ISO Catholic critique(s) of Enlightenment ideas

[St_Francis]

I have found some MP3 talks which critique Enlightenment thought from a Catholoc perspective, but am looking for something a little more in depth, preferably a book or something written, online or off, or maybe a series of talks or a free on-line course (I don’t know much about those but my children do). I want to teach this to my children before they go off to college.

I have some books like the Summa, Plato, Aristotle, and I just picked up a book called About Philosophy, which mentions anyone before 1550 only in the last section titled Philosophy and Religion, which is pretty much useless. I got it to use as what is being criticized, iyswim.

thanks for any help!!!

 

[Filippo_Bruno]

Which ideas of the Enlightenment are you specifically looking to critique?

 

[Ahimsa]

The book you’re looking for: Liberalism is a sin.

 

[St_Francis]

All the ones which are wrong

Seriously, it seems like they started off with the idea that you couldn’t categorize things, and then that we cpuldn’t know anything, while at the same time claiming that we could explain everything by using our reason and if we could explain it, it didn’t exist.

so I find it all rather confusing…

This is what happened to me: I was raised just a little bit Catholic then my mother left the Church. In college, I wanted to learn stuff, but all they taught was Enlighyenment stuff, which seemed ridiculous to me, so I gave up on philosophy. (thinking that the later, the better, I ignored the earlier philosphers).

So I don’t know much about philosophy, and because I returned to the Church when I had two small children, so I have not learned exactly what I would need to know to critique it myself; I just see that a lot of problems have arisen from that type of thinking.

And sadly I see that my college-aged child is falling into some of this, or questioning it, and I have trouble explaining it because there’s so much back ground (a lot of which I am aware of but don’t know), and because I can’t offer good critiques.

Thanks

 

[St_Francis]

now I’m working on About Philosophy, and he quotes Hume’s Treatise: Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognisance of men, and are judged by their [man’s?] powers and faculties. It is impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding…

So Hume seems to be saying that we have to understand the human thinking processes in order to understand math, etc, because the topics are somehow dependent on human thought. It does not seem to me that Hume thinks that these subjects exist independently of man and are thus discovered by man, iyswim.

And the second half of the quote now I’m working on About Philosophy, and he quotes Hume’s Treatise: Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognisance of men, and are judged by their [man’s?] powers and faculties. It is impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding…

So Hume seems to be saying that we have to understand the human thinking processes in order to understand math, etc, because the topics are somehow dependent on human thought. It does not seem to me that Hume thinks that these subjects exist independently of man and are thus discovered by man, iyswim.

Since this sort of thing seems to be a basis for part of Enlightenment thought, and is still reflected in today’s thinking, “different ways of knowing” and all that, I think that if this idea is wrong, it should be defeated, at least in the minds of my children. I want my children to understand that reality exists independently of people, and that sanity consists in our molding ourselves to reality rather than think reality is molded by us!

 

[Fr_of_Jazz]

now I’m working on About Philosophy, and he quotes Hume’s Treatise: Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognisance of men, and are judged by their [man’s?] powers and faculties. It is impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding…

So Hume seems to be saying that we have to understand the human thinking processes in order to understand math, etc, because the topics are somehow dependent on human thought. It does not seem to me that Hume thinks that these subjects exist independently of man and are thus discovered by man, iyswim.

And the second half of the quote now I’m working on About Philosophy, and he quotes Hume’s Treatise: Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie under the cognisance of men, and are judged by their [man’s?] powers and faculties. It is impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding…

So Hume seems to be saying that we have to understand the human thinking processes in order to understand math, etc, because the topics are somehow dependent on human thought. It does not seem to me that Hume thinks that these subjects exist independently of man and are thus discovered by man, iyswim.

Since this sort of thing seems to be a basis for part of Enlightenment thought, and is still reflected in today’s thinking, “different ways of knowing” and all that, I think that if this idea is wrong, it should be defeated, at least in the minds of my children. I want my children to understand that reality exists independently of people, and that sanity consists in our molding ourselves to reality rather than think reality is molded by us!

David Hume was an empiricist: we only know sense experience. He didn’t accept truths about reality grasped by the intellect (e.g., causality) because they can’t be perceived by the senses. He didn’t accept the role of common sense as the interior sense that puts together our different sense perceptions of an object either. To him I know white, cold, powdery, etc. but I have no sense justification to say they are a single object, a particular snow drift.

Kant accepted this critique and taught that things like causality are categories in the mind imposed on phenomena. And so reality conforms to the mind not the mind to reality.

I good historical and interpretative work on the Enlightenment is: Peter Gay. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. 2 vols. NY: Vintage Books, 1966. Gay largely supports the movement but does objectively show the development of Enlightment thought. A Catholic critique is obvious from what he says.

 

[St_Francis]

The book you’re looking for: Liberalism is a sin.

Thank you very much I guess you read it then? Unfortunately it is not what I am looking for; I am looking for something that directly refutes what the people were saying.

I’m off to check out the book Fr of Jazz recommended… thanks again!

 

[St_Francis]

David Hume was an empiricist: we only know sense experience. He didn’t accept truths about reality grasped by the intellect (e.g., causality) because they can’t be perceived by the senses. He didn’t accept the role of common sense as the interior sense that puts together our different sense perceptions of an object either. To him I know white, cold, powdery, etc. but I have no sense justification to say they are a single object, a particular snow drift.

Kant accepted this critique and taught that things like causality are categories in the mind imposed on phenomena. And so reality conforms to the mind not the mind to reality.

I good historical and interpretative work on the Enlightenment is: Peter Gay. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. 2 vols. NY: Vintage Books, 1966. Gay largely supports the movement but does objectively show the development of Enlightment thought. A Catholic critique is obvious from what he says.

Thanks, Fr of Jazz. The book looks good and I’m going to see if I can getna copy from the library

 

[Contarini]

I have found some MP3 talks which critique Enlightenment thought from a Catholoc perspective, but am looking for something a little more in depth, preferably a book or something written, online or off, or maybe a series of talks or a free on-line course (I don’t know much about those but my children do). I want to teach this to my children before they go off to college.

I have some books like the Summa, Plato, Aristotle, and I just picked up a book called About Philosophy, which mentions anyone before 1550 only in the last section titled Philosophy and Religion, which is pretty much useless. I got it to use as what is being criticized, iyswim.

thanks for any help!!!

Well, a fairly high-level critique is by Alistair MacIntyre, most succinctly found in his Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry. I recommend this book because he deals not only with the Enlightenment but with the “postmodern” perspective that has largely replaced the Enlightenment perspective in elite humanities-oriented circles, and merges with it in chaotic ways in popular culture.

You may be trying to make the concept of the Enlightenment do a bit too much “work.”

Edwin

 

[Filippo_Bruno]

Virtue ethics are alive and well in the academy – maybe instead of presenting material as refutation, one should present the current material that affirms Catholic ideas of morality in a philosophical context?

I recommend Elizabeth Anscombe’s work in particular. I’d also recommend focusing on ethics over ontology and epistemology, for the simple reason that ethical dilemmas present themselves quite often relative to questions about the natures of being and knowledge.

 

[St_Francis]

Well, a fairly high-level critique is by Alistair MacIntyre, most succinctly found in his Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry. I recommend this book because he deals not only with the Enlightenment but with the “postmodern” perspective that has largely replaced the Enlightenment perspective in elite humanities-oriented circles, and merges with it in chaotic ways in popular culture.

You may be trying to make the concept of the Enlightenment do a bit too much “work.”

Edwin

I may well be, since I hardly know what I am doing It’s like i know a lot of disconnected facts, so when I see something, I can refute it in a Catholic way, but as to an overall picture… I just remeber finding out Berkeley’s idea that nothing really exists and then totally ignoring everything after that.

I really didn’t understand what the point was, I guess. Thanks for alerting me to the fact that I may be dealing with more than I thought I was

 

[St_Francis]

Virtue ethics are alive and well in the academy – maybe instead of presenting material as refutation, one should present the current material that affirms Catholic ideas of morality in a philosophical context?

I recommend Elizabeth Anscombe’s work in particular. I’d also recommend focusing on ethics over ontology and epistemology, for the simple reason that ethical dilemmas present themselves quite often relative to questions about the natures of being and knowledge.

I wanted to refute the Enlightenment ideas because I thought that’s what they would run up against in college, and to me it is that “disconnectedness” from truth and reality which is the source of so much bad thinking today and yet is (or I guess I should say was when I was in college, lo, these many years ago!) seen as a great awakening.

The Anscombe books look very interesting, too. I guess I’m going to be pestering the library for quite a few books now–all the recommendations look good