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Doubt versus ideology, humanists versus rationalists

I recently dusted off The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense (The Free Press, 1994) by John Ralston Saul.

I found his introduction very compelling:

"Our civilization is unable to do what individuals cannot say. And individuals are unable to say what they cannot think. Even thought can only advance as fast as the unknown can be stated through conscious organized language, an apparently self-defeating limitation.

"The power of dictionaries and encyclopedias is thus enormous.... A dictionary can as easily be a liberating force as one of control.

"In the humanist view, the alphabet can be a tool for examining society; the dictionary a series of questions, an enquiry into meaning, a weapon against received wisdom and therefore against the assumptions of established power. In other words, the dictionary offers an organized Socratic approach.

"The rational method is quite different. The dictionary is abruptly transformed into a dispensary of truth; that is, into an instrument which limits meaning by defining language. This bible becomes a tool for controlling communications because it directs what people can think. In other words, it becomes the voice of Platonic elitism.

"Humanism versus definition. Balance versus structure. Doubt versus ideology. Language as a means of communication versus language as a tool for advancing the interests of groups."

Here's a thought

"What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.... The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to."

-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

Wisdom from a Wendell Berry essay

Once we allow our language to mean anything that anybody wants it to mean, it becomes impossible to mean what we say. When "homemade" ceases to mean neither more nor less than "made at home," then it means anything, which is to say that it means nothing.
-Wendell Berry, "In Distrust of Movements," originally published in Orion, and anthologized in The Best American Essays 2000.

Structure, creativity, and the brain

The human brain apparently integrates structure and creativity in much of what it does, the left hemisphere lending a hand to the work of the right hemisphere, and vice versa. In ancient Greek thought, apparently, the roles of structure and creativity were considered a bit more mutually exclusive. Let me introduce a quote with two brief, simplified definitions.

Lógos: For Greeks, encompassed reasoning and language

Mûthos: For Greeks, encompassed words, speech, stories, poems, fictions, and fables

"Recent neurological research indicates that, by and large, the hemispheres of the human brain have distinct functions [stay with me, it gets better]: in the left (for most people) is the proposenity for language, mathematics, and linear reasoning, in the right the propensity for visual, spatial, intuitive, and analogical skills, the hemispheres working together through their neural links. This discovery has prompted a re-examination of the roles and relationships of lógos and mûthos, suggesting that they may be partners rather than rivals. If this is so, creative thought may require both linear left and holistic right. In linguistic terms, logic is as likely in verse as in prose, and analogy and metaphor are as much the tools of philosophers and scientists as of bards and mystics." -The Oxford Companion to the English Language

For example, if I attempt to write a sonnet, the imposed structure forces me to be creative in solving the problems of tailoring topic and language. However, I think the point in the Oxford Companion might point to something more foundational, deeply rooted in the brain. In communicating a mystical fable, one must stick to grammatical norms, and the vision of the teller can inspire certain structural choices.

Thought for the Week: the immortal word

Isaac Asimov's defense of the written word:

"Consider, for instance, Hamlet's great soliloquy that begins with 'To be or not to be,' the poetic consideration of the pros and cons of suicide. It is 260 words long. Can you get across the essence of Hamlet's thought in a quarter of a picture -- or, for that matter, in 260 pictures? Of course not.... Pictures will not do; they will never do. Television is fun to watch, but it is utterly and entirely dependent on the spoken and written word.... There is a fundamental rule, then. In the beginning was the word (as the Gospel of John says in a different connection), and in the end will be the word. The word is immortal."

(I found this quote in Fit Bodies, Fat Minds by Os Guinness.)