Dear Jinan,
Until now, I’ve stayed out of this thread. Much of what I read seems interesting and some of it seems valid. But this last post raises immense questions.
Studying “how [the] ‘west’ was formed” involves several disciplines. People work with this in the fields of intellectual history, history of ideas, history of science, philosophy of science, and other disciplines. Few of them reach such sweeping conclusions.
The idea of “blam[ing] Descartes” for whatever it is that people “blame” him for is not simply obsolete. It is an issue that never interested anyone serious. These issues go back in different configurations to Plato and beyond: “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here.” And even then, we see the big argument against books by Socrates in Phaedrus.
But the notion that “reductionism is the natural outcome of mediated knowing” is incorrect and it suggests the impossible case that human beings have access to unmediated knowing. All knowing is mediated through language. All cultures mediate knowing, both the cultures of the west and the cultures of the rest.
Whether or not human beings write what they have to say, they use words to know and to state their beliefs. You read and you write. You use words. Your knowing is therefore mediated.
Since your knowing is mediated, you seem to argue that you, too, are a reductionist. Of course, I understand that you are not a reductionist. You nevertheless transact mediated knowing here on the list. You also engage in mediated knowing whenever you speak with other human beings — even when you speak with children who have not yet begun to read or write. If they use words in the context of a human family that lives within a culture of human beings, their knowing is mediated by language, and by the family, the society, and the culture that they inhabit. Language, family, society, and culture shape human beings. There is no way around this — people cannot avoid this simply because they do not read or write.
Before the 19th century, most of the world’s human beings were illiterate. They nevertheless belonged to families, societies, and cultures that shaped and mediated their knowing, their thinking, and their behavior through the languages they learned and spoke, and through the patterns of behavior they absorbed.
If there is such a thing as unmediated knowing, it lies in a world beyond words. In the closing words of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus:
“What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.”
Everyone else lives in the realm of mediated knowing.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
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Jinan wrote in reply to Heidi Overhill:
> By the way, even Westerners are victims of Western education. Solidarity! We
> have nothing to lose but our chains!
Dear Heidi
I am very well aware of what you mentioned but I did not want to say this.
Apart from biological roots of cognition my 'research' has been on the
cognitive damages of modern education or mediated knowing. Naturally,
I have been studying how 'west' was formed. Where did the shift
happen? Many blame Decarte. But I feel he only articulated what was in
the air!
Reductionism is the natural outcome of mediated knowing.
Jinan
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