The Problem of Western Philosophy
I have not blogged for nearly a year and half. For various reasons, I have lost desire to blog. For me blogging is more or less a personal exercise of weirdness, but it is a good way to collect my thoughts. Because I have grown and changed so much in the past year and half spritually, cognitively, and emotionally, I am afraid to even look at my old blogs and rediscover my silliness.
I used to be an avid student of Western Philsophy, but since a year ago, I gradually started to realize the futility of it. The whole endeaver of reducing the reality, as complex as it is, into all encompassing laws and principles decribed by languages, signs, and formulas, and finding ways to catogorize them is obviously absurd for those of us who have any kind of philosophical traning and common sense. But I believe that the problem is much bigger.
Western philosphy is entirely based on the premise that human perception is accurate. (it has to be right?) Whether you are an empiricist or rationalist, the starting point of all philosophical inquiry has to be our perception because it is the only way for any of us to tell what exactly is "out there". Before images and sound appear in our brain and ideas sprouts from our mind, there must be pure, unadulterated, and objective perception of reality otherwise whole premise of our inquiry crumbles. And a faulty premise will most likely lead to a false conclusion.
From my study of science and psychology related to my ministry in the past year, I no longer believe that our perception is as infallible as we think they are. The fact it s that all stimuli which we take in from our senses have to be interpreted and process by our brain before we see, understand, and make sense of it. That fact, along with many other facts, dismisses the silly idea that human beings can possess true objectivity. Basically all we see and hear are a function of the conditioning of our minds. If scientists are telling us that our minds inteprete our vision and the rest of our senses, and different minds can produce different perceptions, is there even such thing as true perception?
One extreme example is someone with eating disorder. Because their minds are messed up, they see a fat person when they look at the mirror even though they are about to die from malnutrition. That is because their visions are interpreted by their minds which are conditioned by their beliefs and a host of other things. Since they believe that they are fat, they see a fat person even though they are skinny. Another example I ran into is Hmong people. They see ghosts and spirits all the time in their homes and random places, but Westerners don't see them. Again, the perception is determined by the conditioning of our minds which is in this case is determined by the culture. Hmong are spiritualists and are trained to be aware of the ghosts and spirits. The minds of Westerners are trained materialists and therefore dismiss the experience the Hmong people as utter foolishness.
I used to think that without true perception, we're all screwed because certitude would then be impossible to come by. But I guess my worst fear come true. But there are many other reasons that Western philsophy is no good. The good thing is that I don't have to read as much stuff anymore.
I used to be an avid student of Western Philsophy, but since a year ago, I gradually started to realize the futility of it. The whole endeaver of reducing the reality, as complex as it is, into all encompassing laws and principles decribed by languages, signs, and formulas, and finding ways to catogorize them is obviously absurd for those of us who have any kind of philosophical traning and common sense. But I believe that the problem is much bigger.
Western philosphy is entirely based on the premise that human perception is accurate. (it has to be right?) Whether you are an empiricist or rationalist, the starting point of all philosophical inquiry has to be our perception because it is the only way for any of us to tell what exactly is "out there". Before images and sound appear in our brain and ideas sprouts from our mind, there must be pure, unadulterated, and objective perception of reality otherwise whole premise of our inquiry crumbles. And a faulty premise will most likely lead to a false conclusion.
From my study of science and psychology related to my ministry in the past year, I no longer believe that our perception is as infallible as we think they are. The fact it s that all stimuli which we take in from our senses have to be interpreted and process by our brain before we see, understand, and make sense of it. That fact, along with many other facts, dismisses the silly idea that human beings can possess true objectivity. Basically all we see and hear are a function of the conditioning of our minds. If scientists are telling us that our minds inteprete our vision and the rest of our senses, and different minds can produce different perceptions, is there even such thing as true perception?
One extreme example is someone with eating disorder. Because their minds are messed up, they see a fat person when they look at the mirror even though they are about to die from malnutrition. That is because their visions are interpreted by their minds which are conditioned by their beliefs and a host of other things. Since they believe that they are fat, they see a fat person even though they are skinny. Another example I ran into is Hmong people. They see ghosts and spirits all the time in their homes and random places, but Westerners don't see them. Again, the perception is determined by the conditioning of our minds which is in this case is determined by the culture. Hmong are spiritualists and are trained to be aware of the ghosts and spirits. The minds of Westerners are trained materialists and therefore dismiss the experience the Hmong people as utter foolishness.
I used to think that without true perception, we're all screwed because certitude would then be impossible to come by. But I guess my worst fear come true. But there are many other reasons that Western philsophy is no good. The good thing is that I don't have to read as much stuff anymore.
posted by doulos theou | 10:49 AM
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