Is philosophy dead?

[GEddie]

The logical positivist might say the question is meaningless so far as logic is concerned.

We can still make the meaningful leap of subjective faith toward God.

The experience of God, which millions claim to have had, cannot be refuted by merely saying the proof of experiencing God is not empirical. A positivist might make the claim that religion is delusional, but he can never prove it is delusional. There might well be a transcendent God whose existence is not subject to empirical proof of the type a positivist would demand. This same God might well invite us to a personal relationship with Him.

The positivist is not against the religious impulse so much as he is against the impulse to prove God. At least this was the position of A.J. Ayer, the putative founder of logical positivism. The school of thought called “scientism” today is directly connected with Ayer as its most important founder. But scientism is getting to be old hat as it raises more difficulties than it solves.

For example, how does scientism explain the effect of sacred music on the believer?

How does a composer create sacred music without being in touch with the Sacred?

Why is there a correspondence between the musical notes and the emotions aroused by those notes?

Why do sometimes even atheists seem charmed by sacred music?

Why do some atheists avoid sacred music like the plague?

None of the questions can begin to be explained by science. But philosophy can tackle them.

Ditto questions for thousands of issues in all the other departments of philosophy.

I’d say that musicology and psychology would have as much to say about these issues as psychology.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I’d say that musicology and psychology would have as much to say about these issues as psychology.

ICXC NIKA

Do you know of anything they’d have to say?

I’ve never heard of a psychologist studying the effects of sacred music on believers and atheists.

 

[Aloysium]

Maybe ten years or so ago there was a study that compared brain functioning in Buddhist monks that had many years of meditation to that in novices.
Researchers noticed significant changes between the groups.
I Googled the study and was not convinced of the interpretations presented in the media, but the bottom line is that we do exist as flesh and as such we have psychosomatic faculties that will reflect spiritual experiences.

When one gazes in wonder at any aspect of this cosmos, is brought to tears by a beautiful act, or is transported by a piece of music, one’s soul rejoices in the mysteries of existence.
This is associated with sensations and changes in brain activity.
It’s not that the experience of the spiritual is merely psychological or physical, but rather this correlation is reflective of the fact that we exist as a unity - there is a change in the entirety of who one is.

Unfortunately for those who see and go for just the emotional and sensory experience, they will fall.
You can reproduce the physical and psychological aspects of religious experience, but without the central core, which is the presence of loving communion, it will turn to nothing.
Be it the pleasure that comes with sex, the sense of being loved that comes with attention and fame, or the short-circuiting of the brain caused by drugs, it will all lead to addictive lifestyles, increasingly empty.

 

[Tomdstone]

Do you know of anything they’d have to say?

I’ve never heard of a psychologist studying the effects of sacred music on believers and atheists.

An article on the effects of music (not necessarily sacred).
emedexpert.com/tips/music.shtml

 

[Charlemagne_III]

An article on the effects of music (not necessarily sacred).
emedexpert.com/tips/music.shtml

The psychology of sacred music has in part been neglected by mainstream psychology, I would suggest, because mainstream psychology is highly secularized. Since Freud psychologists have been dominated by the suspicion or conviction that the religious experience is largely delusional. If that is their perspective, there would seem to be little reason for interest in studying the connection between religious convictions and and the particular effect sacred music has on both religious and non-religious people. We may confidently suppose that the sense of truth content of sacred music is powerful in religious people and absent in irreligious people. But how chords of music touch the heartstrings of religious people can only be explained by Pascal’s conviction that the heart has reasons reason cannot know.

 

[Aloysium]

My prediction would be that atheists and religious people initially, as a base-line, might have a similar neurological response to previously unknown music, assuming it is naturally beautiful.

In time one might predict that in the religious person, whose thoughts would turn to God, the experience would become deeper and more meaningful, as a prayer. In time then, the neurological centers that correlate with emotion and the intellect would probably show more activity.

In the atheist, one would likely see the opposite, hearing the music again and again, and it having no spiritual meaning, it would be as any other mundane phenomenon - boring.

There are so many variables and so many potential sources of bias, that the experiment is likely not feasible. Who would fund it? The “other side” would always find a reason to deny the validity of any results.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

My prediction would be that atheists and religious people initially, as a base-line, might have a similar neurological response to previously unknown music, assuming it is naturally beautiful.

In time one might predict that in the religious person, whose thoughts would turn to God, the experience would become deeper and more meaningful, as a prayer. In time then, the neurological centers that correlate with emotion and the intellect would probably show more activity.

In the atheist, one would likely see the opposite, hearing the music again and again, and it having no spiritual meaning, it would be as any other mundane phenomenon - boring.

There are so many variables and so many potential sources of bias, that the experiment is likely not feasible. Who would fund it? The “other side” would always find a reason to deny the validity of any results.

Thank you! As I pointed out in post # 120:

“None of the questions can begin to be explained by science. But philosophy can tackle them.”

The neurological response to the sacred music is predicted based on the person’s spirituality.

But what is there in the music that induces this response? Here is my point demonstrated.

youtube.com/watch?v=6KUDs8KJc_c less than four minutes

Even if you don’t know Latin or Spanish, you know Mozart is connecting with God and inviting us to join his experience. Can a false and delusional experience produce such sublime beauty? Reference to neurological conditioning doesn’t seem to explain the power residing in the music itself. Discount the language of this hymn altogether. If you knew no Latin or any Latin translation of the music, would you not still be profoundly moved to the core of your being and sense that Mozart somehow had a pipeline to Divinity?

 

[tonyrey]

Thank you! As I pointed out in post # 120:

“None of the questions can begin to be explained by science. But philosophy can tackle them.”

The neurological response to the sacred music is predicted based on the person’s spirituality.

But what is there in the music that induces this response? Here is my point demonstrated.

youtube.com/watch?v=6KUDs8KJc_c less than four minutes

Even if you don’t know Latin or Spanish, you know Mozart is connecting with God and inviting us to join his experience. Can a false and delusional experience produce such sublime beauty? Reference to neurological conditioning doesn’t seem to explain the power residing in the music itself. Discount the language of this hymn altogether. If you knew no Latin or any Latin translation of the music, would you not still be profoundly moved to the core of your being and sense that Mozart somehow had a pipeline to Divinity?

To adapt the words of Wordsworth:

“Dull would he be of soul who could ignore music so touching in its majesty!”

 

[inocente]

What reasonable people have ever disagreed that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us?

Kant for one.

Some views not my own are not silly-putty logic, but the notion that I killed logic surely is.

I didn’t say you killed logic. I said, and you even quoted me saying “if you call every view except your own “a bit of silly-putty logic” then yes, of course philosophy is dead, you just killed it.”

If you insist on saying things like “what reasonable people have ever disagreed?” with your own opinion, then by implication you believe that Kant and every other philosopher you disagree with is irrational.

So I say again, if you call every view except your own “a bit of silly-putty logic” then yes, of course philosophy is dead, you just killed it.

 

[inocente]

An agnostic thinks that we do not know and probably will never know the answer to the question, “is there a God”? They think there is an answer but it is unknown.

A logical positivist thinks that the question, “is there a God” is like asking, " Does udnkews aquire dijnuyhtd? They think there is no answer because the question itself is meaningless.

There are countless unanswerable questions (such as your example of an oxygen atom on Pluto), so it doesn’t seem unreasonable in principle to discard them all as meaningless, otherwise we’d waste all our time on them and never get anything done.

At issue would be the criteria by which the answerable/unanswerable decision is made. Hawking presumably excludes any appeal to a priori knowledge.

 

[inocente]

I’ve never heard of a psychologist studying the effects of sacred music on believers and atheists.

Don’t know as there’s much difference. When I was an atheist, I collected various settings of the Mass, including Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass, written in a dead language by an atheist, still a favorite for reflecting human imperfection in its spirituality.

youtube.com/watch?v=d9kJxwgdua8 (svet = sanctus)

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Kant for one.

Where does Kant say he disagrees with the Golden Rule?

It’s not that Kant disagrees with the Golden Rule, but that he sees instances where it might be difficult to apply. Such as the prisoner who objects to the judge sentencing him because the judge would not want himself to be sentenced to jail. But this prisoner’s objection is not a reasonable one. The judge, if guilty of a wrongdoing, might not want to be sentenced, but would see that justice requires he be sentenced.

Kant’s Categorical Imperative does not refute the Golden Rule.

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” Immanuel Kant

It would certainly be Kant’s view that the prisoner should be punished by the judge, as all prisoners convicted of crime should be punished.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Don’t know as there’s much difference. When I was an atheist, I collected various settings of the Mass, including Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass, written in a dead language by an atheist, still a favorite for reflecting human imperfection in its spirituality.

youtube.com/watch?v=d9kJxwgdua8 (svet = sanctus)

I will take the Catholic Mozart over the atheist Janáček every time.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

To adapt the words of Wordsworth:

“Dull would he be of soul who could ignore music so touching in its majesty!”

True to his name, Wordsworth spoke words of worth!

 

[Aloysium]

. . . you know Mozart is connecting with God and inviting us to join his experience. Can a false and delusional experience produce such sublime beauty? Reference to neurological conditioning doesn’t seem to explain the power residing in the music itself. Discount the language of this hymn altogether. If you knew no Latin or any Latin translation of the music, would you not still be profoundly moved to the core of your being and sense that Mozart somehow had a pipeline to Divinity?

Thanks for introducing this topic - the reality of music refutes any attempt to reduce the cosmos to being simply matter and philosophy to empirical science.

Just to get it out of the way, I believe we can discount the physical activity and changes in the body as something that merely reflects only our existence within a physical universe.
Since something is going on within the totality of who we are when we listen to music, the presence of neurological activity is a given.

There is something in music that I can’t explain but is revealed in itself and when we speak such things as the choir of Angels and Saints.
The oldest person in my family recounts episodes in her past, one of which was going to the Cathedral in her city and listening to the pastor, who was an accomplished organist, play Bach in the afternoon - the notes danced around the columns is how she described it. Eighty years later, it remains vivid.
I remember going through various threads maybe a year or so ago, while listening to Schubert’s 8th Symphony. I was reading about Intelligent design and people were arguing about randomness in the chemical structuring of molecules leading to life and natural selection somehow producing humanity. In the context of the music what was proposed seemed farcical and totally out of touch with the palpable reality of beauty.

Playing with time, between and within notes,
which emerge and disappear in a background of silence
or fullness of sound,
rising and falling;
the rhythm, the driving of time forward in the moment,
music transports one into eternity.

In church, a simple song rejoicing or calling out to God in our need can bring one to tears. Music imho is of another dimension.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Playing with time, between and within notes,
which emerge and disappear in a background of silence
or fullness of sound,
rising and falling;
the rhythm, the driving of time forward in the moment,
music transports one into eternity.

You’re a poet! Thank you for your poem.

 

[inocente]

Where does Kant say he disagrees with the Golden Rule?

It’s not that Kant disagrees with the Golden Rule, but that he sees instances where it might be difficult to apply. Such as the prisoner who objects to the judge sentencing him because the judge would not want himself to be sentenced to jail. But this prisoner’s objection is not a reasonable one. The judge, if guilty of a wrongdoing, might not want to be sentenced, but would see that justice requires he be sentenced.

Special pleading bro. You have added your own, unspecified, clause to the golden rule to make it come out the way you want. Which was Kant’s objection - the rule is too vague to avoid unwanted results.

I will take the Catholic Mozart over the atheist Janáček every time.

Don’t we just listen? Personal taste is, shall we say, personal, but I don’t see why we should have to know a composer’s religion or shoe size before deciding the merit of a piece.

 

[antunesaa]

Most people try to work around this problem by coming up with solutions that are not allowed according to the groundrules of the problem. … There are only two choices for the captain in this case:

1. Do nothing and all will die.
2. Shoot one person and 9 will live.

You’re right about the problem but reality is seldom like that. There are always different, creative solutions for a problem. But with those strict rules, I think the most ethical solution would be 1. No one can kill an inocent purposefully, so the captain could not go and kill one of the other 9. As a consequence, everyone would die. And, seen from a more distant perspective, wouldn’t you think that solution fair? I would, as none of the 9 had the generosity to sacrifice himself for the common good. In the end you loose 9 egotistical and cowardly people plus the captain, who anyway did the right thing.

Now suppose you chose 2. In that case, an egotistical and cowardly person is murdered by the captain, who becomes, well, a murderer. The remaining 8 egotistical and cowardly people plus the murderer save their skins. In the end I think the situation is even worse than option 1, where at least the captain behaved decently by not killing to save his own skin.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Don’t we just listen? Personal taste is, shall we say, personal, but I don’t see why we should have to know a composer’s religion or shoe size before deciding the merit of a piece.

I think the only size we need to know about is the size of his heart. Mozart’s had a big heart pumping for all it was worth.

The other dude, Janáček, needed a new aortic valve.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Special pleading bro. You have added your own, unspecified, clause to the golden rule to make it come out the way you want. Which was Kant’s objection - the rule is too vague to avoid unwanted results.

Do you agree with Kant?