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Nadin, Mihai, 1938-

"The Civilization of Illiteracy"


Significantly better answers to ontological, gnoseological,
epistemological, and even historic questions have to reflect
such and other cognitively relevant perspectives of knowledge.
Philosophy undergoes a process of mathematization in order to
gain access to science and improve its own efficiency. It has
become logic oriented, more computational. It has adopted
genetic schemes for explaining variation and selection,
extending to the current memetic conversations and methods. It is
not unusual for philosophers to abandon the pattern of rehashing
older theories and views, and to attempt to understand pragmatic
exigencies and their reason. The scientification of philosophy
could not have happened under the scrutiny of language and the
domination of literacy. Neither could we expect, within the
literate framework, anything comparable to Plato's Dialogues, to
the great philosophical systems of Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, and
Marx, to the literary seduction of Heidegger, Sartre, or Martin
Buber.
In scientific disguise
Developing, parallel to common language (which philosophers
frequently call natural language), different types of sign
systems, humans utilize the latter's mediating force in order to
increase the efficiency of their action. "Give me a fixed point
and I'll move the world" is the equivalent philosophical
statement characteristic of the civilization of the lever and
pulley.


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