Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
September 16, 2011 at 3:07pm
I recognize that it's hardly a new idea of its own right to point out the lack of new ideas in the New York Times, but this actually did make me laugh. Gary Gutting reports on Philip Kitcher, a philosopher at Columbia who for all I know has something new to say about theology, atheism, cultural relativism and the Euthyphro. But to judge from the review--I sure doubt it.
Is it just me? When's the last time you read something that made you say, "Wow. I've never before heard such a brilliant and original idea?"
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
You mean that there is a difference between "new" atheism and old atheism? Or are we just talking pretensions, a la that great book I just finished reading by some guy named Berlinski.
What I want to know is what it was like to grow up the daughter of such a smart man. Come to think of it, I have no right to ask that question, so it's best confined to the ranks of the rhetorical.
Sep '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
As with most things these days if we look to the agora of ideas and how that agora functions, we'll have our answer.
....
I think contemporary philosophy has become too self-congratulatory, with an arrogant self-assurance that the work we are producing is vastly superior to that of the interested amateurs of the past. But has anyone of late produced as fine and appealing a work as Hume’sTreatise or Locke’s Essay? On the contrary, I fear that in future centuries, the current era will be looked upon as a philosophical dark age where very little of interest was authored.
Mar '11
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
It seems to me that most of today's true intellectual energy is spent attempting to undo a century of bad ideas... leaving little time for original thought.
Apr '11
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
Oh, there is a difference between new Atheism and old Atheism. In the past people who were atheists did not believe in God or gods or spirits or what not and therefore did not belong to any religion. New Atheists are trying to construct a religion based around scientific theories and progressive social teachings. New Atheism is a religion, an irony that seems lost on its great disciples.
Jun '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
"…[H]e offers a sophisticated account of how ethics could have evolved as a “social technology” — a set of optimally designed practices and norms — to satisfy basic human desires."
Ethics as game theory as social technology, well that's certainly new. So I don't see why you're complaining, Claire.
Jun '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
I don't know how to prove, scientifically, that love exists. But, it exists. You can observe someone's selfless behavior and guess at what the catalyst is, but you can't really measure all the inputs. Atheists aren't smarter. They're just people with different guesses about the source of things like love.
Feb '11
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
Designated hitter?
Sep '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
I found Dan Gilbert's book Stumbling on Happiness full new ideas. In interviews, though, he seems to fall back on the standby views one might associate with a psychology professor from Harvard, e.g., that a disbelief in global warming is another way in which our brains fool us. Yet another good thinker who nonetheless is blind to his own assertions of faith.
Sep '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
The most intelligent, knowledgeable, well informed, creative person in the world does not know 99.9% of what can be known. People who fancy that they are this person are in capable of accepting this fact. “There is nothing new under the sun” more or less covers it all. New Atheism = hot air: not a new concept but accurate.
Jun '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
Where do crystals and runes fit in?
What started out as a quest for God ended up as a quest for no God. The supreme irony is that all of America's great universities started out as religious schools. Alas, we've ushered in an age where the best candidate for the archbishop's chair doesn't believe in God and can quote the theology to prove his atheism. It's a miracle!
Mar '11
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
My last "wow" moment in the realm of ideas came with the completion of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
Jan '11
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
With the advance of communications, knowledge is much more horizontal than it is vertical. By that, I mean that we're far more likely to learn about new topics than we are to discover new ideas within our familiar topics. We're accumulating more information, but reflecting on it less.
The real surprises - i.e., the innovation, originality, "new" thinking - comes after reflection on familiar topics, and seeing angles that you never saw before. But if we're preoccupied with narrow and immediate concerns, we don't take the time to reflect.
It's the difference between reading a book for a college grade versus reading it for pleasure. When you're looking to find specific answers, you bring expectations to the experience, and you only pay attention to things that conform to your expectations. When you read it for pleasure, you sit back and let the book say whatever it wants to say, whether it conforms to your expectations or not.That's when you get surprised.
Our society is very good at pursuing expectations. We're not so good at reflection. But reflection is where all the surprises are.
Jun '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
Ah! Where we will prove in Peter Robinson's words, fiat lux.
Oct '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
Pseudodionysius: [quoting Feser quoting Mumford]:
But has anyone of late produced as fine and appealing a work as Hume’s Treatise or Locke’s Essay? ... I fear that in future centuries, the current era will be looked upon as a philosophical dark age where very little of interest was authored. · Sep 16 at 6:24am
Not that I want to defend the contemporary academy, but this quote does rather ignore time periods. Locke's Essay was published in 1690, Hume's Treatise in 1739. I - without the benefit of looking back from future centuries, obviously - would put Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations in the same non-dark-age basket as those works. It was published in 1953. Even if we assume nothing 'as fine and appealing' has been done since then, if a single work of similar stature comes along in the next 5-10 years we're still producing good philosophy at a not dissimilar rate, sub specie aeternitatus.
Are current practitioners too self-congratulatory? Undoubtedly. (And since at least the enlightenment - just think of the name! - it has been thus.) But I think it as least as solipsistic to condemn one's own era as a dark age.
May '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
Actually, Ricochet is one of those ideas. Then again, I don't get out much.
Mar '11
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
KC Mulville:
The real surprises - i.e., the innovation, originality, "new" thinking - comes after reflection on familiar topics, and seeing angles that you never saw before. But if we're preoccupied with narrow and immediate concerns, we don't take the time to reflect.
It's the difference between reading a book for a college grade versus reading it for pleasure. When you're looking to find specific answers, you bring expectations to the experience, and you only pay attention to things that conform to your expectations. When you read it for pleasure, you sit back and let the book say whatever it wants to say, whether it conforms to your expectations or not.That's when you get surprised.
Our society is very good at pursuing expectations. We're not so good at reflection. But reflection is where all the surprises are. · Sep 16 at 6:51am
Do you think schools would be better off covering less material more deeply? Focusing more on how to learn/how to think critically... rather than exposure to as much material as possible?
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
He was as excited about watching Sesame Street every afternoon as I was. He loved it. When I decided I was too mature for it, he was quite disappointed. He couldn't stand Mr. Rogers, though. Reflecting on it as an adult, I can see why he found him creepy.
Aug '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
There's no difference between "old" and "new", it's true.
However, there is a difference between atheism and antitheism.
In the one case, I have no real problem with someone who does not share my belief in some form of divine creative intelligence (however one chooses to define Him, Her, It, or They). Reasonable people can disagree, after all.
In the other case, however, I have lots of problems with people who believe that my belief in God is harmful to the planet and to humanity, and actively works to undermine my faith or, failing that, actively works to restrict the freedoms of people of faith.
The former is a neighbour. The latter is an opponent.
Jun '10
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
He was as excited about watching Sesame Street every afternoon as I was. He loved it. When I decided I was too mature for it, he was quite disappointed. He couldn't stand Mr. Rogers, though. Reflecting on it as an adult, I can see why he found him creepy. · Sep 16 at 7:19am
I'm with you on Mr. Rogers.
Apr '11
Re: Goodness, But the World is Out of New Ideas
1992 - when Harvard/Cornell Astronomer Thomas Gold published a paper suggesting that hydrocarbons(oil & gas), rather than being pools of rotting dinosaur carcasses were really the result of abiogenic processes deep in the earth and were thus abundant. More than that, since they were molecules trapped during planetary formation they might be abundant on other worlds as well.
At the time scientists were still saying that that the biggest limitation on space exploration was the lack of water on other planets. This meant that we'd have to carry water with us and at 8.5lbs per gallon it would be cost-prohibitive. Today we know water is abundant on both the Moon and Mars.
Gold's idea is still controversial and is not widely accepted among petroleum geologists. And Gold was a proponent of the now discredited theory of a '"Steady-State Universe." But his "Deep, Hot Biosphere" was an idea that, when I first read it, made me think, 'Really? Wow!'