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Postmodernism = Heidegger - Being

Many of the most celebrated postmodern theorists - the liquefactionists, essentially - are influenced by Heidegger, in a way, but they missed the entire point of Heidegger's philosophy.  Heidegger insisted, again and again, that what he writing was not epistemology, or existentialism, or the study of consciousness, or religion, or ethics, or least of all, politics - but rather ontology - the study of being.  The question he concerned himself with was the question of being.  We can think of several related questions, like "What is being?" or "What is nothing?" or "Why is there something rather than nothing?"  For Heidegger, none of these were the question of being.  That was a question that he did not even know how to pose, let alone answer.   Is there any practical purpose or use to working on the question of being or any of these related questions?  I would say no.  You certainly cannot simply jump from one level to the other and assume that...
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  Romanticism need not be about humans.  But it is always about persons.
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The Argument from Evil

  I think there are several impressive arguments against belief in traditional forms of theism, but the famous "argument from evil" isn't one of them. One version of this "argument from evil" has been attributed to Epicurus and is often known as the "Epicurean paradox" or "Epicurus's trilemma".  It goes something like this (I've seen it phrased a few different ways, but they are variations on a theme): "Why does God permit evil to exist?  First leg: If God is all-powerful and all-good, and he permits evil to exist, then he must not know that it's happening, so he must not be all-knowing. Second leg: If God is all-knowing and all-good, then he must be powerless to prevent evil or it wouldn't happen, so he can't be all-powerful. Third leg: If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, and he permits evil to occur, then he must not be all-good." Sometimes, when this argument is presented, it is followed by something like,...
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So we're all stupid, no one knows anything, NOKHAW.   But especially, no one knows how economics works, no one knows how politics works, no one knows how history works. "We know that socialism doesn't work."  No, you don't know that. "We know that tariffs don't work."  No, you don't know that. "We know that anarchy doesn't work."  No, you don't know that. 
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NOKHAW and the New Magic

  According to legend, in the 15th century, maybe even the 16th, it was possible for a single person to know everything - to be up to date on every development in math, science, art, literature, etc..  We are sometimes given the figure of Leonardo da Vinci as such a "renaissance man".   But since then, each discipline has grown to such an extent that no one can be an expert in everything.  You can be a specialist in one field, and understand it in all of its detail, but you will necessarily have a shallower understanding of other fields. Don't forget the "Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" - namely, a scientist reading an article of science journalism in the news will generally recognize a large amount of vagueness, over-generalizations, inaccuracies, and sensationalism when the article pertains to the scientist's own field, but will tend to forget this when she reads an article about a field other than her own.  Moral: in matters of science, never trust wri...
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All Things are New

Therefore, the attitude I hate most is "I've seen it all."  No you haven't.  You know next-to-nothing. Ecclesiastes says that there is "Nothing new under the sun." But in Revelation, God says, "Behold, I make all things new."  Isaiah speaks of "A new heaven and a new Earth." If you don't believe in God, that's fine - take it as a metaphor for nature.  If you don't believe in nature, take it as a metaphor for being.  If you don't believe in being, take it as a metaphor for all this stuff - existence, reality, the universe, whatever - whatever you believe in, take it as a metaphor for that. If you really pay attention to anything, you'll realize that everything is new.  If you say, "I've seen it all before," what you're really saying is that you're not paying attention. Everything is new - therefore, "Judge not." You cannot judge, because you don't know. Pay more and more attention - t...
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The foundation of what I believe about things is:  Humans are dumb.  Humans are stupid.  Humans are ignorant.  Humans don't know very much. I'm not saying, "Some people are stupid," or "A lot of people are stupid," or even "Everyone except for me is stupid" - I'm very much including myself.  I'm very dumb.  I don't know very much at all.  I'm not looking down on anyone when I say that humans are dumb.  On the contrary, I see myself as super-dumb. Of course, it's a matter of degree.  Some people are stupider than others.  But everyone is stupid.  Even the smartest, most intelligent, most knowledgeable - the greatest geniuses that ever lived - are vastly ignorant. You might ask: compared to what? Good question. Humans are the smartest, most knowledgeable things in the universe that we know about.  But that just goes to show that we don't know very much. As far as we know, we're the only things out there. Even if it turns o...
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