Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (11527)	4/16/2001 1:40:49 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I don't deny that reason plays a role in many areas of life. But you said the operation of reason "suffices." That was -- and is -- my objection. It's more than semantics. Because there is a mindset that says that reason is almost all we need, that maybe there are other things but they should be shunted off in a little corner. It was perhaps the attitude that most bothered me about St. John's; that everything in the end could be reduced to a Socratic dialogue and reasoned out. I find it not only a very limiting, but an extraordinarliy dangerous attitude. In some ways, I think it is the syndrome which has caused much of what's wrong with modern universities -- the belief that it is possible to reduce everything in life to something that can be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Academics generally want to -- and believe they can -- understand everything rationally or scientifically. They want to reduce the whole universe and all human experience in it to nails they can pound with the hammer of rationality. It's more than sad. It's downright dangerous.