Some of you know me as the commenter Tom, and please feel free to continue calling me that. Grim invited me to post here as part of working on two projects in particular which might be of interest to the Hall.
The first is solving The Knowledge Problem: We have very short lives, and many demands on our time, both duties and desires; we must make vital decisions about how to spend those lives; we need reliable information to make good decisions. How can we sift through the oceans of conflicting information out there to find the best information for the decisions we need to make? How can we sort reliable information from un? How can we focus information to solve the riddles we face? And how can we do all this while giving life's many other claims their due as well?
The second project is gaining a fundamental understanding of Aristotle, in which Grim has generously offered to act as tutor. Why Aristotle? Over the last six or eight years I have become convinced that it is impossible to understand the history of the West without at least a basic understanding of The Philosopher's ideas. After Aristotle, the intellectual history of the West is filled with two millennia of attempts to understand, define, modify, challenge, support, extend, apply, and refute his ideas. If we compare intellectual history to a dinner party, not knowing Aristotle leaves you out of the conversation.
I look forward to being part of the crew here, and thanks for inviting me, Grim.
You're welcome. I'm glad you've chosen to do this.
ReplyDeleteHey, this is great- I've always enjoyed your commentary Tom. I think there is little doubt that these two issues are closely related, too. We used to try to help ourselves in regard to the first by checking with those who had spent a lifetime already considering things, and perhaps who had themselves consulted others who had previously spent a lifetime in consideration of those things thereby saving us from re-inventing the wheel. For some reason, we've started tossing that model out in recent centuries, and with less than stellar results, I think. Getting a grip on what Aristotle thought about the big questions certainly puts one a few steps ahead in that game.
ReplyDeleteThanks, douglas. I agree with you. One clear connection is that Aristotle was a key part of how people in the West understood the world for centuries. Now we have other ways, some of them that are excellent and go well beyond what I think Aristotle ever imagined, but some of them are not nearly as good as Aristotle, in my opinion. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about it all.
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