Book Club: #1 Abolition of Man Discussion

[nomad]

ok, so i will disagree with someone, mild as it is :)

But I agree that it all comes down to that a form of absolutism is inevitable. There is no such thing as total subjectivity.

i don't think he's arguing that per se, at least not directly. what he is arguing is that if you consider 'total subjectivity' a valid model of ethics, then you have no basis for ethics at all... for me to expect you to act a certain way at all, implies that we are both constrained to the absolute.

you can have total subjectivity if you want, but then you lose any right to expect any particular action, good or bad, from me.

this is a contested assertion among atheists, but i have not seen any satisfactory defenses of ethics from a non-theist standpoint; the ones i have seen tend to degrade into a 'we must do good, because it is the right thing to do', not realizing the circle they have drawn. no amount of pontification will wave away the fact that, in a relative system, there is no zero, no reference, no 'dividing point' between positive and negative.

With the waterfall, yes it is potentially true that someone may not think it sublime at all, but the statement that it is sublime is not merely a statement about one's feelings as Lewis has demonstrated but about the waterfall, even if we take a subjective approach and say it is an expression of one feelings about the nature of the waterfall. The nature of the waterfall, an observation of it is still in view. It is not the feelings that are sublime.

i'm not sure what you are getting at. let me use some other examples that might be a little more clear. (i think i end up in the same camp though)

what if i say, 'this waterfall is really high! all the ones i've ever seen weren't even half as high as this one!' and the person next to me says 'oh, it's not that big... they have ones twice as big in south america, you should go see them'.

so, what if we didn't hear each other? i say it's 'really high', and he says it's 'medium sized'. these are less subjective than feelings like 'sublime', but still subjective.

neither of us is right of course... concepts like 'big' and 'little' have to have a reference, so both of us our right, in our points of reference.

but, going along with DD's post, the waterfall did not change; only our relative experiences did, our perceptions as a 'percentage of the whole'. which of us is right, depends on whether our 'points of reference' are closer to the true reference.

perhaps the other person is right... perhaps i have not seen many waterfalls, and they have; this is just an average size one, and there are many bigger ones. he has seen 'more of the total', and can make a better judgment; his 'frame of reference' is better aligned with the truth.

or, perhaps _i_ have seen many many waterfalls, except for a few really big ones; and it is the other person who has only seen a few really big ones who is wrong. in that case, i would be right, but only because my 'frame of reference' is closer to the real reference point.


just throwing out thoughts.

[Ethos]

Hi u guys!! How far along are u on the book?? Do I have time to check it out tommorow and join the discussion, or should I just wait until u start a new one?? By the way C.S. Lewis was my favorite when I was younger, the Narnia Series. I didn't realize he wrote for a more mature crowd as well. I guess you truly do learn something new every day!

[Patroclus]

Sure thing, Trip. The book is short, and we have only begun to discuss two thirds of the book. There is a lot to say. So feel free,

[Patroclus]

Hey Folks,

I am going to be out of town for the weekend. My good friend is graduating, and I want to be there. So talk amongst yourselves.

-Rob

[Dee Dee Warren]

I am doing a whole lot more listening than talking... but this is so way cool.

[Faramir]

After looking through several boxes and giving up, I remembered where one more box of books was. AOM was in that box.



Just finished reading it again.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Just some quotes from the book that I found strking and interesting:

"If nothing is self-evident, nothing is proved."

This is very interesting, and I can find a parallel in my field of law. There are some things in Court which simply do not need to be proven, otherwise a trial would never conclude. There are other things in which it is requested of a Court to take "judicial notice" of an item so that it requires no proof at trial.


Speaking of moral advancement in comparision to language innovation: "It is the difference between alteration from within and alteration from without: between the organic and the surgical."

And I really enjoyed how he came to the conclusion that the only viable rebellion is the rejection of value altogether, that it is chimerical to rebel against traditional value for the rebellion itself has to presuppose the value of what it is rejecting.

And wow, this is great:

"You cannot go on 'explaining away' forever: you will find that you have explained away explanation itself. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see somethikng through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see."

Sublime.

[Patroclus]

Is the idea of The Abolition of Man--nature's conquest of man by way of man's conquest of nature--a legitimate theory? Can you see any problems in Lewis' logic?

[Patroclus]

C'mon people! Keep talking.

[djnoz]

I've been all around town looking for this book but nobody had it ...:cry:

I've got one on order for Friday

[Dee Dee Warren]

I do think Lewis theory is valid, again, I just struggle with putting philosophical thoughts into words, I think the quotes I reproduced above encapsulate the legitimicacy of his theory.... I did see one problem or possible inconsistency... I have to go get the book in a bit and find where I noted that when I get a few more minutes.

[Vorkosigan]

Attention! I was hunting up some reviews of this book, and I believe I found the whole thing on line here:

The Abolition of Man

I have never seen the book. Is it only three chapters and the appendix?

Vorkosigan

[nomad]

yep, that's the whole thing.

[Faramir]

05-05-2003 @ 01:50 AM post located here
Patroclus:

Is the idea of The Abolition of Man--nature's conquest of man by way of man's conquest of nature--a legitimate theory? Can you see any problems in Lewis' logic?

I am going from memory as I do not have the book with me, but here goes.

It seems to me that Lewis is equivocating here; comparing concrete conquest of nature (the airplane, vacincations etc) to "Human nature". He does do a very good job of showing the the Tao is widespread, but I think for it to be a valid comparison with other aspects of "nature" that it needs to be universal (ie an airplane, when working properly, always flies)

Now on a viseral level, I like the theory, I am just not sure that it is logically valid, at least not deductively valid.

Of course Lewis does do a good job of showing the universality of moral law in Mere Christianity, if we were to equte that argument with the argument for the Tao, then it might be valid.

Note: Until Saturday, I had not read the book in many years. When I read it Saturday I was very tired, so I may have totally misunderstood what I read. If so feel free to me

[nomad]

yeah, read it again. that's not really lewis' point.

also, MC and AOM's treatment of the issue is complementary, but not the same.

only one small objection; for some people, 'nature vs. man' is a false dichotomy - if the universe is perfectly materialistic, there is no 'man' separate from nature. and how can nature fight against itself?