Subj : Back again
To   : RICHARD M. MEIC
From : Frank Masingill
Date : Fri Jul 13 2001 10:15 pm

 > The trained philosopher seems to have forgotten how to properly phrase a
 > question, so it is no wonder that the answers they derive are more complex
 > than they need to be and it is no wonder why philosophy is not a science.
 > That's because the question is made more complex than it needs to be.  It
 > is no wonder that a philosopher who has never attended any formal
 > instruction looks at the comments made by the trained philosopher and
 > realizes that nary a thought was original.  This is what I have noticed.
 > I have looked, searched the forums of the internet for one, just one
 > trained philosopher that has not constantly repeated all things read, or
 > referenced literature where a few choice words would do.  I have found
 > very few.

    Excuse me, Richard, but I think it has been a VERY long time in my search 
for the truth of existence since I was impressed by the label "trained 
philosopher."  When I first read Henri Bergson's _Two Sources of Religion and 
Morality_ and Nicolas Berdiaev's _The Meaning of History (there isn't any, he 
said other than the hope for redemption of the world) I was as drawn to such 
thought as the value of the "open soul" or "open society" (open toward science 
and not just mathematical science).  It was Voegelin, of course, who suggested 
such reading while I was right in the midst of graduate work in which the 
enlightenment of modernity were generally praised as being the epitome of man's 
development rather than the fall into scientism and positivism.  If you visited 
McClain's site, Voegelin Study Page, you probably know that already.  BTW, I 
was the one who secured the permission of Robert Heilman (now 94 years of age 
and calling me, at 80 a "spring chicken," to allow the chapter in his book to 
be publisehd on that page.  Fritz Wagner's site is another fruitful one on 
Voegelin with a wealth of quotes from the Collected Works.

Frank

---
 * Origin: Frank's House (1:396/45.12)

.