Why Have We Made Such Little Philosophical Progress?

A persistent question which nowadays often crops up when discussing the most recent political and environmental crisis is why we have not, in this age of advanced scientific and technological progress, made but little philosophical progress in determining why things are the way they are both cosmologically and terrestrially on our little planet, especially when it comes to regarding our human presence with all our racist attitudes and warring tendencies. And this despite the worldwide range of religious faiths and practices which, after all, emphasize the power of some non-biological force known as the human spirit.

Just the other day while waiting in an unusually long check-out line in the local grocery store, the man behind me struck up a conversation in the course of which he asked what I did for a living. I told him that I was long retired, but had been a university professor and still did a little writing, generally of a philosophical nature. “You mean about religion?” he said. “You’re a religious person?”

I told him you could be a philosopher without being conventionally religious, at which he looked somewhat puzzled. And I went on to say that there was enough mystery and wonder about the incredible complexity of the universe itself, not to mention the whys and wherefores of our little time bound place in it, to evoke the intuitive feeling that there is something seemingly metaphysical underlying the existence of everything in a state of being (without involving the conventional God image). From the smallest microbe to the largest elephant, the smallest star to the largest planet. And when it comes to our own existence, to our complex psychological nature having both creative and destructive sides, we have men and women who risk their lives working to save lives for organizations like Doctors Without Borders and others who take lives for religious causes such as Isis.

“Well, there you are,” he said, “They’re both acting from ‘religious’ motivations.”

By now we’d moved up two spaces closer to the cash register, with not much time left to conclude this discussion. “No,” I said, with a touch of professorial authority, “The doctors and nurses are inspired by two psychological motivations known as morality and love. These are states of mind which, nowadays, neither all human beings nor all religions (such as Isis) recognize as the prime spiritual aspects of human consciousness. Yet they are sensibilities long thought to represent the innermost authority of a psychic power historically known as the soul.”

I don’t think he was very impressed by this statement. I tried again. “What I am trying to say is that when science recognizes an element of mystery in a situation, be it physical or psychological, then they and the rest of us are justified in using the word religious because of its spirit-like connotations. Spirit is seen as a non-biological, metaphysical force at work that is neither scientifically nor sensorially explainable, and which does not necessarily have religious connotations.”

Anyhow, re-reading all this, I should just have left it to Einstein:

Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naïve. (To student Phyllis Wright, 1936).