Philip Catton<\/strong>
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
School of Religious Studies
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand<\/p>\nImmanence and Ideality<\/i><\/strong>
Consider space, time and causality, or morality, or authenticity in art. Rude immanentism<\/span> concerning them defiles their unity. Transcendentism is however without any footing in what is ours to know. Between immanent and transcendent there is a line of ideality. Wisdom hugs that line \u2013 on the inside. And what propels inquiry to priduce such wisdom is measurement.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nIt sounded like a fascinating topic (which it is, in a way), trying to toe the line between our world and that beyond without getting caught up in the particulars of the former or fall into hopeless abstraction in the latter: the \u2018line of ideality\u2019.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s kind of like the Christian God: firstly He is outside our world, He existed before it and created it. But then He could get in it and mess around with things and people (e.g. Job) if he felt like it. And then he actually done-got-himself born into it (sort of) in the person of Jesus who was totally flesh and blood, like you and me. So where and what the hell is going on with this God in the end? Well, you\u2019ll get crazy stories from all directions, but the point is that there is something rather mystifying about toeing that line between being beyond the world and in it.<\/p>\n
Plato had some fancy ideas of his own (actually called ideas\/eidos<\/i>) which he thought were outside of the world and fixed: the idea<\/i> of a chair has nothing to do with particular chairs, he argued (destroy every chair and we still have the idea). The physical chair just shares in the form<\/i> of the idea<\/i>: chair. So philosophers, even without God, can have crazy stories for things, which brings us to today\u2019s forum.<\/p>\n
Really, sadly, I can\u2019t say much for it. Dr. Catton was not all there. It could have just been a bad plane ride into the city or a bad night\u2019s rest, or some momentous event on his mind, but something severely hampered his presentation (and he could tell, too). The brilliance of his ideas, however, did shine through the rusty, distracted exterior, to some extent. I could see that spark in his eyes as he thought about Newton\u2019s method or Plato\u2019s moral understanding, and it remained a bit as he began to speak, but every time, somewhere in those first words after a pause, the spark would fade.<\/p>\n
It was strange, almost torturous to watch: sensing the genius just below the tattered surface writhing, trying to burst forth. But the high point was when Dr. Borgmann (the professor who facilitates the event) asked: (paraphrasing)<\/p>\n
\u2018if we are to think of morality as somehow lawlike on the same grounds as physics, then why have the great moral philosophies not swept the world as physics have? Each claims universality, cutting through gender, race, geography, etc: but only physics seems to make good on this.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As one who believes in morality which is similar to the laws of nature (i.e. physics), this is a troubling question, and one that I have asked myself before, never arriving at a satisfactory answer. \u2018Historical chance\u2019 is the closest thing to an actual answer that I have. No\u2026 That isn\u2019t good enough. Perhaps it is that \u2018good physics\u2019 can be used to give us something tangible whereas \u2018good morality\u2019 only gives goodness.<\/i> In a way it may be a question which begs the question: has physics really<\/i> swept the world while morality<\/i> really has not? The question itself might just suggest where the asker is looking <\/i>in the first place: if she looks to the stuff<\/i> of the world, the cars, TVs, and microwaves, then yes, physics is doing great<\/i>; but if she looks into the eyes of the humans in the world, not even necessarily those of the Thomas Mertons, Mother Teresas, or Dalai Lamas out there, but to simple, everyday folks, then <\/i>maybe she will see the morality of which Kant and others speak.<\/p>\n
The fact remains, however, that the morality we see there is to quickly shuffled away, set aside in the hustle and bustle of life (that is, commitments in the world of physics). It\u2019s not that it isn\u2019t there, always and unchanging, but that the minutia of life (made all the more minute by the advances in physics and the corresponding advances in the demands made us in our daily lives), simply obscure it like clouds in a bright blue sky. And why <\/i>we so fail in seeing this is not exactly clear to me. I suppose it is for lack of ever seeing a blue sky, so to speak, never actually seeing the morality which shines forth in the eyes of another. For, once we know <\/i>it is there, it is impossible to overlook. <\/p>\n
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It was another \u2018philosophy forum\u2019 day in my happy little life today, and I saw: Philip CattonSenior Lecturer in PhilosophySchool of Religious StudiesUniversity of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Immanence and Ideality Consider space, time and causality, or morality, or authenticity in art. Rude immanentism concerning them defiles their unity. Transcendentism is however without any footing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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