7082
|
Nature requires causal explanations, but society requires clarification by reasons and motives [Weber, by Critchley]
|
|
Full Idea:
Weber coined the distinction between explanation and clarification, saying that natural phenomena require causal explanation, while social phenomena require clarification by giving reasons or offering possible motives for how things are.
|
|
From:
report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.7
|
|
A reaction:
This is music to the ears of property dualists and other non-reductivists, but if you go midway in the hierarchy of animals (a mouse, say) the distinction blurs. Weber probably hadn't digested Darwin, whose big impact came around 1905.
|
22155
|
We are disenchanted because we rely on science, which ignores values [Weber, by Boulter]
|
|
Full Idea:
Weber contends that modern western civilisation is 'disenchanted' because our society's method of arriving at beliefs about the world, that is, the sciences, is unable to address questions of value.
|
|
From:
report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 6
|
|
A reaction:
This idea, made explicit by Hume's empirical attitude to values, is obviously of major importance. For we Aristotelians values are a self-evident aspect of nature. Boulter says philosophy has added to the disenchantment. I agree.
|
20713
|
God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
|
|
Full Idea:
Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
|
|
From:
report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
|
|
A reaction:
Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?
|