The Pathology of Our Age

ULYSSES HAS NO USE FOR PLATO

“The man with a method good for purposes of his dominant interests is a pathological case in respect to his wider judgment on the coordination of this method with a more complete experience. Priests and scientist, statesmen and men of business, philosophers and mathematicians are all alike in this respect. We all start by being empiricists. But our empiricism is confined within our immediate interests. The more clearly we grasp the intellectual analysis of a way regulating procedure for the sake of those interest, the more decidedly we reject the inclusion of evidence which refuses to be immediately harmonized with the method before us. Some of the major disasters of mankind have been produced by the narrowness of men with good methodology. Ulysses has no use for Plato, and the bones of his companions are strewn on many a reef and many and isle.”

Alfred North Whitehead. The Function of Reason. 1929.

COMMENT

The post-Enlightenment program calling for destruction of the wall between physics and metaphysics represents, I believe, a collective example of the pathology Whitehead identifies. Religionists presume to dictate content of science textbooks without bothering to master the basic language of science or to grasp the fundamentals of the scientific method. When you hear the ostensibly damning phrase “just a theory,” you know you are dealing with an idiot or a demagogue. On the other side and in reaction to the religionists’ brayings, we find prominent members of the scientific fraternity holding forth on matters theological. Their wit amuses the intelligentsia—the few, the proud—while their glib arrogance infuriates the masses and frustrates the thoughtful theists and agnostics who have remained true to Enlightenment principles.

All the great thinkers have expressed awe in the face of their own ignorance. To begin to grasp the depth of one’s ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. Those damaged souls who would impose their wills upon all through various forms of coercion are the least wise among us. Yet, they are the very ones whose self-assuredness often attracts a following sufficient to ensure that some form of oppression will follow. The framers of the US Constitution sought through establishment of a government of laws (not of men) to limit damage done by these attractive hazards in human form.

CS