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Tuesday
October 4, 2005

Daily Linz 2 - Fundamental Stuff by Lindsay Perigo

Our civilisation is organically healthy but culturally sick. To diagnose the illness, we need to examine the ideas that impregnate and poison the culture. What are the accepted answers to questions such as, What is the nature of the universe? What is the nature of man? What does that nature dictate, if anything, as to how man should live? Should man live? Ideas at this level of fundamentality we call philosophy, and it will help our diagnosis to trace philosophy’s history. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (13 messages)

Post 0

Tuesday, October 4 - 3:31am

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Nice, Lindsay. Smooth as silk & it's reading like a thriller.

I hope that's the first chapter in a book of some kind?

Ross

Post 1

Tuesday, October 4 - 10:05am

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Or if not a book, at least a healthy series. Excellent idea to do a series on the history of philosophy. Very needed by most Oists. Every few months, something from Peikoff's two lecture series on the history of philosophy resonates with me or connects with something I see. He who does not know history remains forever a child; he who does not know the history of philosophy remains forever a rationalist.

Post 2

Tuesday, October 4 - 10:08am

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I have notes from those courses - perhaps they can be run thru?

Post 3

Tuesday, October 4 - 11:34am

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Robert M if that is possible post those notes I know I would be very grateful.

Interesting article Linz, I am excited to see how far and how in-depth it will go. One point that has often intrigued me, when you mention the existential manifestation of counter-enlightenment thought as the destruction of liberty in the political medium. If reality and morality is arbitrary to them, and politics is the social arm of morality, wouldn't those philosophers be seen all across the political spectrum? Yet they are almost monolithically left-wing/statist in my experience. I can't help but wonder if they reversed their own cause and effect, if their 'philosophy' is created to explain their politics...

Also you mention Islam at the end but not in your thesis. I hope you decide to include that topic in a future update. I recall the Middle-East had its own period of relative reason, liberty and trade (and subsequent dark-age). It would be interesting to read of Islamic history from an Objectivist viewpoint.

Post 4

Tuesday, October 4 - 1:57pm

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Linz: Keep 'em coming.

Thales was the first thinker who insisted that mathematical statements must be proven. While the Egyptians and Babylonians did reasonably sophisticated mathematics for two thousand years before Thales, it was his insistence on proof that set the tone of Ancient Greek as well as modern day math.

Thales showed that when two lines intersect (thereby forming four angles) each pair of non-adjacent angles (called 'vertical' angles) are equal. He also showed that an angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle.

Euclid (circa 300 BC) laid down the axiomatic foundations of mathematical thought, no doubt influenced by Aristotle.
I often toast to him when drinking with colleagues: "Here's lookin' at Euclid."

Post 5

Tuesday, October 4 - 1:58pm

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It'll be a series, maybe one Daily Linz a week or fortnight, & I'm sure there'll be a book at the end. Mind you, this tale takes a while to tell. :-) I'm going off notes I made for history of philosophy lectures I gave in Auckland five years ago.

Post 6

Tuesday, October 4 - 3:08pm

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Marty wrote:

He [Thales] also showed that an angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle.

I assume you meant "a triangle inscribed in a semicircle is a right triangle."
I thought mathematicians were exact. :-) :-)

"Here's lookin' at Euclid."

Very funny, clever, and thanks. I'll try to remember that one.

Post 7

Tuesday, October 4 - 5:46pm

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Linz, quick question:

You ended the article with the following:

Why is Western civilisation itself able to be threatened with extinction by so evil and anti-rational a force as Islam?

Perhaps this will be answered in your follow-on piece, but I am a little curious as to what you mean by "threatened with extinction". Do you mean extinction in the sense that WMD-armed terrorists (if left unchecked) could physically wipe Western civilization off the map with attacks, or in the sense that Islamofascist ideas would gain currency among Westerners and Westerners would in turn abandon their secular ways and adopt Islam? Or do I have it wrong on both accounts?

Post 8

Tuesday, October 4 - 6:27pm

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The notes are long, legal length paper, single spaced typed - ancient philosophy, 54 pages... modern philosophy, 17 pages... contemporary philosophy, 34 pages...

Post 9

Tuesday, October 4 - 6:42pm

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> I often toast to him when drinking with colleagues: "Here's lookin' at Euclid."

I can't decide whether your sense of humor is a Gauss or pure Poisson.

Post 10

Tuesday, October 4 - 7:19pm

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Do you mean extinction in the sense that WMD-armed terrorists (if left unchecked) could physically wipe Western civilization off the map with attacks, or in the sense that Islamofascist ideas would gain currency among Westerners and Westerners would in turn abandon their secular ways and adopt Islam? Or do I have it wrong on both accounts?

I obviously don't speak for Linz, but the ideas ARE the means to the end. The weapons are a mere minor accomplice to the logical end of the ideas. The ideas are the delivery method that calls a 'fox-two' on man's ability to live qua man.

Post 11

Tuesday, October 4 - 11:39pm

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Merlin : Pick a point P on a semicircle with diameter AB. Thales showed that angle APB is a right angle. Your statement is a consequence.

Whew! Do I get to keep my PhD?

;-)

Post 12

Wednesday, October 5 - 4:59am

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I see, Marty. We meant the same thing. You New Yawkers talk funny. :-)