"Science of Man": Needs a Paradigm

[coberst]

“Science of Man”: Needs a Paradigm

 

The main philosophical problems of modern society are intimately associated with Tom and Jane’s enchantment with Science. Normal science is, for too many, an enchanted idol that is perceived as the savior of humanity. No matter what dastardly things humans may do, Science will save us.

 

Science—normal science—as Thomas Kuhn labels it in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” moves forward in a “successive transition from one paradigm to another”. A paradigm defines the theory, rules and standards of practice. “In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possible pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant.”

 

The Newtonian scientific paradigm was a mathematical, quantified, pattern capable of reducing reality to an atomic level. It’s ideal, if there was one, was man as a machine or more likely a cog in a machine. In such a science we lose the individual man and woman. Rousseau was offering something entirely different. It was holistic and non-reducible. It was a gestalt that included man as neutral manipulator of scientific experiments but also as a subject with values who was a totally thinking, feeling, free agent.

 

“Rousseau showed that morality had to be instrumented, by man according to an ideal formulated by him; the science of man could only have meaning as an active ideal-type of science.” Newtonian paradigms left no room for such and ideal. It had no room for a holistic woman or man. The solution proposed by Rousseau was to make humanity first and science second; science was to be the servant of wo/man rather than wo/man as the servant of science.

 

The paradigm of Newtonianism turned out to be a tougher nut than the Enlightenment could crack. Such individuals as Darwin and Spencer appeared on the scene and quickly humanity was sequestered again into the background by Science. Dewey’s long life time proved insufficient to the challenge and the reason why: “pragmatism contained no moral criteria by means of which a man-based value science could be instrumented.”

 

Marx recognized the problem inherent in scientism and shifted ground from Rousseau’s ideal-type to the possible-type. Marx said that we should do what is possible and possible in our time. Marx advocated the victory of the laboring class.

 

“What are the main problems of modern society; how can man’s situation in the world be improved?” Marx determined that the Newtonian paradigm was morally unedifying; the social problem was the alienation of man. But with Marx the ideal vision of the Enlightenment was swallowed up in the Revolution. The ideal of a full and free liberation of the human potential was destroyed in the Revolution.

 

And therein lay the rub. What is a paradigm of normal science as Kuhn so succinctly wrote about and which, as a concept, was unrecognized in Kuhntonion form a century ago, but was nevertheless, even then, the heart of normal science.

 

Kuhn says that practitioners of normal science have: a paradigm that makes a science normal when most if not all members agree upon a theory as being true. When this agreement breaks down then a new paradigm is agreed upon. The paradigm defines a map for action. The thing that separates a paradigm from some kind of, green light and red light group agreement about crossing the street is that there is more careful control, calculation, instrumentation, and a greater willingness to place before the world a conjecture to be evaluated as to its truth. A paradigm defines the theory, rules, and standards of practice.

 

It seems that almost all domains of knowledge wish to emulate Science. Science for most people is technology and if questioned we would probably find that science means physics. We have placed Science on a very high pedestal because technology has been so successful. Every domain of knowledge wishes to be as good as Science.

 

I suspect that the way to judge how well a domain of knowledge is like science is to discover if it does or does not have a paradigm. Like Kuhn notes in his book that without a paradigm any knowledge is as good as any other. Paradigm converts chaos into system.

 

Many of the ideas and quotes in this OP are derived from Ernest Becker’s book “Beyond Alienation”. Me and Ernest agree that the “main philosophical problem for modern society” is that we need a paradigm for the “science of wo/man”. Have you a paradigm for this new science? Me and Ernest do but we disagree on some aspects.

[IDMclean]

I would say I have a paradigm for such a thing. I call it Experientialism.

 

It edifies all of secular and emperical knowledge, understanding and wisdom under a single concept that is central and non-trivial to all known (perhaps even all knowable) pursuits in the world. Experience. Even Science is held together by this; Empiricism would not be possible without experience.

 

As such I would be so bold as to assert that; experience is quintessential to all pursuits of conscious kind.

 

Each and everyone of the thinkers you mention above has as an underlying assumption, the importance and existence of experience. For Newton he did not realize the importance of the implications of wo/man in the machine. Marx in his model of historical materialism neglected the existence of experience in determining ultimately the means of production, and the effect of the means of production on the experience of wo/man. Even Kuhn in his paper "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" accepts implicitly experience as fundamental to his structure, though he may not admit so explicitly. He does so implicitly.

 

The next question asked of course is, what use is this realization if experience is so far reaching? To which I might answer with: What is the difference between a wo/man and a rock?

[rocket art]

"Experientialism"...I seem to like that. That differentiates between a thinking, and non thinking entity.

[IDMclean]

Here's a glimpse of the possible impact of Experientialism. In realizing that all endevours of self-experiencing kind, conscious kind, personalities and otherwise, we come upon a non-trivial common point.

 

Art, Science, Religion, Philosophy, Business, Economics, Government. All of it is based entirely on the design, development, communication, manipulation, evalutation, testing, iteration, production and otherwise use of the (real, matterial) product of experience.

 

Marx changed the way we viewed history by introducing the concept of historical materialism, in which history is viewed as an escalating series of advancements in the means of production of material goods. I would supplement, if not surplant that, with the means of production, and transmission of experience from one generation to another as the determining factor in the advancement of society.

 

Even the term of "realize" is based fundamentally in the way we experience our subjective reality (dreaming, thinking, cognition) and reconcile it with our experience of objective reality (seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing, tasting).

 

From this we can come to relate the components of human knowledge to one another, and from that relation develop a synthetic language (reduced instruction set) relating to those components. One of the biggest banes in the endevour to decipher experience. In the endevour to produce usable information, is a lack of commonality between seemingly disparate domains of knowledge.

 

Epitomized by a cultural saying "I'm a doctor not a..."

 

Knowledge is generally seperated, and kept seperated into two main groups. General knowledge and Specialized knowledge. These can also be categorized as Exoteric and Esoteric. The problem of course is the integration of Esoteric information/knowledge/understanding/pattern into a exoteric form.

 

Some forms of knowledge, particularly of the esoteric form, are elitist in that they refuse, like oil and water, to mix with other forms. Denying any commonality or compatibility. The realization and recognition of experience as the underlying universal commonality allows, implicitly, for the development of a common standardized language. Experience is independent of the languages that convey them, allowing for translation from one language to another. More importantly this commonality of experiences in language, and the independence from language allows for languages to be used to synthesize more expressive languages.

 

Thus we reach the crux of it all. What Experientialism sets out to do is unify to the greatest degree possible experience. Much as Science set out to unify and standardize natural philosophy under the paradigm and methodologies of science. I purpose a field that sets out to unify and standardize all experiential forms under the paradigm of experientialism. Until the exact form of the paradigm is deciphered in full, one can not develop the necessary methodologies to formally set out in this endevour.

 

Such is the problem of such a far reaching problem. How does one integrate the sum total of experience into a single ontology, glossary, formal language and inference rule set? I know that Science is a good place to start to find form for Experientialism.

[rocket art]

Marx changed the way we viewed history by introducing the concept of historical materialism, in which history is viewed as an escalating series of advancements in the means of production of material goods....

 

...These can also be categorized as Exoteric and Esoteric. The problem of course is the integration of Esoteric information/knowledge/understanding/pattern into a exoteric form...

 

...Some forms of knowledge, particularly of the esoteric form, are elitist in that they refuse, like oil and water, to mix with other forms...

 

Marx's view, being materialistic, may not be effectual in the light of incorporating with the Human Phenomenon, as in this case with the 'experiential'. Being materialistic, the individual is not necessarily viewed as a profoundly conscious person, but rather as a mere commodity, a statistic for his economic machinery. I do not rely much on materialistic views because through the years it reduces the mystery of Human Phenomenon stripped down to the limited bounds of matter for manipulation.

 

Being materialistic, he failed to 'experience' the essence of religion (am not religious, but believes in the essence Spirituality) causing him to say that "religion is the opiate of the masses" (though it may be right when referring to organized religion, hence the materialistic tendency of mechanizing it). I may as well say that "Materialism is the opiate of Science"

(indeed it would be a mistake if materialism is viewed as institution, rather than as tool).

 

Marx used the inevitability of economics. I say there is an aternative, and that is the inevitability of CULTURE. I have written an essay discussing this view, and called it 'Culturism' (yet another of my rocket philosophy'). Perhaps I may compel to post it on another thread for scrutiny and discussion. This is the internet age, and such approach in sharing ideas may as well be part of this present civilization.

 

It is necessary to expound further on how we view the term esoteric and exoteric nowadays. I believe that esoteric may actually be a very intimate, intuitive (I believe the conventional 'scientific' definition on intuition is eroneous), personal quest for knowledge that emanates from 'within' the Human Phenomenon. In the Present era, esoteric was seemingly viewed as 'elitist' most likely due to shrewd manipulations by selfish agendas that supress these from the general populace. Yet in the Ideal Past, such knowledge, being intuitive, were once well known to everyone, until these were being supressed as deliberate atrocities were committed against those that upholded these, such as the early christians, gnostics, the Essenes, inquisition, witch hunt, etc. (if you're a scientist in Europe's dark ages, you're probably branded as a witch) by the gullible and manipulated populace.

 

Therefore, in the Awareness that the term esoteric, being such an intimate, intuitive source of knowlege from 'within Human Phenomenon, may not be perceived negatively due to the supression by selfish agenda. The antithesis to such may not necessarily be the exoteric (the esoteric, for an enlightened and more deserving civilizations, will neededly be approached as exoteric), but rather the manipulation of rendering knowledge, i.e., science as cold and detached to Human phenomenon by selfish agendas and materialistic institutions.

[IDMclean]

Interesting post, Rocket Art, but misses the point. As with Newton, Marx and the strong sense Materialist omit the possibility of the person (not necessarily human, man or woman; Though necessarily of personality, mind, pattern). As you quite accurately place, materialism relegates the person to the realm of material, purely and begins to seemingly slide into the realm of fatalism, where free will is illusionary.

 

To which I would contend that it is true in so far that humans are material. However, when I say that, I am only refering to the human form, the flesh and the complex biomachinery that contain and are shaped by the pattern; the personality. People are not humans, in the sence of the material form. We do not morn for the rotting of flesh, we do not morn the carcass. We morn the pattern; personality; perspective.

 

This is where I break with pure materialism. I admit the existence of the experience pattern, the experiential personality that resides in the corpus. The importance of the experiential personality is in that it is an emergent non-deterministic difference engine. We determine the outcome, though our shell influences the probabilities, and limits the possible experiences (See a priori and a posteriori, Immanuel Kant). By simple material limitiation.

 

People are important and non-trivial because we determine, by thought, intention, volition, and deed, what we experience. What experiences we seek out, and by doing so we shape and determine the world.

 

A rock does not do likewise. A rock, like the corpus, is but mere material without experiential personality.

 

Now it is obvious that I must elucidate what I mean by Esoteric. To which I mean in the sense of not widely known outside select groups. Science is known of, but little known by the general populus. This is not a good thing, and is mostly because science is held to be an elite knowledge. One which only those who are capable of esoteric knowledge are capable of handling. You hear it much in the way that the scientific community speaks.

 

This is a travesty that Noam Chomsky has long spoken out against; the minimalization of the intellectual capabilities of the masses. Esoteric knowledge, in my observation, is like raw ore. It is rough and unprocessed and unusable by but a few in number. Exoteric knowledge is like processed ore, accessible and usable by many.

 

The difference between these two are accessibility of experience. Of which can be designed, developed, produced and distributed by means of popular media, like Comics and Games. Which long have been held as trivial, despite their immense ability to convey large amounts of experience percisely, in an accessible and usuable manner. That is retaining much of the integrity of the experience as it is compressed and transmitted across the medium.

 

This is something that Art, Literature, and Theater have not been able to do. Though amazing in there own right, and in no way trivial; however for certain taskes, such as mass production and transmission of experience, they fail in most circumstances to compete.

 

In short I would note that you, yourself, wrote:

I believe that esoteric may actually be a very intimate, intuitive (I believe the conventional 'scientific' definition on intuition is eroneous), personal quest for knowledge that emanates from 'within' the Human Phenomenon.

 

To which I will point out that a personal experience is limited in value unless the person uses that experience to produce more experiences, and communicate these experiences to the societial level. A person can hoard a treasure trove of experience, and never do anything with it. Hence my arguement for converting esoteric knowledge into exoteric. To make it more accessable and usuable to the majority of people. This of course does not necessitate elimination of esoteric knowledge, only the processing of the majority into socially useful knowledge.

[coberst]

Kickassclown

 

I think you are exactly on the mark.

 

 

Within the Enlightenment Rousseau’s voice appeared as the first great voice directed at Newtonianism’s objective science. This voice directed attention from an objective science wherein sapiens were relegated to a neutral role to one wherein wo/man was central in a subjective value science. This was to be a science that directly advances human well being.

 

We move from consideration of a concept of science that alienated men and women, to one that gave us a new vision of science; a value science. Science guided by an ideal-type paradigm that could garner allegiance faced a formidable task. “How can we get agreement on unfinished data, when the data refer to changing society and man himself? When man is the subject matter of his science, he is reluctant to act on any but the most supremely compelling theory.”

 

The concept of alienation holds up for view the bind placed on women and men when society itself imprisons their free human energies. Alienation is the only concept that can help us comprehend the need for a liberating social change. This is “the guardian of sacred subjectivity in a mechanical, objective world.”

 

The first imperative for comprehending Becker’s ideas regarding a science of man is to agree that alienation is a value problem. “All fact is two faced”, as Dewey would say “it is cosmos examined by a speck in the cosmos”. “In the science of man based on the concept of alienation, this understanding would be frank and explicit. We would posit and ideal model of man, and propose the kind of changes we would need to help further this ideal; and then we would gather empirical data and measure them against he ideal.” Thereby the value aspect of our science of man would be foremost in front of us at all times.

 

As a definition of ‘alienation’ the dictionary uses such similes as “strange”, “different”, “incongruous”, “owing different allegiances”, and “properly therefore belonging to another”, “not of our type”. “The judgment of “our type” and “not belonging” is a mixture of both. Since this is the case, we would always have to get agreement, in our science both on what we want to promote and on the supporting objective data that we gather.” The type of alienation Becker speaks of is that which we all tacitly (implied but not expressed) agree is dehumanizing.

[rocket art]

This is something that Art, Literature, and Theater have not been able to do. Though amazing in there own right, and in no way trivial; however for certain taskes, such as mass production and transmission of experience, they fail in most circumstances to compete.

 

Actually, Art, especially visual arts in the modern era has achieved a certain pinnacle in Free Artistry, such that the concept of competing may no longer be relevant in its endeavor. The transmission of experience is very personal, and basically such insight would rely much on the susceptibility of the individual, rather than relying on the popularity by a crowd. Art stands by itself in its pinnacle, and being a Creative power, I consider it at the apex among human endeavors where the Ideal of Freedom is well entrenched and guarded. It would not be surprising that any atempt to bound its Ideal will deservingly be deconstructed not by institutions or belief systems, but by creative individuals themselves. To use it for politics will cease its Art but becomes propaganda, to use it for commerce will cease from the Ideal and becomes advertising. Being a creative power, Art is beyond these and waits for Science to finally catch up with the profound Freedom that such creative individuals in Art had witnessed.

 

However, Art is definitely inherent and in a way exoteric, as well as profoundly esoteric; each individual have experienced his/her creative power as a child, as one notices all children take pleasure with their highly imaginative worlds, until the mechanisms of the system manipulate them as adults in controlled existence that may deliberately forget their inherent creative power, to become mechanical parts of a system.

 

Yet it should not be forgotten that progressive civilizations had achieved certain ages of enlightenment and Renaissance, as one had defined such achievement as conceiving of the "State as work of Art." From this experience, one may contemplate with Awareness on the imminent role and the fusion of Science and Art (the synchronicity of ideals, not the compromise), that these in the Present had instead been manipulated to separation on one's paradigm and of one's creative side.

[coberst]

RocketArt

 

It appears to me that, from your statement, artists have a much better comprehension of 'alienation' than do more scientific oriented thinkers or for that matter almost any others. I think that you might better appreciate Becker's book "Beyond Alienation" than most others. Becker puts greater empathesis on aesthetic impulses than anyone else I have read.

[rocket art]

I think 'alienation' may not be an appropriate term. Knowing one's self, of being human (it's still a long process I guess) does not alienate one to humanity, but rather perceives as one peers from the cave into an intangible 'outside' from the darkness that had been so tangibly familiar with being 'inside' a cave that they had been used to.

[coberst]

We see only what we are prepared to see. If we could comprehend our present circumstance we could create a far better society than we now have; a far better society that would be in tune with our present knowledge. Our first task is to illuminate our present circumstance.

 

We have created a culture of alienation. Alienation fragments human nature.

 

As a definition of ‘alienation’ the dictionary uses such similes as “strange”, “different”, “incongruous”, “owing different allegiances”, and “properly therefore belonging to another”, “not of our type”. There are two forms of alienation: there is the type of alienation, which we all tacitly agree is dehumanizing and there is the more sinister and crippling alienation that few citizens perceive. It is this second unperceived alienation mode that proves to be the most debilitating; if we cannot perceive it, ipso facto we cannot combat it.

 

We cannot perceive it because our society frames the matters upon which Tom and Jane ponder in their daily lives such that these alienating factors are hidden from easy public perception. Frames are conceptual structures, often expressed as metaphors, which shape the way we see the world. A frame only allows you to accept facts that fit within it. Thus, speaking rhetorically, who succeeds in framing an issue, will be difficult to beat in subsequent debate.

 

Language is, as Edward T. Hall put it, "a system for organizing information and releasing thoughts and responses in other organisms," not for implanting thoughts or transferring meaning from one brain to another. In other words, “the meaning contained within metaphors is already in us, just awaiting the words to call it forth.”

 

“When you think you lack words, what you really lack are ideas. Ideas come in the form of frames. When the frames are there, the words come readily... A conservative on TV uses two words, like tax relief. And the progressive has to go into a paragraph-long discussion of his own view. The conservative can appeal to an established frame, that taxation is an affliction or burden, which allows for the two-word phrase, tax relief. But there is not established frame on the other side. You can talk about it, but it takes some doing because there is no established frame, no fixed idea already out there."

—Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate by George Lakoff

 

Our society leads us into wallowing about in a toxic and alienating culture because the culture we create is not in harmony with human nature; humans feel that disharmony but humans are unable to deal with it because our unconscious metaphors do not provide us with the metaphors and subsequent frames, which might allow us to comprehend the source of our discontent.

[coberst]

I think 'alienation' may not be an appropriate term. Knowing one's self, of being human (it's still a long process I guess) does not alienate one to humanity, but rather perceives as one peers from the cave into an intangible 'outside' from the darkness that had been so tangibly familiar with being 'inside' a cave that they had been used to.

 

 

 

When I speak of alienation I am speaking about wo/man’s alienation from his or her nature. I am speaking of the fragmentation of the individual. I am speaking of the fact that part of what we are is being defiled and rejected by the manner in which we live in our society.

 

A general theory of alienation would be a body of knowledge about how human freedom and responsible choice is constricted. Evil is that which makes it impossible for sapiens to realizing their potential; this knowledge would be an expression of what are responsible human powers and how society limits the expression of those powers.

 

Emerson, considered by many as the top moralist in American history, understood these facts when he stated the important challenge to all wo/men to be self-reliance. He felt that self-reliance was the “keynote of American democracy”. Whatever should limit human self-reliance works against the nature of wo/man. The great challenge to education was to develop a comprehensive theory of the limitations of self-reliance and to teach this to all Americans.

 

To achieve such a goal demanded that science comprehend what all humans strive for. Emerson was convinced that sapiens strived after meaning and the creation of meaning. The crux of self-reliance then was how to advance the self-creation of human meaning.