I'd be cautious with reductionism (MIT) here - that is the bailiwick of "SJWs" - by negating any metaphysical essences for want of pure mathematical certitude, the thing itself (human nature, in that "forum") is relegated to pure myth. Descartes was the gateway to science, but in so doing, scientism and the notion that we are essentially a compilation of matter, nothing more. i.e. there are no "women" or "men" by extension. We can only know something in "clear and distinct [ideation]" (math). It opened up a can of worms that are really starting to crawl out in the postmodern SJW era.
BTW - that editorial you linked is by a psych prof from Harvard.
the thing itself (human nature, in that "forum") is relegated to pure myth.
Not the way I see it. I see the claim at having no nature as a product of idealism, not reductionism.
I just disagree with the relationship between "pile of matter type reductionism" and the denial of essences. Believing one doesn't imply I must believe the other.
I can be "reduced" to my elements but still display maleness. Those don't contradict each other.
Of course, you can get there by saying "well if we're all just a bunch of X then all differences between things disappear" but that's a confusion of levels of description.
The level of description at which men and women really exist is not the level of description of subatomic particles. One doesn't negate the other. I am a male made of particles, both. No problem there.
The pernicious idea that people are blank slates consequently potentially equal in ability but for society's interference or tharting of the individual is responsible for everything from the French Revolution to Marxism to BLM to antifa and SJWism and Woke.
It's been throroughly rebutted by Pinker and others most recently. Piaget showed children's minds reach capabilities on a predefined schedule irrespective of their enclosing social context. That's a bioligical process unfolding, not a blank slate absorbing things from its society.
Studies of people with brain damage and genetic defects all show that the human character is dependent on the human brian and damage or failures in brain development lead directly to defects of "character" or ability.
There is zero reason to suppose all brains are alike in kind or ability within a competency. This last point I think was becoming clearer and clearer in the academy and set off a panic amongst academicians in the social sciences and humanties. They saw it coming in the 80s and set about to attack the basis of that forbidden knowledge- science itself.
They needed to drive the conversation as far in the other direction as they could to make it politically impossible for people to talk about innate differences in ability because it offended their R sense of equality and shattered their R-inspired notions of causality of human beings who act badly. So they moved the Overton window to another state.
They're loading up their own backlash and when it comes it's going to be all over forever and ever for Marxism and all its miscreant offshoots.
Well, idealism is really a child of Plato - wherein the ideas of things (apart from the material world) were the most "knowable" ("real" in a paradoxical way), whereas the material world only had material copies of those divine ideas (forms/essences) for Plato. This is best illustrated in Book 7 of Plato's Republic with the allegory of the cave and the Platonic line of material and immaterial. Plato's top student, Aristotle, posited that the form "essence" was in the matter (hylomorphism). For example the oak tree had the "essence" or "divine idea" or "form" of "oaktreeness" in it, but we see this specific oak tree with all of it's unique material make up, branch shape, etc. We experienced things in the world (sensation), sensing the materiality of things, but our mind was able to abstract the essence (form/divine idea) of that - that is the basis of the true and classic notion of "tabula rasa" thought - Aristotle was a realist. The famous painting of The Academy has Plato pointing up, while Aristotle is pointing to the here and now of the earth. The medievals of Augustine, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Peter Abelard and others grappled with this issue of essences, but those divine ideas kept "things in/as themselves" dinge an sich in German, later discussed by Kant, and (much later) Husserl and Heidgger(most pointedly Heidegger).
Descartes, for wont of clear and distinct thinking, took only one aspect of the Plato's "above the line" ideals (there were three - "the Good" "forms(essences)" and "math"). He took math, and used it to count the "matter" in the world. So essences were rejected as not "clear and distinct". Kant attempted to repair that issue somewhat with his Categorical Imperative (focusing mostly on morality at that point). Kierkegaard further discussed this issue in Fear and Trembling as he attempted to grope through existence (from where we get the term "existentialism") in a world without absolutes (essences of various sort).
There has been recent philosophical criticism, of those on the political right and left, against what is called "ruthless reductionism" - that we are nothing more than a compilation of matter, of chemical reactions (emotions), and so forth. I see "gender fluid" business as a direct offspring of this worldview. I also see "relativism" of morality as a result of reductionism and removal of essence.
I have arguments against reductionism. I am just saying it sure explains a lot to some limit of interest and theory and to deny the reality of the causal link between matter and what we call our consciousness and everything which is a product thereof- whichis, you know, everything human beings create- is short sighted.
Existentialism as I understand is the belief that the meaning fo life, if there is one, is to be found in human existence and not with reference to God or religion.
Has to be said about JS Mill that utilitariansim with its presumption to be able to perform a calculus of cost / benefit and pain / human happiness has given rise to its own monsters, like Peter Singer who should be of interest to us mostly as a autisitic mental case as opposed to a philospher. Him and the euthenasia policies of the Scandinavian nations, which are demented, are really concerning.
I'd be cautious with reductionism (MIT) here - that is the bailiwick of "SJWs" - by negating any metaphysical essences for want of pure mathematical certitude, the thing itself (human nature, in that "forum") is relegated to pure myth. Descartes was the gateway to science, but in so doing, scientism and the notion that we are essentially a compilation of matter, nothing more. i.e. there are no "women" or "men" by extension. We can only know something in "clear and distinct [ideation]" (math). It opened up a can of worms that are really starting to crawl out in the postmodern SJW era. BTW - that editorial you linked is by a psych prof from Harvard.
Not the way I see it. I see the claim at having no nature as a product of idealism, not reductionism.
I just disagree with the relationship between "pile of matter type reductionism" and the denial of essences. Believing one doesn't imply I must believe the other.
I can be "reduced" to my elements but still display maleness. Those don't contradict each other.
Of course, you can get there by saying "well if we're all just a bunch of X then all differences between things disappear" but that's a confusion of levels of description.
The level of description at which men and women really exist is not the level of description of subatomic particles. One doesn't negate the other. I am a male made of particles, both. No problem there.
The pernicious idea that people are blank slates consequently potentially equal in ability but for society's interference or tharting of the individual is responsible for everything from the French Revolution to Marxism to BLM to antifa and SJWism and Woke.
It's been throroughly rebutted by Pinker and others most recently. Piaget showed children's minds reach capabilities on a predefined schedule irrespective of their enclosing social context. That's a bioligical process unfolding, not a blank slate absorbing things from its society.
Studies of people with brain damage and genetic defects all show that the human character is dependent on the human brian and damage or failures in brain development lead directly to defects of "character" or ability.
There is zero reason to suppose all brains are alike in kind or ability within a competency. This last point I think was becoming clearer and clearer in the academy and set off a panic amongst academicians in the social sciences and humanties. They saw it coming in the 80s and set about to attack the basis of that forbidden knowledge- science itself.
They needed to drive the conversation as far in the other direction as they could to make it politically impossible for people to talk about innate differences in ability because it offended their R sense of equality and shattered their R-inspired notions of causality of human beings who act badly. So they moved the Overton window to another state.
They're loading up their own backlash and when it comes it's going to be all over forever and ever for Marxism and all its miscreant offshoots.
Well, idealism is really a child of Plato - wherein the ideas of things (apart from the material world) were the most "knowable" ("real" in a paradoxical way), whereas the material world only had material copies of those divine ideas (forms/essences) for Plato. This is best illustrated in Book 7 of Plato's Republic with the allegory of the cave and the Platonic line of material and immaterial. Plato's top student, Aristotle, posited that the form "essence" was in the matter (hylomorphism). For example the oak tree had the "essence" or "divine idea" or "form" of "oaktreeness" in it, but we see this specific oak tree with all of it's unique material make up, branch shape, etc. We experienced things in the world (sensation), sensing the materiality of things, but our mind was able to abstract the essence (form/divine idea) of that - that is the basis of the true and classic notion of "tabula rasa" thought - Aristotle was a realist. The famous painting of The Academy has Plato pointing up, while Aristotle is pointing to the here and now of the earth. The medievals of Augustine, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Peter Abelard and others grappled with this issue of essences, but those divine ideas kept "things in/as themselves" dinge an sich in German, later discussed by Kant, and (much later) Husserl and Heidgger(most pointedly Heidegger).
Descartes, for wont of clear and distinct thinking, took only one aspect of the Plato's "above the line" ideals (there were three - "the Good" "forms(essences)" and "math"). He took math, and used it to count the "matter" in the world. So essences were rejected as not "clear and distinct". Kant attempted to repair that issue somewhat with his Categorical Imperative (focusing mostly on morality at that point). Kierkegaard further discussed this issue in Fear and Trembling as he attempted to grope through existence (from where we get the term "existentialism") in a world without absolutes (essences of various sort).
There has been recent philosophical criticism, of those on the political right and left, against what is called "ruthless reductionism" - that we are nothing more than a compilation of matter, of chemical reactions (emotions), and so forth. I see "gender fluid" business as a direct offspring of this worldview. I also see "relativism" of morality as a result of reductionism and removal of essence.
I have arguments against reductionism. I am just saying it sure explains a lot to some limit of interest and theory and to deny the reality of the causal link between matter and what we call our consciousness and everything which is a product thereof- whichis, you know, everything human beings create- is short sighted.
Existentialism as I understand is the belief that the meaning fo life, if there is one, is to be found in human existence and not with reference to God or religion.
Has to be said about JS Mill that utilitariansim with its presumption to be able to perform a calculus of cost / benefit and pain / human happiness has given rise to its own monsters, like Peter Singer who should be of interest to us mostly as a autisitic mental case as opposed to a philospher. Him and the euthenasia policies of the Scandinavian nations, which are demented, are really concerning.