Nov 2, 2023 01:20 AM
https://iai.tv/articles/reimagining-know..._auid=2020
EXCERPT: . . . It is undoubtedly to Kant that we owe the most famous and influential theory of Enlightenment. Enlightenment, Kant claimed, was to be achieved primarily through human autonomy. Rather than deferring to others for guidance – religious leaders, charismatic politicians, etc. – we should cultivate an ability for independent thought, trusting nothing other than our senses, our understanding, and the appropriate use of reason.
Knowledge and wisdom, from this perspective, stem from the appropriate use of human cognitive and epistemic faculties. Contemporary epistemology concurs, identifying the following five sources of knowledge: the senses, reason, memory, introspection, and testimony. But what gets left out of this human-centred approach to epistemology is the idea that there may be a source of knowledge outside the human, that to achieve enlightenment we cannot count solely on ourselves, for we must seek guidance in something much greater than ourselves, of which we are but a part: nature.
There is even a strong case for saying that the origin of the present ecological crisis lies primarily in the way that, drawing on the drive for autonomy characteristic of the first Enlightenment, we set out to bring forth artificial worlds completely alien to the workings of nature. This shift was reflected in the thought of the first philosophers of technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
At the same time as they isolated technology as a stand-alone object of philosophical inquiry, they rejected the idea that it arises through imitating and learning from nature, defending instead its “spiritual autonomy.” Nature was thus reduced to a mere source of raw materials to be given form by humans.
Extractive industries replaced regenerative ones, with catastrophic consequences. Ultra-rapid climate change, mass biodiversity loss, resource depletion, and the pollution of air, water, and soils may all be attributed to the industrial technologies we developed through turning our back on nature.
There is, however, a powerful epistemological alternative. No longer simply an object of knowledge, something we learn about, often so that we may exploit and control it more thoroughly, nature may henceforth become a source of knowledge, something we learn from, with a view to sustainably inhabiting the earth... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPT: . . . It is undoubtedly to Kant that we owe the most famous and influential theory of Enlightenment. Enlightenment, Kant claimed, was to be achieved primarily through human autonomy. Rather than deferring to others for guidance – religious leaders, charismatic politicians, etc. – we should cultivate an ability for independent thought, trusting nothing other than our senses, our understanding, and the appropriate use of reason.
Knowledge and wisdom, from this perspective, stem from the appropriate use of human cognitive and epistemic faculties. Contemporary epistemology concurs, identifying the following five sources of knowledge: the senses, reason, memory, introspection, and testimony. But what gets left out of this human-centred approach to epistemology is the idea that there may be a source of knowledge outside the human, that to achieve enlightenment we cannot count solely on ourselves, for we must seek guidance in something much greater than ourselves, of which we are but a part: nature.
There is even a strong case for saying that the origin of the present ecological crisis lies primarily in the way that, drawing on the drive for autonomy characteristic of the first Enlightenment, we set out to bring forth artificial worlds completely alien to the workings of nature. This shift was reflected in the thought of the first philosophers of technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
At the same time as they isolated technology as a stand-alone object of philosophical inquiry, they rejected the idea that it arises through imitating and learning from nature, defending instead its “spiritual autonomy.” Nature was thus reduced to a mere source of raw materials to be given form by humans.
Extractive industries replaced regenerative ones, with catastrophic consequences. Ultra-rapid climate change, mass biodiversity loss, resource depletion, and the pollution of air, water, and soils may all be attributed to the industrial technologies we developed through turning our back on nature.
There is, however, a powerful epistemological alternative. No longer simply an object of knowledge, something we learn about, often so that we may exploit and control it more thoroughly, nature may henceforth become a source of knowledge, something we learn from, with a view to sustainably inhabiting the earth... (MORE - missing details)