об "опасных идеях" и поизносившихся мифах
Jan. 4th, 2006 10:10 pmПо поводу http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_index.html: под видом "опасных идей" подавляющее большинство респондентов рециклирует всем давно наскучившие механистические мифы [у человека нет: души, свободы воли, способности рационально принимать решения и проч.]. Особенно это относится к Докинзу (человек это машина, запрограммированная генами) и к Хаузеру (абсолютно все, включая мораль, этику и чувство прекрасного, основывается на врожденных универсальных грамматиках). Вот цитата из статьи Стивена Тулмина за 1957-й год, прекрасно демонстрирующая, что с тех пор, увы, мало что изменилось:
If we do think ourselves myth-free, when we are not, that is (I am suggesting) largely because the material from which we construct our myths is taken from the sciences themselves. ... Again, we are inclined to suppose that myths must necessarily be anthropomorphic, and that personification is the unique road to myth. But this assumption is baseless: the myths of the twentieth century ... are not so much anthropomorphic as mechanomorphic. And why, after all, should not the purposes of myth be served as effectively by picturing the world in terms of mythical machines as by invoking mythical personages? Still, in the main, it is because our contemporary myths are scientific ones that we fail to acknowledge them as being myths at all. The old picture of the world has been swept away; Poseidon and Wotan have suffered death by ridicule; and people not unnaturally look to the scientist as a substitute.
(from Stephen E. Toulmin, "Contemporary Scientific Mythology," in Metaphysical Beliefs, edited by Alasdair MacIntyre, 1957)
If we do think ourselves myth-free, when we are not, that is (I am suggesting) largely because the material from which we construct our myths is taken from the sciences themselves. ... Again, we are inclined to suppose that myths must necessarily be anthropomorphic, and that personification is the unique road to myth. But this assumption is baseless: the myths of the twentieth century ... are not so much anthropomorphic as mechanomorphic. And why, after all, should not the purposes of myth be served as effectively by picturing the world in terms of mythical machines as by invoking mythical personages? Still, in the main, it is because our contemporary myths are scientific ones that we fail to acknowledge them as being myths at all. The old picture of the world has been swept away; Poseidon and Wotan have suffered death by ridicule; and people not unnaturally look to the scientist as a substitute.
(from Stephen E. Toulmin, "Contemporary Scientific Mythology," in Metaphysical Beliefs, edited by Alasdair MacIntyre, 1957)