reason blocked looking at logos
DESCRIPTION
A short look at Logos and how it is treated.TRANSCRIPT
He that increases knowledge increases sorrow.Ecclesiastes
My mind has a block towards the notion that reason reigns supreme.This is a reason inevitably linked to science and technology,
the futility of garnering and gathering knowledge.In the process, I believe that simplicity, faith and wisdom are lost.
The end result is inner and outer confusion for human beings.
REASON
CHECKED
In the sense that I am wary of reason, I might be dubbed a post-modernist.Actually, I prefer to think of myself as a stupid participant in the contemporary
debate on the “fate of reason”.
To try to understand, there is a progression one must discover.IN THE BEGINNINGWAS THE LOGOS,
SAID PLATO.ST. JOHN FOLLOWED SUIT.
Logos then represented the sum totality of reason.Logos was contrasted with Mythos.
Mythos is the telling of a tale or a lie pointing to the Truth or “truths”.Logos precedes, supercedes and embraces Mythos.
Socrates believed that the greatest truth was that one could not know Logosin its entirety, its sum totality. Only Logos knew itself and revealed itself to
whom it chose. The greatest revelation, Socrates felt, was the onethe Oracle at Delphi gave him. He was one who knew that he did
not know anything, forget about something, or lots of things.
Socrates’ critical interlocutors were the Sophists.They can be equated to the present-day Subversives
like Jacques Derrida who question Logos anddismantle the logocentric premise.
Though Socrates & Plato and Aristotle assertedthe truth of Logos, their notion of the same wasdisturbed by Descartes who came to a technical
conception of reason.
In other words, saying that the sum totality of Reasondid exist and could be explored but could not fathomed
in its entiretyis very different from the modern notion thatthe sum totality of Reason can be grasped
by humankind using technical means.
Q. Will Logos remain elusive?
The elusiveness of Logos is sought to be explained and confined by techne.
techne, technai, tekton, technical, technology,technocrats, tech center, techgnosis
Derives from an old Indo-European root thatmeans “wood worker”.
Tekton – that unique skill possessed by onemember of a community and needed by all.Later came to mean “cunning”, “craft” and
“intelligent skill”.“All technai to mortals from Prometheus comes”
Techne = numberTechne is precise, specialized.
Determinate. Teachable.Value-neutral.
Q. Is Logos precise?Is it teachable?
For, as we say, nature does nothing in vain; and human beings, alone of the animals, have Logos.
Aristotle - Politics
Logos is a dyad.1. The word or the outward form by which the inward thought
is expressed.2. The inward thought itself.
Logos has extraordinary range.It is the ability to give voice to some reasoned thought.
Word. Sentence. Talk. Speech. Explanation. Language. Discourse. Story. Argument.
Rational account – a speech that attempts to render intelligibleany given phenomenon.
Rational structure – refers to that which exists outside of thehuman mind or the voice.
Having listened not to me, but to the logos, it is wise toagree that all things are one.
Heraclitus
Logos has a history in which it figures as a character whose reversal is inevitable. Logos has limits whichit cannot surpass and against which it must collide.
The history of logos is “tragic”. It is driven to go Beyond the bounds of its legitimate efficaciousness
And suffer a catastrophe.Reversal is the realization of limits.
But there are many versions of logos and people donot agree on what it means precisely.
A physicist would have his logos of the human body.The biologist would have a different logos for the same.
This was where Descartes came in to alter the classicconception of Logos. He identified Logos with Techne.Logos was not restricted like this prior to Descartes and
embraced techne as only a part of itself. TODAY
Logos = Reason = TechneReason must be precise and value-neutral.
This is the “reason” I have a mind-block towards.
Logos is driven to examine itself.
Logos investigates everything.
Logos attempts to know itself.
Logos examining itself will force logos to conclude that it is unable to be rationally confident about who it is.
Logos suffers at the moment of this recognition for it will be forcedto revise radically its understanding of itself.
There is an overlap between logos and techne. For theGreeks and unlike Descartes, the two words are
not identical.For the Greeks, there is a type of Logos which is broader
than and so can embrace within it techne.The “larger” Logos can take up the issue of how the
products of techne should be used.
Finally,Logos has a tragic structure, which is the trajectory
of humanity. Techne must always be kept in view to illuminate Logos.
Yet, Logos supercedes Techne.The logos that is only techne is what I resist.