Buescher wrote:That's a slightly odd twist to analytic philosophy. True, it often did deal with formal constructions that didn't apply to direct objects (abstract logic - kind of like math), but it wasn't some kind of appeal to an otherworldly realm. In fact, the goal of analytic philosophy was largely to show to much of traditional philosophy, which concerned itself with questions relating to immortality, God, heaven, etc., was in fact completely senseless and therefore had no meaning. (To be technical, many analytic philosophy believe(d) that a statement must be capable of being disproven in order for it to even have a meaning at all. If there is no situation under which I refuse to believe in God, even if the worst possible occurrence just leads me to say "It's God's will, who am I to say?", then the statement "God exists" corresponds to no *particular* empirical state and therefore has no meaning. There is no situation in which I would say "God does not exist," so saying "God exists" is meaningless.) Analytic philosophy is generally associated with precise rigor and empirically verifiable statement, not, what analytic philosophers might call, mystical imagination.
Analytic Philosophy, in its attempt to lose the body, ignored our inheritance from our animal ancestors. It seems that traditional philosophy has constantly run from recognizing that our reasoning capacity is constructed upon the reasoning capacity we have inherited with our animal nature.
Cognitive science has developed a new paradigm centered around the theory of the embodied mind.
The three major findings of cognitive science are:
The mind is inherently embodied.
Thought is mostly unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.
These findings of cognitive science are profoundly disquieting for traditional thinking in two respects. "First, they tell us that human reason is a form of animal reason, a reason inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains. Second, these results tell us that our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real."
Just from a lay-person's point of view - this seems to make the most sense to me. It seems to me to be a good mix or meeting of the best parts of idealism with the best parts of realism.