face of philosophy's insistence, when all else is noted, as above, that thinking comes down to human morals and ethics, which the essay linked ends up hashing for its final, protracted paragraphs.
Bryan Sentes knows his Kant, and a lot of other things, but I'm insisting that the UFO phenomenon is not subject to discourse about ethics/morality or anything else with a human overlay.
That UFOers, me included, keep trying to ram psychology, philo- sophy, sociology, and other people-oriented disciplines into the phenomenon which has caused it to remain beclouded and diffuse, unexplained.
Kant may be a wonderful prescription for the human condition, which is in dire trouble right now (for a number of reasons), but the UFO phenomenon has nothing to do with any of that, nothing.
RR
posted by RRRGroup at
Saturday, June 13, 2020
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