| Topic: | Re:Descartes' original sin |
| Posted by: | John Grinder |
| Date/Time: | 21/03/2005 14:48:23 |
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Keith I like the quote from Gregory but I think that he was making a distinct point. The target Carmen and I had in mind for what you quoted from Whispering was more along the lines that Descartes' epistemological error created a growth industry in philosophy by creating a false dichotomy - such a dichotomy offers many opportunities to conduct learned analysis and discussion about the illusionary prbblem created by Descartes - more positions in philosophy departments, more books to be written and published, more papers to be delivered to others who accept the corrpupting distinction... In parallel, suppose that the Cartesian split has a consequence the alienation of consciousness from body awareness and further a sense of helplessness in the unlikely case that enough sensitivity to body signals remains after accepting the split to notice the body's warnings about physiological/neurological imbalances (sometimes labelled " discomfort" and "pain") since in this strange Cartesian world (the default one for the majority of westerners) there is this "outstanding" issue of how it is the the "mind" can influence the body. Sounds a lot like growth industry for physicians to make "interventions" that deal with the general public inability to make effective responses to their own body signals. Is this the direction in which you were requesting further elaboration? John |