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Thu 13 Sep, 2007 01:55 pm
The question is "In traditional societies, everything must meet the test of lived experience. What has enabled our technological society to produce ideas that are "true in theory but not in practice"? Does the division between mind and matter expressed by Plato and Descartes define traditional societies as it does our own?
I have spent a ton of time trying to figure out this question and I need some direction. As for the first question, I'm wondering if they mean that regarding technology, everything is just too new for people to have lived experience of/with it? Regarding the second question, I'm still researching, but at a loss. Any help would be appreciated, I'm just not at all philosophically minded....
Quote:The question is "In traditional societies, everything must meet the test of lived experience. What has enabled our technological society to produce ideas that are "true in theory but not in practice"?
I find this first question bizarre. I would argue for a reversal of the words "theory" and "practice" because technology is essentially about "what works". Theories are never "true"...they are adhered to whilst they produce practical "results" and discarded when counter examples arise. (Use changes in medical technology as an example).
The second question is equally weird. It assumes that a dualistic view of "reality" has persisted over history. This might be (or have been) valid for believers in "souls" but modern philosophical and scientific trends tend to reject such simplistic dualism. (See for example
http://www.tcd.ie/Physics/news/seminars/Schrodinger/Lecture3.html)
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