Aquinas, Intellectual maintenence and the dumbing down of everything
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,190
    https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/intellectual-maintenance

    It seems reasonable to lament, on this feast of Thomas Aquinas, the state of intellectual curiosity and the ability of the mind to comprehend anything beyond a 4th grade reading level ( I might be generous on that account).

    As one who is in the present task of finding another job. my days are occupied with resumes and letters,etc. But as today's feast enters our consciousness, it seem good to note with increasing sadness the ability of the general populace to think. And of course, this has direct bearing on what we, as musicians tasked with the sacred art of church music, contend with in our places of worship and the public square. As the link to the article refers, philosophy has grown increasingly distant from the education of our children and its presence in church discussions. Many of my older priest friends ( beyond 70) were formed with Thomistic manuals that were dry and staid. But they increasingly argued that at least it gave them the categories to think and see the Church's thought processes. But, as philosophy has grown neutral and even against faith and the Church, we do not have the intellectual capacity to even begin to talk about such categories at free will, consciousness and reason. The author in the link, who is a professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame in the US, is concerned as the school reduces its philosophy requirement from two courses to one.

    I was fortunate to be required to take a number of classes as an undergraduate and some in my graduate school career. One might say, what does a church musician need philosophy? I look fondly over those years because they taught me to think formatively, critically and creatively. It also served me well as those categories allowed me to immerse myself in the theological thought of the great saints and theologians. I like to think that we cannot separate the church's prayer from the church's thinking and institutes. But increasingly, I see those pieces divorced from one another. There is nothing but cataclysmic loss if they are separated.

    So, on this feast of Aquinas, the great theologian, let us pray for a recognition to recover the great traditions of thinking,reflecting and writing of philosophy. In doing so, we might assist Holy Mother Church to attain understandings of herself and also connect with the great saints and doctors who have proceeded us. Aquinas himself said, "beware of the one with just one book."

    From the bourbon lands, but hopefully leaving soon,
    Kevin
    Thanked by 4doneill ClergetKubisz M. Jackson Osborn eft94530
  • rollingrj
    Posts: 351
    ...it seem good to note with increasing sadness the ability of the general populace to think.


    I had noticed this as an undergrad in the early 1980s (part of my reason for taking what eventually became my minor requirement, so I could at lease hone those rational skills--how successful I was is still up for interpretation). Society, in my view at the time, just didn't know how to think anymore. Then, noticing the slow subjective turn of reality from Descartes to Kant to Sartre in my studies just seemed to affirm that viewpoint. Now with emotions and "feelings" the lens in which things are viewed is so cloudy a removal of this cataract would be more than a minor irritant.

    Thinking is becoming a lost art.
    Thanked by 1kevinf
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    I am sorely tempted to agree, but there are times I realize there may well be more cognitive bias than reality to this.

    It's perhaps more of an issue about a shift or modulation in WHAT people chose to devote their critical thinking skills to, and the MEDIA in which they do it. (There is also the factor of FATIGUE in the sheer number of things people can get involved in thinking about, which can be revealed by a propensity to cut too quickly down to binary choices, a phenomenon that is generally NOT good for decision-making.) The Internet is, IMNSHO on this point, a *terrible* gauge of this because it invites a rather different bell curve (at least depressed, and in many instances, bar-belled) than is skewed by selection and confirmation bias.
  • MichaelDickson
    Posts: 419
    I think maybe your link is broken. (At any rate, it took me right back to this page.) Here's another go at it:

    https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/intellectual-maintenance

    (For the record, Gary was a much beloved teacher of mine, when I was a graduate student at ND, many years ago.)

    As sad as it is that Notre Dame is reducing its requirements (yet again), they are really just bowing (also sad) to the general pressure (sad again) that you noted, the pressure to eliminate certain kinds of thinking from education entirely.

    At my university, there is no requirement whatsoever that students take philosophy of any kind. Even humanities majors can escape with never a course in the area. (However, nobody escapes without taking 'information literacy', which is about neither information, properly understood, nor literacy.)

    Universities (and increasingly other institutions -- perhaps as a consequence, or perhaps the other institutions are the driving force), which used to guide students concerning what should be learned, are now asking students what they want, and like many people subject to the whims of temptation, the students say that they want an easy life. And so we give it to them.

    But the evidence suggests that they do not really want an easy life. They want a good life. The problem is that having a good life is hard.

    What evidence? Put students in a situation where they (and we, as instructors!) are forced to be better, are forced to work hard at being better, and while they (and we) will moan about it from time to time, we all come away appreciating and valuing what happened. But following this path takes courage and security, and universities as they are currently configured are, in general, very bad at encouraging either.

    [Thanks for mentioning the bad link. I've fixed it. --admin]
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Universities (and increasingly other institutions -- perhaps as a consequence, or perhaps the other institutions are the driving force), which used to guide students concerning what should be learned, are now asking students what they want, and like many people subject to the whims of temptation, the students say that they want an easy life. And so we give it to them.


    This paragraph gets to the heart of it, I think: money. What can we do so that we make sure we make more money? Universities are asking students what they want because they know students will pay for it (or mom and dad will). Churches are asking parishioners what they want to see at Mass because they know it will keep people in the pews, and donations coming in the collection plate.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,192
    it seem good to note with increasing sadness the ability of the general populace to think
    Sounds a bit like a quip of a late colleague of mine:

    When I works I works hard.
    When I plays I has fun.
    When I thinks I falls asleep.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,816
    'Thinking can be dangerous'
    In the wrong cerebellum
    'Given over to their own'
    Is how one can tell 'em
    Apart from the ones
    Whose brain mines the truth-
    And Brother Thomas Aquinas
    Is the "Rule of the Roost!"

  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Immanuel Kant was a real p*ssant
    Who was very rarely stable.
    Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
    Who could think you under the table.
    David Hume could out-consume
    Schopenhauer and Hegel,
    And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
    Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
    There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya'
    'Bout the raising of the wrist.
    SOCRATES, HIMSELF, WAS PERMANENTLY P*SSED...
    John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
    On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
    Plato, they say, could stick it away;
    Half a crate of whiskey every day.
    Aristotle, Aristotle was a b*gger for the bottle,
    Hobbes was fond of his dram,
    And Rene Descartes was a drunken f*rt: "I drink, therefore I am"
    Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed;
    A lovely little thinker but a b*gger when he's pissed!
    Songwriter*
    CHAPMAN, GRAHAM / CLEESE, JOHN / GILLIAM, TERRY / IDLE, ERIC / JONES, TERRY / PALIN, MICHAEL

    Monty Python - The Philosophers Song
    Thanked by 5StimsonInRehab bhcordova Spriggo CHGiffen madorganist
  • bhcordovabhcordova
    Posts: 1,164
    And now, for something completely different.
  • Spriggo
    Posts: 122
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6AhepWgYg4
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