Daily Eastern News: November 06, 1998

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/den_1998_nov/1004/thumbnail.jp

Monetary Muddles: Money and Language, Ethics and Theology

This dissertation offers a theological critique of political economy by turning to Wittgenstein in order to re-think what “criticism” is and can be. It diagnoses the current state of critical discourse about money as incapable of properly dealing with the confusions or illusions such criticism identifies as intrinsic to our ways with money and economic production and exchange. The dissertation argues that while political economic critiques and heterodox theories of money rightly challenge the economic orthodoxy’s individualism and its illusions of an apolitical money and an autonomous market economy, these “social” critiques are caught in a Geltungslogik that dichotomizes “value” and “validity.” As a result, such critiques or heterodox theories attempt to see underneath the illusory “appearance” of money and economy rather than stick with the surface. The dissertation contends that the deliverances of socio-theoretical investigations of money can have no organic or natural connection to consciousness or to desires and sensibilities formed in a society suffering from “monetary muddles.” The dissertation offers a resolute Wittgensteinian account of language and of money as a language-game as one way to therapize our desires to refute illusion. By connecting money and language with a natural theology the dissertation points towards a theologically informed practice of “looking at what we do” with money in order to treat monetary illusion. In looking, the dissertation suggests, we can find new ways of using money which may in turn transform the social conditions which give money the meaning, significance, and power it currently has

Pattens of Human Knowing in the Information Society : A Philosophical Study of the Epistemological Implications of the Information Revolution

The aim of this thesis is to introduce a dynamic and integrative epistemology based on the notion of information. This thesis is mainly a critique of normative epistemology on the grounds that normative epistemology through its adoption of the assumptions of methods of modern sciences, models all processes of human knowing to the physical sciences and henceforth upholds a mechanical model of the universe which is indistinctly applied to natural phenomena and human behavioral and cognitive processes; (2) reduces human knowing to logical-deductive processes in the attempt to achieve a degree of certainty that is comparable to the one achieved by mathematics; (3) reduces knowing to achieving accurate representations of reality (true-justified-beliefs or clear and distinct ideas) with the assumption that the knower is a passive and impartial spectator of reality. The dynamic and integrative model of epistemology that this thesis advocates rejects the modeling of all processes of human knowing on the physical sciences basing itself on evidence from neurophysiology, cognitive and behavioral sciences. The knower is not a passive spectator of reality but an active agent who (1) is continuously in relation with his or her environment; and who (2) is involved processes of meaning and value creation as the knower pursues various goals. Dynamic and integrative epistemology defines knowing not in terms of achieving accurate representations (true-justified-beliefs or clear and distinct ideas) but as accumulating insights through information processing i.e. enriching the immediate data of experience with value and meaning for the purposes of decision-making and problem-solving. Dynamic and integrative epistemology is only possible in the context of a paradigm shift from mechanical (causal) to cybernetics (information processing) models. It overcomes the analysis and synthesis dichotomy characteristic of mechanical models and upholds systems thinking as a way of tackling in inherent complexity of reality. Dynamic and integrative epistemology rejects the reduction of wisdom to certainty or knowing to thinking that led to top-down logical deductive systems. It advocates a bottom-up approach that aims at wisdom in experiencing, understanding, judging and acting within the limits of a human “bounded rationality” i.e. subject to humanly attainable pre-determined goals (satisficing rather than optimizing), complexity of the subject matter and the limited human computational abilities. This is possible through processes that apply the methods of heuristics rather than clearly determined algorithms in processes that span at Lonergan’s four levels of consciousness (the empirical, the intellectual, the rational, the responsible) and that require attention, intelligence, reasonableness and responsibility as resources

Tawḥīdic Allah or the Trinity in View of Inherent Human Relatedness

This dissertation is an inquiry into the nature of the Deity in view of human relationships. Human relationships exist and are definitive of what it means to exist as a human. In this sense, human relating is an inherent aspect of the experience of humanity, i.e., they are inescapable. Does the Christian doctrine of Trinity or Islam\u27s doctrine of Tawhidic (monadic) Allah more adequately account for the existence of human relationships and their inescapability? This question is analyzed by comparing the Tawhidic nature of Allah with the Trinitarian nature of God in order to evaluate and clarify which doctrine is the best explanation for human relationships. Thus, this is an abductive argument, inferring from the evidence to the best explanation. By first reflecting on how humanity exists in terms of oneness, distinctness, and relatedness, the doctrine of Tawhidic Allah is investigated to observe how well it grounds these aspects of human relationships. Then, the same is done concerning the Trinity\u27s ability to ground these. The conclusion compares and contrasts the Trinity and Allah to explain which one better accounts for human relationships. Following this conclusion, there are a number of ramifications that are discussed

Bloomsbury\u27s Byzantium and the Writing of Modern Art

“Bloomsbury’s Byzantium and the Writing of Modern Art” examines the role of Byzantine art in Bloomsbury art critics Roger Fry’s and Clive Bell’s narratives of aesthetic Modernism. Fry, in his pre-World War I and interwar writings and teachings on art, and Bell, in seminal texts such as Art (1914), have been branded by art historiography as the prime movers in a Formalist, teleological narrative of Modern art still prevalent in textbooks today. Fry’s and Bell’s ideas were later adopted by important Modernist authors and cultural figures, such as Alfred H. Barr, Jr., first director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and critic Clement Greenberg. Yet, less known is the integral role Byzantine art played in delimiting both Fry’s and Bell’s ideas of Modernism, and the art works they valued. Consistent with the international nineteenth- and twentieth-century interest in Byzantium, Fry and Bell each crafted an ahistorical idea of Byzantium. The Bloomsbury critics’ highly subjective definitions of Byzantine art and the Byzantine era allowed both Fry and Bell to project onto Byzantium qualities that aligned with their own intellectual interests. My dissertation uses these varied characterizations of Byzantium to reinterpret both authors’ writings on Modern art and subsequently to challenge canonical understanding of Western aesthetic Modernism. For instance, in my analysis of Fry’s and Bell’s idea of Byzantine art, I point to parallel qualities the critics’ valued in Modern pieces; and suggest that they used their concept of Byzantium to define a more secular, universalized spiritual conception of art as an alternative and counterpart to mainstream religions. I also explain how the critics relied on their definition of Byzantium to each advocate for non-Western art’s aesthetic value, and I demonstrate how the authors utilized their characterization of Byzantine art to contest the precedent of both John Ruskin and establishment, Western art history. This dissertation unravels the myriad personal, intellectual, and contextual circumstances which led to Fry’s and Bell’s interpretation of Byzantine art, and, as a result, illustrates how art-world politics and world politics of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries impacted the writing of formative texts in Western Modern art