Subject: Re: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, war
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 21:57:34 -0500


James Daly wrote:

> > Reason after all is the highest and defining human faculty. It is a
> > trust that the universe of being is responsive to human values, and
> > that human goodness is not ultimately wasted, as it was for the
> > Sophists,

To which Carrol replied:

> This both defames the Sophists and trivializes human struggle. The
> Sophists virtually invented hope that makes sense, that is the hope that
> through human struggle in a universe indifferent to humans we can build
> something halfway decent for a while.

I'd also like to point out that the claim "Reason after all is the highest
and defining human faculty" is inaccurate.  Research over the past ten years
or so has shown that various higher mammals (certainly chimpanzees and some
other simians, also if I remember right even dogs and cats) do in fact
reason, even if not to the degree of sophistication, self-awareness,
self-delusion, arrogance, and incredible stupidity that humans do.  Many
mammals also experience emotion.  All told, we're pretty continuous with the
rest of the animal world, actually (and as a radio network in the US likes
to mention, an ear of corn has more genomes than people do).  For my money,
one of the most distinctive things humans do is pun, and it's arguable that
our crowning acheivement is the ice cream cone.  (Hey, that's not as silly
as it sounds.  Mathematically, it's a work of beauty; the combination of
milk, salt, ice, fruit, nuts, chocolate, wafers etc is an astonishing feat
of agricultural and chemical creativity, and refrigeration is no small
technological accomplishment either; its evanescence encourages one to
progress toward the spiritual goal of attention to the Now; as a union of
Italian gelato and [I think] Syrian wafers that was invented during [I
think] a Chicago World's Fair about a century ago, it demonstrates the
possibility of a joyful intercultural fusion; and how can anyone think of
war or even be angry when laying seige upon an ice cream cone?  A true
example of a dialectical absenting that absents a constraining or
destructive absence.)

Hungrily, T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce




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