The overt effort of theology is to accentuate the misconceived mind/body dichotomy while the covert effort of philosophy is to accentuate this same mind/body dichotomy.
Theology does this legitimately because it believes that humans are both body and soul. The body is what we must put-up-with for our short stay on earth while the soul will last through eternity in an environment determined by our brief stay on earth.
I claim that philosophy does this illegitimately because it vainly wishes to be respected in the manner like mathematics or physics. Philosophy wants to use word symbols to describe truth in much the same way as math uses their particular symbols of equality, greater than, minus, plus, differential, exponential, etc.
Theology and philosophy are twin handmaidens of the human urge to separate itself as much as possible from its animal heritage and to move closer toward being god-like.
It appears to me that analytic philosophy is being challenged by SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) “Philosophy in the Flesh” 1999, by Lakoff and Johnson ; by meaning philosophy “The Meaning of the Body” 2007, by Johnson; by visual art “Art and Visual Perception” 1954, by Arnheim.
I don’t really know what you’re getting at with what you think theology is. Theology’s crutch is the existence of a god or gods, which has not, can not, and probably never will, been proven. Philosophy does not require such a feat in order for its implications, practices and practicers to be invalid.
Philosophy is a scientific process, unlike theology which makes assumptions and then looks for things to justify those assumptions (albeit often fails at this). If you don’t like the scientific process, then you might want to throw away your computer, your medicine, your car, your house, and everything that you didn’t make yourself or made yourself using instructions written by someone else.
This logic is fallacious. You are using different criteria in determining validity of the two fields. It sounds like this: Oranges taste good because of the amount of citric acid, apples taste bad because they bruise easily. This is wrong because the quality of the fruit’s taste should be based on the SAME criteria in order to properly compare them.
You are also making the assumption that “humans are both body and soul” is a true statement. Justification please. You’d be hard pressed to find a theist who thinks that your body goes to heaven WITH your soul. If your body left with your soul what’s with all the bodies in cemeteries?
How is the wish to be respected grounds for claiming that its implementation is illegitimate?
I thought the object of theology and philosophy was the same: truth. The only diference is that one pursues truth with fiction, and the other pursues truth with fact; and neither has the right net.
Um, the only reason why Theology seems to have a crutch that Philosophy does not is because Theology (as you’ve described it) is actually about something, and so yeah, the existence of that Something is pretty important. Any given philosophical perspective may require the existence of gods, ethical rules, universals, persons, axioms, free will, causation, or the denial of any of these things in order to do it’s work. Once you develop your philosophy far enough that it actually has implications (your term), then you best believe there’s going to be ‘crutches’ involved somewhere.
The bible is fiction, and not fact; but the searching for fact, knowledge as a means of capturing the truth is equally full of holes. Let me tell you what truth is really. We cannot take it to the grave; we give it to others, for others, or simply give it up. It is life, and with life culture, knowledge and belief, and more: this stream of consciousness, this feeling, these scents, this adventure. We go to the man on the mountain for truth and find we are the bringer of truth. It is not external to us. We are all truth. Each has a piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Each knows a bit of the history of human kind. Each knows their own needs and their own limits. Each knows their own dreams. The human body is the only net that has ever caught the truth, and the truth is life. Sans life is sans everything.
Them apples make you sound like you don’t know what you’re talking about.
First there are plenty of religions which emphasize the mind/body dichotomy. Lots of religouse thought actually depends on it actually. Look at Descartes. Lots of his religouse thought hinged around his dualism. In the minds of many westerners your body dies and your soul goes to heaven. The flesh is bad the soul is good. It goes on and on.
If anything religion is the a bastard version of philosophy in that it attempts to deal with many of the same questions philosophy does yet in a less reasonable way. It just spits dogma out without any attempt at justification.
Even if cognitive science was able to explain how we think and what not it would still not explain the aprior pricinples of proper reasoning or structer of reality which are independent of any human cognition.
Fact and faith are both full of holes. People can touch on truth, see truth, love truth; but no one can throw it in a bag and take it home. Not one of us can own the truth.