Comment to L. Baeva
"Values of Age of Pluralism" (in the context of the state of modern philosophy).
A.Voin
7.12.10
The article
posted on the website of the World Philosophical Forum under the auspices of
UNESCO, held in
The main part of the article
is devoted to describing the state of modern Western society, rather
axiological aspect of this state. Here I do not have significant differences
with the author. I just wrote on this subject (for example, in the article
"Проблема ценностей, как проблема выживания человечества") and picture, which depicts L. Baeva, basically coincides with that which I draw, but for
today, and many other philosophers. Among the characteristic features of this
state, the author refers to "turn to the physicality, hedonism, pluralism,
tolerance, irrationalism, and others."
Among the
reasons for this state, the author points to a “crisis of classical epoch principles monistic in their expression:
evidence of Utopian character of developing a perfect person, an entirely constructive
sense, “a fair-for-all society”
etc”. And the fact that "In the 20th century
the world and the man
faced the threat of destruction,
so a number of values, which
had been dominating the consciousness and creative activity of people, began
to transform and corrupt."
And also the fact that «
the 20th century failed to answer
the expectations. Two world wars,
murderous revolutions, totalitarian regimes, economic and ecological
crises showed that sense is
not the universal
tool to achieve
the reign of justice, freedom
and prosperity. As a response, the crisis of
classical system of values comes:
humanism is replaced with antihumanism,
progressism - with pluralism, rationalism – with irrationalism. "
Finally, conclusions and
recommendations of the author fit in one paragraph that ends the article:
“What does a list of contemporary
values which should be kept
in conditions of pluralism and
innovatory changes include? First of, moral values
– disinterested kindness, honor, honesty, respect to life,
nonviolence, cognitive values – truth, knowledge, science, social values- family, kids, love and
friendship, Another world vital values
– life, safety, health.”
I
have no objection to values, which the author proposes. But the question is why
it is these values and not any others? Or why only these, but
not a plus to them any more? Say, it is possible and follows from
numerous philippic of the author against the lack of spirituality, to add here spirituality.
And many other things can be added. But, let's suppose L. Baeva forget to add spirituality to the list. It
happens. Suppose we add and spirituality, and still some values to this list, and all agree on at some sitting
to adopt this list on the principle: "Do you respect me? Then take that
list." And on another sitting in the same manner will be adopted another
list. And even if it is possible to organize a worldwide gathering and to adopt
on it in such a way list of values for whole humanity, would it be the guarantee
that tomorrow will not turn out that this is the wrong list and to live according
to it even worse than before, if not impossible? And then again the question
arises, which is still hanging in the air: why is this list? Because this list
of values was adopted in the "classical" (a term the author) age and then
life was better?
But L. Baeva
herself writes that since the classical era the conditions of human existence has
changed and that it is what caused the transition from classical to current
hedonistically - plurality - irrational, etc. values. “Monistic" worldviews,
within which the proposed L. Baeva values were developed
and justified, have collapsed or are shown to be ineffective, globalization has
occurred and many others.
And the new
system of values, to which L. Baeva opposes, just
justified by its adherents with reference to these changes. And its adherents are
not just street thugs, drug users, representatives of show business, etc. They
are first and foremost representatives of the schools of philosophy that
dominated in the 20-th century and are still dominant in the West today:
existentialism, Freudianism, post positivism, and many others who
"proved" the necessity, accuracy, etc. of hedonism, pluralism,
irrationalism and other values, to which L. Baeva opposes.
Proved in quotes or no quotes, but at least they reacted to the changes that
actually occurred in the world since the "classic era" and tied
(correctly or incorrectly) their philosophy, including the system of values to
them. L. Baeva, setting out these changes
sufficiently with intelligible and colorful language, then completely ignores
them and offers the old "classical" system of values as though
nothing has since happened, as though she exists in a philosophical vacuum, as
if the current value system is just some kind of obsession, nowhere appeared,
and not having any reasons for its emergence, or philosophical basis,
recognized by most Western philosophers. But philosophy - not a fashion in
which you can return to previous a style, without going into the study, but
just catching the mood of the masses. After all, classical rationalism, for
example, was replaced by irrationality not due to the vagaries of fashion, but
because it really had shortcomings that were rightly pointed out by the post
positivists. Another thing is that the post positivists made from this the
wrong conclusions. But you can not ignoring the facts return just to classical
rationalism, which, after his extraordinary triumph of the Enlightenment has
lost its position precisely because of the real disadvantages of it. You can
and should give the correct explanation of these facts to refute the
construction of the post positivists and to formulate and justify a new
corrected rationalism. Only then you can shout "Down with the
irrational." Otherwise it is demagoguery, profanity solution of the problem,
which in practice leads to the triumph of the very values opposes by L. Baeva. In particular, to the triumph of demagoguery over
thirst for truth, to the substitution of real science by pseudoscientific chat etc.
Likewise,
you can not just go back to the monistic doctrines, the values of the classical
era were based on which. You can not do it, without addressing the question of
why these doctrines have lost credibility in their time, why they were not
sustainable. And without fixing them properly or building a new doctrine, from which
would follow these same values of the classical era, perhaps something changed.
Only in such a way we can move forward toward a better life and not hang out in
the space of values and moral norms from edge to edge adrift or fashion. Lack
of justification of the proposed solutions or pseudo-justification of them in
the form of references to any authorities (while other philosophers refer to
other authorities and suggest the opposite conclusions) and the use of abstruse
terminology is the main drawback of all modern philosophy, making it unable to
solve the problems facing humanity today.
Another drawback - it is the
vagueness of concepts, operated by modern philosophers and in particular, by
the author of this article. Take, for example, concepts such as
"spirituality" and "tolerance." The author does not define
nor that, nor another. Of course, if you give a definition of each word, then
it will be impossible to finish any work until the end. But there are cases
when absolutely necessary to provide a definition, or reader can sense what you
write, exactly the opposite. And there is such a case. From the context we can
see, that a spirituality L. Baeva understands like something
absolutely positive.
But what about humeynism and in general about religious fanaticism.
This is spirituality? As for me it is. It is not hedonism, is not pluralism, it
is the willingness to serve a transpersonal God, even to sacrifice life for Him.
But this is bad and dangerous spirituality. If you do not give a definition of
spirituality and do not define what spirituality is good, and what is bad, in
short, if you do not build a theory of spirit and just yell:
"Spirituality, spirituality”, then we can push the reader not in the
direction in which L. Baeva wants to send him, but in
exactly the opposite. And vast majority of people in such chat we push to
aversion to spirituality and to philosophy, as such. And to the thought: may be
better to go to the pub - it's something simpler and more understandable.
Similarly, tolerance, which according
Baeva is the full negative. If any of tolerance -
it's bad, then long live racism, xenophobia, etc. It is necessary again to
determine what we must endure, but that should not be tolerated. And do not
forget to found why it is tolerated, but it is not tolerated. Otherwise, we get
all the same information deluge, flood rubbish, meaningless and useless
information, in which we are all going to drown, and against which L. Baeva herself rises.
Here the reader may ask: Are
your calls, Mr.Voin, to the founding of conclusions and
rigor of definitions, they are not the same nature as the appeals of L. Baeva and others to spirituality, to the hunger for truth,
for kindness, etc.? Is not it the same "agitprop", all had long been
sick of which? After all, many screaming
about the need of substantiation of conclusions and the strictness of
definitions.
No,
this is not an agitprop, I say. Because I on the basis of my theory of cognition
("Неорационализм",
On the basis of my approach,
I constructed an optimal theory of morality ("Неорационализм», Part 4, "The problem of justifying morality» http://philprob.narod.ru/philosophy/Justmoral.htm), which provides reasonable standards of universal ethics, by the way,
matching mainly one, adopted in the "classical period", in particular with the rules
of Christian morality. And - a
theory of spirit («Неорционализм», Part 5). Based on the same approach
I showed ("От Моисея до постмодернизма. Движение идеи", Kiev, Феникс, 1999 and
http://philprob.narod.ru/philosophy/Mozes2.htm), that the cause of the fall of
the authority of Christianity (which is one of the
"monistic" teachings that have shaped the values of the
"classical period"), is a distortion of the teachings by the Church, and gave a reasonable
interpretation of the Bible.
But the widespread
acceptance of my approach and in particular the common method of substantiation
of scientific theories is inhibited thereby the state of philosophy, to remedy
which he designed. My work is simply drowned in a stream of
pseudo-philosophical torrent. On the other hand philosophical authorities are
not willing to allow the recognition of the common method of substantiation,
since it may show, that works on which they built their own careers are unfounded.