Bugbee wrote: "Of experience...we may hope for understanding in our own time, and in this we do not seem to have the edge on preceding generations of men."
Science continues to grow and evolve from one generation to the next. Our knowledge is much more advanced than previous generations. However, precisely due to this, people are alienated from what science does know, what it aims to know when it reaches its goal, and science uses experience.
At first, experience seems subjective, unquantifiable, but experience is instant. No generation is privileged and every generation receives the same amount. Here our knowledge is something in our hands and for us, now. The knowledge of the past does not continue to the next generation so much as clarify our own generation.
In the photo below, the knowledge I have come to know about Bradford Pear trees has taught me the invasive trees cause much harm, unlike previous generations that planted the trees because they were considered beautiful and oriental.
I agree that science changes with each generation. We keep discovering and learning more and more about our world and how it works. This makes me think about Carlson's Natural Environmental Model. He bases his aesthetic appriciation of nature on the scientific knowledge of the viewer. So if in our day and age we have more scientific knowledge of our planet and the organisms that live here, based off of Carlson's model, wouldn't we have a greater aesthetic appriciation of the the Earth and it's beauty than those philosophers who lived before our time? Even though the Earth itself has not changed that much, our knowledge of it has making the beauty stand out more according to Carlson.
ReplyDeleteYes, in a sense, if we accept Carlson's model. On the other hand, if beauty is democratically conceived as deriving from disinterested contemplation such as in Immanuel Kant and Roger Scruton, then beauty does not "stand out more." I have even seen the argument that appreciation of beauty might be lessened. Maybe it was Max Weber, but someone suggested that an increasingly scientific and mechanical world becomes "disenchanted."
ReplyDeleteJust a thought.
A) Do you think that with the internet, enhanced medicine, better education methods we in fact accumulate more experience than the previous generation?
ReplyDeleteB) How did you get your text to be highlighted white?
I definitely agree with your first thought, we accumulate more experience from being in nature as well as the internet. As for the highlighting, I have no idea :/
DeletePerhaps we do receive "more experience," but the question remains whether it is more substantive in a "sound-byte" culture which moves very quickly and does not allow minds to process things more deeply. Standardized testing may contribute to this, too.
ReplyDeleteYes, our culture "knows" more facts. High-level thought is another matter.