Slavoj Žižek famously declares that "wisdom is what I hate most, it is absolute conformist stupidity". Instead of viewing wisdom as the ultimate intellectual achievement, the Slovenian philosopher argues that it functions as a pacifying ideological tool designed to prevent radical change and keep individuals trapped in existing social structures.
Why Wisdom is "Conformist Stupidity"
It serves as psychological rationalization: Žižek compares traditional wisdom to Freud’s concept of rationalization. It functions as a defense mechanism to mask reality.
It justifies any outcome retroactively: A "wise" person always has a proverb ready to normalize reality. If a business risk succeeds, wisdom says "only those who risk profit". If it fails, wisdom shifts to "you cannot urinate against the wind".
It relies on empty contradictions: Completely opposite statements can both sound profoundly "wise" if delivered with the right tone. Telling someone to “seize the day because life is short” sounds deep. Telling them to “ignore earthly illusions and focus on eternity” also sounds deep.
It acts as a market commodity: Modern wisdom has been reduced to easily digestible, surface-level spiritual slogans. These allow people to decouple themselves from the painful, complex realities of the world.
The Ideological Danger of the "Wise" Person
In his writings on his Substack, Žižek expands on how wisdom limits political and social imagination: Enforces incremental change: Wisdom counsels moderation, compromise, and the belief that "the truth lies in the middle". This automatically neutralizes any real challenge to power.
Accepts systemic failure: Wisdom tells people to accept the flaws of systems like global capitalism and simply work within them, rather than demanding their abolition.
Philosophy vs. Wisdom
Žižek points out that true philosophers should naturally be opposed to wisdom. He frequently cites Søren Kierkegaard, who rejected wisdom as a pagan concept. For Žižek, disruptive figures like Jesus Christ or revolutionary thinkers were never "wise"—they were provocative, excessive, and unconditional. Dealing with systemic crises like ecological collapse or severe inequality requires an embrace of rupture and radical action, which is precisely what wisdom advises against.
Wisdom and Justice are Opposing (parts of) Virtues. The "Wiser" you become, the more "Unjust" you must become. The more "Just" you become, the less "Wise" you are. It's a Yin-Yang thing. That doesn't mean you must settle in the "middle" (Meden agan), but the perfectly Just are not Wise, and the perfectly Wise are not Just.
The proof is in all the Christians, Jews, and Muslims who are always waging wars and suppressing anyone not of their faith. Their idea of peace and justice is when THEY have all the power.
-FJ states... "He [Žižek] frequently cites Søren Kierkegaard, who rejected wisdom as a pagan concept."
Where is this found -FJ? Give us the rabbit trails to actual writings, as opposed to AI or You Tube commentaries. That way I can read it from the source.
While the Buddhists sit in their meditation closets allowing wild elephants to run rampant through their villages... good thing there are few elephants in Nepal (but for China and India).
"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."
Kierkegaard hardly "rejects wisdom". This describes the foolish gullibility and willful ignorance of MAGA, religion, and other forms of authoritarianism. And we all know what Hitler's and Trump's idea of justice is by now. Punish everyone you hate. It is both unjust and unwise.
Sort of like -FJ's values with his fealty to Trump's authoritarian rule. (Except when it happens to them.)
One can replace "wisdom" with "conservatism/capitalism" in his words and it will more accurately frame our reality.
Let's try it: Accepts systemic failure: Wisdom (Conservatism/capitalism) tells people to accept the flaws of systems like global capitalism and simply work within them, rather than demanding their abolition.
Dealing with systemic crises like ecological collapse or severe inequality requires an embrace of rupture and radical action, which is precisely what wisdom (Conservatism/capitalism) advises against.
This is why conservatism and capitalism spawn and at minimum tolerate atrocities, starvation, racism, ethnic cleansing, genocide, austerity, wars, and every injustice under the sun. It's just "business as usual". (Except when it happens to them.)
No wonder "justice" scares the crap out of them.
Excluding his Christian dogma, Kierkegaard's wisdom boils down to this.
"The thing is to understand myself: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. That is what I now recognize as the most important thing. It is very important in life to know when your cue comes.
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living. The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.
Loving just one is too little; loving all is being superficial; knowing yourself and loving as many as possible, letting your soul hide all the powers of love in itself, so that each gets its particular nourishment while consciousness nevertheless embraces it all – that is enjoyment, that is living."
This is NOT conservatism. It's more like Buddhism. And wisdom.
And right now that power, held by the USA since 1945 with its Zionist Genocidal butchers in Israel, is shifting. As the American/Zionist Empire's decline accelerates the East will rise again and become the dominant economic abd political power of the planet.
Through this nation's ignorance and arrogance we have become the architects of our own decline and eventual demise.
Source text where he rejects pagan wisdom and Greek philosophy
Kierkegaard’s rejection of pagan wisdom and Greek philosophy is primarily developed across three foundational source texts. Writing mostly under the pseudonyms Johannes Climacus and Anti-Climacus, he explicitly contrasts the limits of the Greek worldview with the reality of Christian faith.
The primary source texts and their specific arguments include:
1. Philosophical Fragments (1844)
Writing as Johannes Climacus, Kierkegaard uses this entire text to contrast Socratic Recollection (Greek pagan wisdom) with the Christian Encounter (Divine Revelation).
The Core Argument: Climacus asks whether truth can be discovered from within human nature. He uses Socrates to represent the pinnacle of pagan wisdom: the belief that the human mind already possesses the truth and only needs a teacher to help "recollect" it.
The Rejection: Kierkegaard rejects this, arguing that humans are fundamentally in "Error" (sin) and lack the capacity to discover ultimate truth on their own. Truth cannot be recollected; it must be brought from the outside by God acting as a Savior in a specific historical moment.
2. The Sickness Unto Death (1849)
Writing under the pseudonymous persona Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard directly attacks the Greek ethical framework regarding human wrongdoing.
The Core Argument: He explicitly critiques the definition of sin found in ancient Greek philosophy, particularly the Socratic view that "virtue is knowledge" and "vice is ignorance".
The Rejection: Kierkegaard argues that the Greek view is shallow because it assumes that if a person knows what is right, they will do it. He counters that pagan wisdom fails to comprehend the true nature of sin, which is not a intellectual mistake or a lack of understanding, but a conscious, willful defiance of the human will against God.
3. Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846)
In this massive sequel to Philosophical Fragments, Johannes Climacus further delineates where Greek intellectualism falls short.
The Core Argument: He examines the concept of "Subjectivity" and how an individual relates to eternal truth.
The Rejection: While he deeply admires Socrates for practicing "essential knowing" in daily life, he clarifies that pagan inwardness is capped by human limitation. Pagan wisdom operates within immanence (the natural, rational world), whereas Christianity demands a "leap of faith" into the Absolute Paradox—the mathematically absurd claim that the eternal God entered linear human history as a man.
Slavoj Žižek famously declares...So what? He gets to define wisdom as capitulation to the status quo or reduce it to trite aphorisms. That straw man is easy to knock over.
But Dave... you can't separate Kierkegaard from his Christian dogma any more than Descartes could empty himself of his prior biases as he began his meditations on the existence of God.
I think you can choose to unbelieve, but the essence of those beliefs are always with you, influencing and moving you.
Dave, I see your point. I could have phrased it as, "In addition to his Christian dogma". Somewhere between religious dogma and abstract metaphysics lies ethics, which is grounded in our interpersonal relationships and personal convictions. This is why I find Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations as a better philosophy for mankind. It's the closest the West came to Buddhism, but without the mysticism and reincarnation. As the parrots on Huxley's Island say, "Karuna" (compassion) and "Here and now, boys" (living in the moment). We don't need the pie in the sky promise and mythology to know right from wrong and how to treat one another. Nobody killed and died to promote or defend stoicism. It wins points just for that.
No problem Les. I was referencing FJ's copy and paste of Zizek's screed on traditional wisdom. It's Thirsty's M.O. to inject some "authority" (philosopher or some dude on YouTube) as if that's the last word on anything. He seems incapable of formulating an argument on his own.
My beef with the Zizek is he's using his own narrow definition of wisdom to conclude Wisdom is "Conformist Stupidity". Seems like strawmanning and unwise.
Instead of a reading assignment, just say what you want to say. Defend your boy's dissing something as subjective as 'traditional wisdom'. If you're able.
Hey Craig... Descartes in his meditations said he was going to set aside, or empty himself of his previous beliefs about the existence of God and with no bias, work to prove the existence of God.
But the reality is/was that proved impossible. Decartes could never set aside such a part of his being.
I'd argue, along those lines that someone can in fact change beliefs, or even renounce past held beliefs, but, we can't, in a sense, surgically remove them. Whatever the belief, if it was deeply held, it has burrowed into our soul, into who we are. Maybe it's like this... we can renounce our families too, but we always carry the DNA of that family. The genes, the mores, both good and bad learned at an early age.
I think belief is like that, if we truly believed and allowed the essential DNA of that belief to enter into our system.
The what and which? I think that depends on the individual. Alcoholism, faith, racism, superiority... all of those could fit.
He convinced me. Wisdom is Epimethean (an afterthought), not Promethean (a forethought). And afterthought can't easily be wrong. Capt. Hindsight isn't making inductively reasoned predictions. He deductively reasoning from past events. But a forethought often is wrong. Hence wisdoms aren't auguries of future possibilities, they're Epimethean corrections on Promethean mistakes.
Like science, there are 2 varieties. Regular/traditional science, and revolutionary science. Newton was once "traditional" science until Einstein "revolutionized" it. And then Richard Feynman revolutionized it again with Quantum Electrodynamics (QED).
Try Plato's "Divided Line" M. Then pretend you're Thomas after the Resurrection. Needing to see with your eyes, and not just your mind. Lacking in Faith, but achieving Understanding. Faith as the Pagan "Road to Larisa". "Right Opinion", not knowledge. Faith "tied" to the soul by re-ligare......
The exact etymology of the word religion is highly debated, tracing back to two competing Latin roots proposed by ancient Roman scholars.
The Primary Roots
Re-ligare (To Bind Back): Most modern linguists and early Christian thinkers prefer this root, meaning to bind humans tightly to the divine or to each other in community.
Re-legere (To Read/Go Over Again): Roman statesman Cicero favored this root, meaning to carefully re-read, ponder, or obsessively execute ritual duties.
---
In Plato’s dialogue Meno, Socrates uses the famous "road to Larissa" analogy to show that a person with a true or "right opinion" can guide someone to a destination just as well as someone with actual knowledge.
The Analogy of Larissa
The Expert: A guide who has traveled the road to Larissa multiple times possesses actual knowledge of the path.
The Believer: A guide who has never been there, but happens to hold the right opinion or correct directions, gives equally good guidance.
The Outcome: For the practical purpose of arriving at Larissa, both guides perform with identical success.
Knowledge vs. Right Opinion
Practical Equality: In terms of direct action and utility, true belief achieves the exact same results as absolute knowledge.
The Instability of Opinion: Right opinions are unstable; they tend to "run away" or escape from a person's mind like the mythical moving statues of Daedalus.
The Value of Knowledge: Knowledge is a right opinion that has been "tied down" by working out the reason or cause (aitias logismos), making it permanent and reliable.
Medical and physical science constantly disprove "wisdom," old "wise" beliefs.
Kierkegaard calls it the "leap of faith." To the world, it looks like madness. To Kierkegaard, it is the highest, most absolute form of wisdom because it connects the individual directly to the Divine.
But Kierkegaard was deeply religious. One would have to believe in the "Divine" to accept Kierkegaard's word.
Yup Dave, when you allow yourself to let your reified beliefs define who you are it's damn hard to change. I know, having allowed myself to be identified by my beliefs for 48 years. Beliefs grounded in the BS of the conservative capitalist agenda and the belief America waa right even when it was wrong.
It has taken me nearly 10 years to completely deconstruct my identify with the beliefs I had reified as though they were, and should be, unchanging truths that should ne evident to all. I was wrong and I'm much happier having realized my delusions and changed. Now the challenge it to not reify anything, recognize all things are interconnected, are impermanent, and all phenomena exists and pass away, due to dependent origination.
Things most conservatives and reactionaries rarely grasp and understand. Thinking of trump, MAGA, and Christian Nationalists.
So you agree, wisdom isn't necessarily "Conformist Stupidity". We can examine accrued "wisdom" for how it comports with reality.
Like science, there are 2 varieties. Is this Khun's paradigm shift, incommensurability? Why you pivoting to philosophy of science? Just showin' off I suppose. There's plenty of philosophers who don't buy it. I guess there's some value to the field but, reading through, it just feels like they're jerking off.
The scientific method is still cumulative and falsifiable. What do I know.
Ah Les...but you see, none of us, even Descartes, can completely eliminate those ideas from our whole being. They're there, burrowed deep inside of us. We can deny them, but cut them out? I doubt it. That of course doesn't mean we respect, or follow them.
The reason Descartes couldn't empty himself of his previous beliefs is no one can choose what they believe or disbelieve. You can only believe that of which you are convinced. Descartes presupposed God and wasn't convinced otherwise.
I make a distinction between belief and knowledge. Belief resides in the brain, not a soul or DNA (I know you didn't mean that literally). A racist can choose input, emperical evidence, that refutes their deeply held beliefs. If they are convinced by new evidence, their beliefs change. I'm not sure what the "essence" of a belief is, but I can imagine any remaining essence in a reformed racist would be embarrassing, even repugnant. Maybe influence and move them to do better? Is that what you mean? Same with any belief.
Well Dave, you may be right. But, if we accept we are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions, we are not our perceptions, and that all phenomena are empty of any inherent essence then change simply becomes the flow of existence, if life. Ever changing, never permenant.
Results: Liberation from the constriction of conditioning, reified beliefs, and dogma. To be empty is to be full.
36 comments:
Wisdom that this nation and its government is oblivious to, the result of its national narcissism, self righteousness, and lack of self awareness.
I'll get by with a little help from my friends.
Slavoj Žižek famously declares that "wisdom is what I hate most, it is absolute conformist stupidity". Instead of viewing wisdom as the ultimate intellectual achievement, the Slovenian philosopher argues that it functions as a pacifying ideological tool designed to prevent radical change and keep individuals trapped in existing social structures.
Why Wisdom is "Conformist Stupidity"
It serves as psychological rationalization: Žižek compares traditional wisdom to Freud’s concept of rationalization. It functions as a defense mechanism to mask reality.
It justifies any outcome retroactively: A "wise" person always has a proverb ready to normalize reality. If a business risk succeeds, wisdom says "only those who risk profit". If it fails, wisdom shifts to "you cannot urinate against the wind".
It relies on empty contradictions: Completely opposite statements can both sound profoundly "wise" if delivered with the right tone. Telling someone to “seize the day because life is short” sounds deep. Telling them to “ignore earthly illusions and focus on eternity” also sounds deep.
It acts as a market commodity: Modern wisdom has been reduced to easily digestible, surface-level spiritual slogans. These allow people to decouple themselves from the painful, complex realities of the world.
The Ideological Danger of the "Wise" Person
In his writings on his Substack, Žižek expands on how wisdom limits political and social imagination:
Enforces incremental change: Wisdom counsels moderation, compromise, and the belief that "the truth lies in the middle". This automatically neutralizes any real challenge to power.
Accepts systemic failure: Wisdom tells people to accept the flaws of systems like global capitalism and simply work within them, rather than demanding their abolition.
Philosophy vs. Wisdom
Žižek points out that true philosophers should naturally be opposed to wisdom. He frequently cites Søren Kierkegaard, who rejected wisdom as a pagan concept. For Žižek, disruptive figures like Jesus Christ or revolutionary thinkers were never "wise"—they were provocative, excessive, and unconditional. Dealing with systemic crises like ecological collapse or severe inequality requires an embrace of rupture and radical action, which is precisely what wisdom advises against.
On Negating the 'surplus' jouissance in language (imagination). The surplus that strips the imaginary qualities (ie -beauty) in language and reduces them to stark "realities"..
Wisdom and Justice are Opposing (parts of) Virtues. The "Wiser" you become, the more "Unjust" you must become. The more "Just" you become, the less "Wise" you are. It's a Yin-Yang thing. That doesn't mean you must settle in the "middle" (Meden agan), but the perfectly Just are not Wise, and the perfectly Wise are not Just.
The proof is in all the Christians, Jews, and Muslims who are always waging wars and suppressing anyone not of their faith. Their idea of peace and justice is when THEY have all the power.
-FJ states... "He [Žižek] frequently cites Søren Kierkegaard, who rejected wisdom as a pagan concept."
Where is this found -FJ? Give us the rabbit trails to actual writings, as opposed to AI or You Tube commentaries. That way I can read it from the source.
While the Buddhists sit in their meditation closets allowing wild elephants to run rampant through their villages... good thing there are few elephants in Nepal (but for China and India).
"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."
Kierkegaard hardly "rejects wisdom". This describes the foolish gullibility and willful ignorance of MAGA, religion, and other forms of authoritarianism.
And we all know what Hitler's and Trump's idea of justice is by now. Punish everyone you hate. It is both unjust and unwise.
Sort of like -FJ's values with his fealty to Trump's authoritarian rule. (Except when it happens to them.)
One can replace "wisdom" with "conservatism/capitalism" in his words and it will more accurately frame our reality.
Let's try it:
Accepts systemic failure: Wisdom (Conservatism/capitalism) tells people to accept the flaws of systems like global capitalism and simply work within them, rather than demanding their abolition.
Dealing with systemic crises like ecological collapse or severe inequality requires an embrace of rupture and radical action, which is precisely what wisdom (Conservatism/capitalism) advises against.
This is why conservatism and capitalism spawn and at minimum tolerate atrocities, starvation, racism, ethnic cleansing, genocide, austerity, wars, and every injustice under the sun. It's just "business as usual". (Except when it happens to them.)
No wonder "justice" scares the crap out of them.
Excluding his Christian dogma, Kierkegaard's wisdom boils down to this.
"The thing is to understand myself: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. That is what I now recognize as the most important thing. It is very important in life to know when your cue comes.
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living. The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.
Loving just one is too little; loving all is being superficial; knowing yourself and loving as many as possible, letting your soul hide all the powers of love in itself, so that each gets its particular nourishment while consciousness nevertheless embraces it all – that is enjoyment, that is living."
This is NOT conservatism. It's more like Buddhism. And wisdom.
And right now that power, held by the USA since 1945 with its Zionist Genocidal butchers in Israel, is shifting. As the American/Zionist Empire's decline accelerates the East will rise again and become the dominant economic abd political power of the planet.
Through this nation's ignorance and arrogance we have become the architects of our own decline and eventual demise.
Source text where he rejects pagan wisdom and Greek philosophy
Kierkegaard’s rejection of pagan wisdom and Greek philosophy is primarily developed across three foundational source texts. Writing mostly under the pseudonyms Johannes Climacus and Anti-Climacus, he explicitly contrasts the limits of the Greek worldview with the reality of Christian faith.
The primary source texts and their specific arguments include:
1. Philosophical Fragments (1844)
Writing as Johannes Climacus, Kierkegaard uses this entire text to contrast Socratic Recollection (Greek pagan wisdom) with the Christian Encounter (Divine Revelation).
The Core Argument: Climacus asks whether truth can be discovered from within human nature. He uses Socrates to represent the pinnacle of pagan wisdom: the belief that the human mind already possesses the truth and only needs a teacher to help "recollect" it.
The Rejection: Kierkegaard rejects this, arguing that humans are fundamentally in "Error" (sin) and lack the capacity to discover ultimate truth on their own. Truth cannot be recollected; it must be brought from the outside by God acting as a Savior in a specific historical moment.
2. The Sickness Unto Death (1849)
Writing under the pseudonymous persona Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard directly attacks the Greek ethical framework regarding human wrongdoing.
The Core Argument: He explicitly critiques the definition of sin found in ancient Greek philosophy, particularly the Socratic view that "virtue is knowledge" and "vice is ignorance".
The Rejection: Kierkegaard argues that the Greek view is shallow because it assumes that if a person knows what is right, they will do it. He counters that pagan wisdom fails to comprehend the true nature of sin, which is not a intellectual mistake or a lack of understanding, but a conscious, willful defiance of the human will against God.
3. Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846)
In this massive sequel to Philosophical Fragments, Johannes Climacus further delineates where Greek intellectualism falls short.
The Core Argument: He examines the concept of "Subjectivity" and how an individual relates to eternal truth.
The Rejection: While he deeply admires Socrates for practicing "essential knowing" in daily life, he clarifies that pagan inwardness is capped by human limitation. Pagan wisdom operates within immanence (the natural, rational world), whereas Christianity demands a "leap of faith" into the Absolute Paradox—the mathematically absurd claim that the eternal God entered linear human history as a man.
Slavoj Žižek famously declares...So what? He gets to define wisdom as capitulation to the status quo or reduce it to trite aphorisms. That straw man is easy to knock over.
Hi -fj, fancy seeing you here as Craig. One of your many faced sock puppets.
Actually, Les, Craig is a legit commenter here. He’s not a sock puppet.
But Dave... you can't separate Kierkegaard from his Christian dogma any more than Descartes could empty himself of his prior biases as he began his meditations on the existence of God.
I think you can choose to unbelieve, but the essence of those beliefs are always with you, influencing and moving you.
Good to see you Craig...
My error then.
The only person I recall who has referenced Slavoj Zizek has been -fj.
Jumping to conclusions gets one egg in the face.
Thanks for correcting me.
Dave,
I see your point.
I could have phrased it as, "In addition to his Christian dogma".
Somewhere between religious dogma and abstract metaphysics lies ethics, which is grounded in our interpersonal relationships and personal convictions.
This is why I find Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations as a better philosophy for mankind. It's the closest the West came to Buddhism, but without the mysticism and reincarnation.
As the parrots on Huxley's Island say, "Karuna" (compassion) and "Here and now, boys" (living in the moment). We don't need the pie in the sky promise and mythology to know right from wrong and how to treat one another.
Nobody killed and died to promote or defend stoicism.
It wins points just for that.
No problem Les. I was referencing FJ's copy and paste of Zizek's screed on traditional wisdom. It's Thirsty's M.O. to inject some "authority" (philosopher or some dude on YouTube) as if that's the last word on anything. He seems incapable of formulating an argument on his own.
My beef with the Zizek is he's using his own narrow definition of wisdom to conclude Wisdom is "Conformist Stupidity". Seems like strawmanning and unwise.
Thanks Dave.
If you feel like it, could you elaborate on this?
I think you can choose to unbelieve, but the essence of those beliefs are always with you, influencing and moving you.?
Unbelieve what and which beliefs are always with you? Just curious.
Perhaps you should introduce yourself to Zizek's "Antigone", Craig. She's no trite conformist. Neither is his Lenin.
Or perhaps a little less intensly anti-status quo, Melville's "I'd rather not" Bartleby the Scrivener.
Instead of a reading assignment, just say what you want to say. Defend your boy's dissing something as subjective as 'traditional wisdom'. If you're able.
Thanks, Craig.
I suppose wisdom can be conformity when it's unquestioned and simply accepted. Which of course applies to cults. MAGA immediately comes to mind.
Wisdom, to a large extent needs to be grounded in experiential knowledge. Not in canned media hype or political gibberish.
Hey Craig... Descartes in his meditations said he was going to set aside, or empty himself of his previous beliefs about the existence of God and with no bias, work to prove the existence of God.
But the reality is/was that proved impossible. Decartes could never set aside such a part of his being.
I'd argue, along those lines that someone can in fact change beliefs, or even renounce past held beliefs, but, we can't, in a sense, surgically remove them. Whatever the belief, if it was deeply held, it has burrowed into our soul, into who we are. Maybe it's like this... we can renounce our families too, but we always carry the DNA of that family. The genes, the mores, both good and bad learned at an early age.
I think belief is like that, if we truly believed and allowed the essential DNA of that belief to enter into our system.
The what and which? I think that depends on the individual. Alcoholism, faith, racism, superiority... all of those could fit.
He convinced me. Wisdom is Epimethean (an afterthought), not Promethean (a forethought). And afterthought can't easily be wrong. Capt. Hindsight isn't making inductively reasoned predictions. He deductively reasoning from past events. But a forethought often is wrong. Hence wisdoms aren't auguries of future possibilities, they're Epimethean corrections on Promethean mistakes.
Like science, there are 2 varieties. Regular/traditional science, and revolutionary science. Newton was once "traditional" science until Einstein "revolutionized" it. And then Richard Feynman revolutionized it again with Quantum Electrodynamics (QED).
Try Plato's "Divided Line" M. Then pretend you're Thomas after the Resurrection. Needing to see with your eyes, and not just your mind. Lacking in Faith, but achieving Understanding. Faith as the Pagan "Road to Larisa". "Right Opinion", not knowledge. Faith "tied" to the soul by re-ligare......
The exact etymology of the word religion is highly debated, tracing back to two competing Latin roots proposed by ancient Roman scholars.
The Primary Roots
Re-ligare (To Bind Back): Most modern linguists and early Christian thinkers prefer this root, meaning to bind humans tightly to the divine or to each other in community.
Re-legere (To Read/Go Over Again): Roman statesman Cicero favored this root, meaning to carefully re-read, ponder, or obsessively execute ritual duties.
---
In Plato’s dialogue Meno, Socrates uses the famous "road to Larissa" analogy to show that a person with a true or "right opinion" can guide someone to a destination just as well as someone with actual knowledge.
The Analogy of Larissa
The Expert: A guide who has traveled the road to Larissa multiple times possesses actual knowledge of the path.
The Believer: A guide who has never been there, but happens to hold the right opinion or correct directions, gives equally good guidance.
The Outcome: For the practical purpose of arriving at Larissa, both guides perform with identical success.
Knowledge vs. Right Opinion
Practical Equality: In terms of direct action and utility, true belief achieves the exact same results as absolute knowledge.
The Instability of Opinion: Right opinions are unstable; they tend to "run away" or escape from a person's mind like the mythical moving statues of Daedalus.
The Value of Knowledge: Knowledge is a right opinion that has been "tied down" by working out the reason or cause (aitias logismos), making it permanent and reliable.
Science isn't wisdom. It's a form of knowledge. And it can be "proven wrong"/ "changed" in the future by Revolutionary Science.
Wisdom is "Divine" (absolute). Kierkegaard tied it G_d (re-ligare). Zizek untied it (He's a Materialist).
Medical and physical science constantly disprove "wisdom," old "wise" beliefs.
Kierkegaard calls it the "leap of faith." To the world, it looks like madness. To Kierkegaard, it is the highest, most absolute form of wisdom because it connects the individual directly to the Divine.
But Kierkegaard was deeply religious. One would have to believe in the "Divine" to accept Kierkegaard's word.
Yup Dave, when you allow yourself to let your reified beliefs define who you are it's damn hard to change. I know, having allowed myself to be identified by my beliefs for 48 years. Beliefs grounded in the BS of the conservative capitalist agenda and the belief America waa right even when it was wrong.
It has taken me nearly 10 years to completely deconstruct my identify with the beliefs I had reified as though they were, and should be, unchanging truths that should ne evident to all. I was wrong and I'm much happier having realized my delusions and changed. Now the challenge it to not reify anything, recognize all things are interconnected, are impermanent, and all phenomena exists and pass away, due to dependent origination.
Things most conservatives and reactionaries rarely grasp and understand. Thinking of trump, MAGA, and Christian Nationalists.
So you agree, wisdom isn't necessarily "Conformist Stupidity". We can examine accrued "wisdom" for how it comports with reality.
Like science, there are 2 varieties. Is this Khun's paradigm shift, incommensurability? Why you pivoting to philosophy of science? Just showin' off I suppose. There's plenty of philosophers who don't buy it. I guess there's some value to the field but, reading through, it just feels like they're jerking off.
The scientific method is still cumulative and falsifiable. What do I know.
Ah Les...but you see, none of us, even Descartes, can completely eliminate those ideas from our whole being. They're there, burrowed deep inside of us. We can deny them, but cut them out? I doubt it. That of course doesn't mean we respect, or follow them.
But they still influence us...
I think.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Dave.
The reason Descartes couldn't empty himself of his previous beliefs is no one can choose what they believe or disbelieve. You can only believe that of which you are convinced. Descartes presupposed God and wasn't convinced otherwise.
I make a distinction between belief and knowledge. Belief resides in the brain, not a soul or DNA (I know you didn't mean that literally). A racist can choose input, emperical evidence, that refutes their deeply held beliefs. If they are convinced by new evidence, their beliefs change. I'm not sure what the "essence" of a belief is, but I can imagine any remaining essence in a reformed racist would be embarrassing, even repugnant. Maybe influence and move them to do better? Is that what you mean? Same with any belief.
Thanks again.
Well Dave, you may be right. But, if we accept we are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions, we are not our perceptions, and that all phenomena are empty of any inherent essence then change simply becomes the flow of existence, if life. Ever changing, never permenant.
Results: Liberation from the constriction of conditioning, reified beliefs, and dogma. To be empty is to be full.
Pagan virtues (courage:tempereance::justice:wisdom)...also called the 4 "cardinal" (as in points on a compass) virtues. Emergent
Theological virtues for Catholic faith (faith-hope-charity)... Transcendent (you need to tie re-legio the pagan virtues to these "godly" aims)
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