Posted on 10/17/2006 9:40:03 AM PDT by BubbaHeel
Yesterday, the Asia Times rejected Spengler's latest essay [which argued that the very idea of "Reason" was fundamentally incompatible with the competing idea of Islam as a religion revealed to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel], so Spengler posted the essay on his forum:
My Monday essay, refused by AToLNow today the forum is off-line:
http://spengler.atimes.net/viewtopic.php?t=1744
Sorry, but this board is currently unavailable. Please try again later.So anyone got any contacts at the Asia Times?
Anyone know what's going on?
AsiaTimes is concerned about the possible reactions of the adherents of a certain 'religion'?
I think it's a combination of that sort of cowardice, and rank political correctness.
A while back, Spengler had another one of his essays published "under objection" - where the ATimes editor added a comment that Spengler's views did not reflect the views of the ATimes, blah blah blah.
But this time I think there may have been a perfect storm of political correctness and cowardice at the ATimes, and I'm wondering if we've seen the last of Spengler's work over there...
I'm afraid that I overwrote the file in my computer's cache, and neither Google nor Yahoo seems to have spidered it before it was removed.
If someone here is a regular at Spengler's forum, then you would have a copy of it in your cache, in a subdirectory of the directory that looks something like
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\ But if you visit the page today, then you'll overwrite that good cached copy with the new, bad copy.
In case anyone's wondering, there's no relation.
Thanks, I believe that was it!
Interesting post. Actually, having read Spengler's original, rejected article, I have some bones to pick with it.
Spengler actually represents the other half of the problem that Pope Benedict was criticizing. He criticised religion without reason, and reason without religion. The problem in the West is that science and religion went their separate ways in the Renaissance and Reformation. The problem with Islam is that there simply is no place for rationality at all.
The Christian view is that human reason and rational order in the universe are a result of the way God created the universe. Particularly important is the idea of the Logos (Gospel of John, chapter 1).
I might say the same thing about Socrates. People differ about him, but Socrates was not merely IRONIC, as Spenger suggets. Socrates, like Plato, believed that at the highest levels, truth, beauty, and goodness converge. Socrates pursued truth, and he used the Socratic dialogue to clear away obstructions of the truth, not to deny that objective truth exists, which is the modernist position.
Similarly, there is much that is false and unscientific in modern "Scientific Bible Criticism." This movement can be traced back to Bismarck and his Kulturkampf, circa 1870. The first Professor of Modern Bible Studies in Germany was a Bismarck appointee, and his appointment was political, with an agenda.
Complicated matters. But Spengler completely misunderstands the issues at stake in Benedict's challenge.
All heuristics shows me is that there are more ideas than beans.
The Christian view is that human reason and rational order in the universe are a result of the way God created the universe.
Are you trying to draw a distinction between "Reason" and "Rationality", and, if so, then what is the technical definition of "Reason", and what is the technical definition of "Rationality"?
I think its a well founded fear. The Pope makes mention of something someone SAID about Islam in the 1600's and he gets death threats.
France feeds, clothes, houses, and generally bows before Muslims there, and 350 of their cities burned this summer.
No, I'm not distinguishing between reason and rationality. I'm distinguishing between reason or rationality as it was understood by classical and Christian philosophers in the tradition of philosophical realism, and as it is understood by modern materialists and pragmatists in the nominalist tradition.
This is not knocking science as such, but rather those who try to make science or pseudo-science into a sort of religion.
Spengler seems to think that Islam needs to develop some sort of scientific Qran criticism that corresponds with so-called Scientific Bible Criticism. But I have spent quite a lot of time reading up on the various schools of Bible criticism, and much of it is merely pseudo-science that does not stand up to critical scrutiny. For instance, I had a colleague at NYU who actually wrote his dissertation on the "Book of Q," a manuscript posited by Bible scholars who want to believe that the Gospel of Luke was written earlier than Matthew. Such a manuscript is necessary to explain discrepancies in the theory. The only problem is that no such manuscript exists.
Science I have no objection to, but there is a difference between real science and science as a self-appropriated label.
The Jesus Seminar is a good example of what I mean, now largely discredited.
P.S. Although I think Spengler is confused about what the Pope meant by bringing reason together with religion, I quite agree with you that it was wrong and cowardly of Asia Times to censor his column and website. He is out of his depth here on the philosophical background, but his columns are often excellent. Although I disagree with this column, he certainly had a right to express his opinion, which is far more reasonable than the Muslims he criticizes.
Recently I read a review of some writings of Etienne Gilson in which he credited the late 13th century Averroeist scholastics with introducing the basic notions that led directly to nominalism in the 14th century, and later Descarte's separation of mind and body, and subsequent modern errors. It's ironic that the Muslim assumptions of varying separate levels of knowledge and individual capacities to attain knowledge could have infected Western thought right at that time and have resulted in the modernist/postmodernist mindsight that is now so helpless to deal with the Islamist threats.
Thanks for getting the article.
I have not always agreed with Spengler, but few others follow the rationale of their own ideas, and the ideas of others with as much depth as Spengler.
Pardon, but the article offered looks exactly like the one Asia Times has on its site today: http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HJ18Aa01.html.
What is the difference?
Why are you asking?
http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HJ18Aa01.htmlLooks like the Asia Times editorial staff backed down, and Spengler's forum is back up, as well.
It'll be interesting to see whether there are any differences between the official, published version, and the cached version that Ozone34 posted above.
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