Society and Reality

In Chinese Civilization philosophy dominates, and religion embellishes. In Western Civilization religion dominates, and philosophy embellishes. Chinese traditionally believe that this gives them direct access to the super-moral without all the superstitions and rituals that are in the way of European culture. But, developing a progressive ideology in a philosophical culture is much harder than […]

Fr. Adam, in our blog discussion, made the following case about human nature:

With respect to your distinction between the capacity for consciousness and the potential to develop that capacity, I challenge you as follows: develop what? Your very language reveals the fact that the capacity is as present in the fetus as it is […]

From “Spheres of Justice” by Walzer:
Imagine now a society in which different social goods are monopolistically held–as they are in fact and always will be, barring continual state intervention–but in which no particular good is generally convertible… This is a complex egalitarian society. Though there will be many small inequalities, inequality will not be multiplied […]

Wilber has used the term habits to describe stable patterns, and has also used the term structure. In this months WIE, he says: “Structure can apply to any number of things; all it means is a stable pattern.” If my conjecture that the real emerges out of the actual (see my page on Critical Realism), […]