11/28/97, a reader responded:
>It is very easy to
>destroy philosophy when you reduce it to such vague statements!
I've destroyed it? Wow... talk about the power of the pen!
>Incidently, in criticising reason, you condemn your own discourse! After
>all, don't you try make a REASONABLE statement?
Typical Western clueless statement! Of course reason is a perfectly valid
and necessary tool; the problem occurs when it is used without reference to
data: when the practitioner either lacks knowledge or refuses to use that
knowledge as the basis from which to reason. "Garbage in and garbage out"
is not a condemnation of computers, but of users.
>What is the clear difference between the "wisdom" you praise, and the
>so-called "fundamentalist rationality"? How can you recognise wisdom
>from nonsense, if not on a rational basis?
Wisdom comes from experience, as does most lesser knowledge. One learns
more about what "airplane" means by flying in one than from reading about
arodynamics.
You recognize wisdom (in its various aspects) just like you recognize
anything else: by encountering it at a time when you have the capacity to
appreciate what you're seeing. You may chance upon it during philosophical
reasoning to be sure, but not all can be found that way -- and if the
search is limited only to such pursuits the narrowness of perspective may
preclude the possibility altogether.
rkm